what follows from writing? -...

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What Follows fromWriting?

InfoSys 103

Geoff Nunberg

9/12/07

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Itinerary

Finish section on writing systems

Discussion of assignment

Social & cognitive effects of writing

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Development of WrittenSymbols

[ lvIs] / l/

E

/ /

Simplification of sign

Semasiographic/ideographic

Rebusextension

logographic syllabic alphabetic

Proto-writing"True" (glottographic)Writing

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Shift from logographic to syllabic:Cf English logographs @, &: imagine formation of

words like "h@st&."

Where does this happen?

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Shift from logographic to syllabic:Cf English logographs @, &: imagine formation of

words like "h@st&."

Where does this happen?

Geneology of Writing

Systems

Origins of major writing systems

… but not much evidence for a single source (monogenesis)…

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Origins of AlphabeticWriting

Alphabetic system derived from applicationof syllabic system to different phonologicalstructures.

Logographic: mod. Chinese,Japanese (mixed)

Syllabic: Linear B, Cherokee,Korean Hangul (featural)

Alphabetic: Roman, Cyrillic, Gk,Hebrew, etc,

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Origins of AlphabeticWriting

Alphabetic system derived from applicationof syllabic system to different phonologicalstructures.

Logographic: mod. Chinese,Japanese (mixed)

Syllabic: Linear B, Cherokee,Korean Hangul (featural)

Alphabetic: Roman, Cyrillic, Gk,Hebrew, etc,

Problem with completely phoneticalphabetic systems: ambiguity.

Cf French au, aux, ô, os, haut, hauts,eau, eaux, os, etc.

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Later Developments

Subsequent development

of further orthographicelements: word-spacing,punctuation,paragraphing, etc.

Not fixed till early age of print.Reduce ambiguity, make writingincreasingly accessible to widercommunity or in absence ofimmediate context,

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Later DevelopmentsSubsequent development of further orthographic elements:

word-spacing, punctuation, paragraphing, etc.

itisofaromehenceforthfreethatiamtowritethehistoryherciviladministrationandtheconductofherwarsherannuallyelectedmagistratestheauthorityofherlawssupremeoverallhercitizensthetyrannyofthelastkingmadethislibertyallthemorewelcomeforsuchhadbeentheruleoftheformerkingsthattheymightnotundeservedly becountedasfoundersofpartsatalleventsofthecity

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Later DevelopmentsSubsequent development of further orthographic elements: word-spacing, punctuation, paragraphing, etc.

It is of a Rome henceforth free that I am to write the history--her civil administration and the conduct of her wars, herannually elected magistrates, the authority of her laws

supreme over all her citizens. The tyranny of the last kingmade this liberty all the more welcome, for such had beenthe rule of the former kings that they might notundeservedly be counted as founders of parts, at all events,of the city…

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The Role of Punctuation

I spoke to the boys Sam and Tom.

The press secretary gave them therules they were not allowed to speak tothe committee directly.

To my parents Ayn Rand and God.

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Comrade Stalin. You are right and Iwas wrong. You are the true heir toLenin. I should apologize. Trotsky

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Comrade Stalin. You are right and Iwas wrong? You are the true heir toLenin? I should apologize?? Trotsky

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Assignment

In his 1987 study of the cognitive effects of word-processingsystems, Electric Language, Michael Heim wrote:

The accelerated automation of word-processing makes possible a newimmediacy in the creation of public, typified text. Immediacy in the sense ofthere being no medium quod, no instrumental impediment to thinking inexternal symbols, but only a medium quo, or purely transparent element.As I write, I can put things directly into writing, My stream ofconsciousness can be paralled by the running flow of the electric element.Words dance on the screen. Sentences flow smoothly into place, make wayfor one another, while paragraphs ripple down the screen. Words becomehighlighted, vanish at the push of a button, then reappear instantly at will.Verbal life is fast-paced, easier, with something of the exhilaration of videogames.... Because this playful way of putting things is immediate, enjoyable,and less constrained by materials, it encourages on-screen thinking, that is,thinking in a typified, public element.... Digital writing is nearly frictionless.It invites the formulation of thought directly in the electric element....

Reading this passage, would you say that Heim's view of theeffects of writing technology comes closer to that of Goodyand Watt or of Scribner and Cole? Why?

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16(after Jack Goody, The Domestication of the Savage Mind)

"advanced/"developed" societies

"complex"/"open"/"domesticated"

"primitive" societies

"simple"/"closed"/"savage"

Writing and the Stages ofCulture

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Sociology



Anthropology


Man as animal is studied primarily by the zoologist, manas talking animal primarily by the anthropologist, andman as talking and writing animal primarily by thesociologist.

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Literacy

Sociology

history



Orality

Anthropology

prehistory


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Modes of CulturalTransmission in Oral

Societies (Goody)

Oral societies: pass on culture in "longchain of interlocking conversations…"(including rituals, etc.); culture storedin memory.

