Quote Originally Posted by Fragony View Post
They kinda did, they studied proverbs mostly, you don't think of it as they are now deeply rooted in society. If you look at seafairing nations like the English and the Netherlands and pay attention to it you can find a lot of the everyday lingo comming from a seafairing/trading society. A lot of proverbs in American English are related to the civil-war and the age of colonism. A lot can be found in language if you are looking for it.
Linguists are of course mainly concerned with the study of language and literature.

The problem is that a hefty number of them, like Derrida, wants to use the methods used for analyzing literature to study society. This has lead to all sorts of nonsense, like giving support to alternative medicine and other pseudo-science cranks.