In this session, participants will get a solid introduction to Columbia School Linguistic Theory, its founder William Diver of Columbia University, and his inspiration - the Father of Sign-Based Linguistics - Ferdinand de Saussure. Participants will try their hand at CS methodology: make a provisional 'signal-meaning' hypothesis and 'speed' test it. Then, some fully-fledged CS analyses will be shared. Spoiler alert: CS practitioners working in a multitude of languages are finding that language is not a rule-governed phenomenon, not a 'faculty' of the brain. Rather, communicating via language is but an instance of human behavior with tools. We will hear how information theory, cognitive science, and evolutionary biology favor an instrumental theory of language(s) over Traditional Grammar. Presenter will share resources, lesson activities that may inspire students to continue studying linguistics.