Immutability and mutability of the sign was something I found really interesting about the Saussure reading.  Immutability of course means no one specific person, nor the society at large, can at will change the language.  Although I must add, wouldn’t it be so cool if we could?  We could as a society vote on changes we want to make to the English language.  Now that would probably get ugly fast, but how much fun it would be!  Mutability refers to how the language changes over time due to changes in the culture at large.  For example, I believe the Oxford dictionary gets a few words added to it every year, based on new trends in the language as a result of changes in the culture.  It’s also crazy to think about how different the English language was just 200 years ago.  In the grand scheme of things, 200 years is not that much time.  So it’s awesome to think about how much language will surely change over the next 200 years.

The fact that Japan still uses abacuses, which I learned in the Lupton/Miller reading, is crazy to me.  I think that is such a wonderful juxtaposition of the ancient with the modern, because they are paired with electronic calculators.  I also think it’s fascinating that some numeric systems from certain tribal cultures are based on our hands and feet.

Why are some cultures so much more advanced than others?  This is a question I kept thinking about throughout the Lupton/Miller reading.  And why are some economies so depressed while others are buoyant?