ABSTRACT
Most formalist approaches to language, from Saussure through Chomsky, posit a dichotomy between language and the extralinguistic world to which language refers. In the case of Saussure, we confront a series of dichotomies whose joint effect is to so isolate the system of language from the real-world objects of reference as to make reference itself somewhat mysterious. The former belongs to language as a code and the latter to conversation as an activity informed by nonlinguistic maxims of rational behavior. But this way of distinguishing language and knowledge of language from the world and our ways of knowing it is itself a historical product. Language as speech is part of the world, a social activity on a par with others. In this respect, words don't stand for something apart any more than my fingers stand for my arms or the print stands for the paper on which it is impressed.
