ject
of speech without constant and explicit reference to that basis.
However, such an abstraction is justifiable. We can profitably discuss
the intention, the form, and the history of speech, precisely as we
discuss the nature of any other phase of human culture--say art or
religion--as an institutional or cultural entity, leaving the organic
and psychological mechanisms back of it as something to be taken for
granted. Accordingly, it must be clearly understood that this
introduction to the study of speech is not concerned with those aspects
of physiology and of physiological psychology that underlie speech. Our
study of language is not to be one of the genesis and operation of a
concrete mechanism; it is, rather, to be an inquiry into the function
and form of the arbitrary systems of symbolism that we term languages.

I have already pointed out that the essence of language consists in the
assigning of conventional, voluntarily articulated, sounds, or of their
equivalents, to the diverse elements of experience. The word "house" is
not a linguistic fact if by it is meant merely the acoustic effect
produced on the ear by its constituent consonants and vowels, pronounced
in a certain order; nor the motor processes and tactile feelings which
make up the articulation of the word; nor the visual perception on the
part of the hearer of this articulation; nor the visual perception of
the word "house" on the written or printed page; nor the motor processes
and tactile feelings which enter into the writing of the word; nor the
memory of any or all of these experiences. It is only when these, and
possibly still other, associated experiences are automatically
associated with the image of a house that they begin to take on the
nature of a symbol, a word, an element of language. But the mere fact of
such an association is not enough. One might have heard a particular
word spoken in an individual house under such impressive circumstances
that neither the word nor the image of the house ever recur in
consciousness without the other becoming present at the same time. This
type of association does not constitute speech. The association must be
a purely symbolic one; in other words, the word must denote, tag off,
the image, must have no other significance than to serve as a counter to
refer to it whenever it is necessary or convenient to do so. Such an
association, voluntary and, in a sense, arbitrary as it is, demands a
considerable exe