Cf the complex metrical formulas of oral poetry…

Milman Parry

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Modes of CulturalTransmission in Oral

Societies (Goody)

Oral societies: pass on culture in "long chain ofinterlocking conversations…" (includingrituals, etc.); culture stored in memory.Complex formulas of oral poetry…

No fixity, "dictionary meanings."

"past" is simply a way ofinterpreting/explaining the present (e.g. ofgeneologies --e.g., Jacob's 12 sons; shiftinggeneologies )

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Emergence of LiterateSocieties (Goody)

In early literate societies, literacy restricted tosmall priesthood or guild.(association of literacy w/ magic)Functions of literacy restricted to record-keeping, administration, rituals, laws,monumental inscriptions, etc."pictographic and logographic systems [tend to]reify the objects of the natural and social order."Impose conservative bias.

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Consequences of literacy:"What's in a List"

Writing makes possible lists/arrays ofinventories, geneologies, words, plants andanimals, administrative categories, registers,etc. Make complex administration possible.

List = "locational sorting device.”

Creates awareness of distinct possibilities oforder. Cf varieties of lexical lists, catalogues,etc.

But cf also existence of complex lists in oralsocieties (Panini's grammar of Sanskrit -- 6thc. BC)

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Consequences of Literacyin Greece (Goody)

Writing as the "technology of the intellect"

Transition from "mythical" to "logico-empirical"thought

Emergence of logic & philosophy, history, etc.

Past is no longer mutable -- multiple versionsexist. Possible to question inconsistencies, etc.

Writing detaches words from context, makescritical consideration of meanings possible.Emergence of "systems of rules for thinking"

Systematization/compartmentalization offields of knowledge.

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Emergence of AlphabeticSocieties (Goody & Watt)

Transition to literacy involves a progresstoward alphabetic scripts.

Alphabetic scripts are easier to learn,facilitate development of widespreadliteracy. (5th-6th c. BC in Greece -- first"literate societies")

Aided by introduction of papyrus from Egypt.Expansion of functions of literacy to othergenres -- poetry, history, letters, etc.

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Alphabetolatry, 1

What made Greece different?

"The notion of representing a sound by a graphic symbolis itself so stupefying a leap of the imagination that whatis remarkable is not that it happened relatively late inhuman history, but rather that it ever happened at all."Goody and Watt

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Alphabetolatry, 2

"The invention of the Greek alphabet, as opposed toall previous systems, including the Phoenician,constituted an event in the history of humanculture, the importance of which has not as yet beenfully grasped. Its appearance divides all pre-Greekcivilizations from those that are post-Greek. … Inthe Greek system it became possible for the firsttime to document all forms of a linguistic statementwith fluency and to achieve fluent recognition, thatis, fluent reading, of what had been written, on thepart of the majority of any population. On thisfacility were built the foundations of those twinforms of knowledge: literature in the post-Greeksense, and science, also in the post-Greek sense."Eric Havelock, "The Preliteracy of the Greeks"

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The Persistence ofAlphabetolatry

“To become signifiantly learned in the Chinesewriting system normally takes some twenty years.Such a script is basically time-consuming andélitist. There can be no doubt that the characterswill be replaced by the Roman alphabet as soon asall the people in the People’s Republic of Chinamaster the same Chinese language (‘dialect’), theMandarin now being taught everywhere. The lossto literature will be enormous, but not soenormous as a Chinese typewriter using over40,000 characters.”

Walter Ong, “Writing RestructuresConsciousness,” 1982

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The abstractness ofalphabetic systems

Cf distinct sounds signaled by {t} in:

time

cut

try

butter

button

etc.

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Contrasting alphabetic andlogographic systems

Ease of learning... Typographicsimplicity.

Ease of processing

Symbolic importance for linguisticcommunity -- cf irregularity of Englishspelling

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The Persistence ofAlphabetolatry

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The Ideology of Literacy

Universal literacy seen as tool forcognitive and social development."The illiterate man's thought… remainsconcrete. He thinks in images and not inconcepts… His thought rarely proceeds byinduction or deduction. The result is thatknowledge acquired in a given situation ishardly ever translated to a different situationto which it might be applied." — 1972 Unescoreport

"Writing maketh an exact man" -- FrancisBacon

Napoleon -- literate people can march in step.

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Cognitive Consequences ofLiteracy

Research shows cognitive differences betweenliterate and illiterate people in devleopedsocieties. Tests of abstract thinking (ability torecategorize objects).

But are differences due to literacy, schooling,or independent social differences?

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Questions about Literacy &Societal Development

At social level: Does writing facilitateor determine cultural & cognitivechanges?

E.g., Geoffreys Lloyd on development ofGreek science: role of debate inpolitical life, testing of ideas.

(Cf role of patronage in Han China)

Cognitive Consequences ofLiteracy

Cf Work by Cole & Scribner among the Vai(western Liberia)Syllabic writing system, independentlyinvented in 19th c. Used for letters, commercial

records. Taught at home

Many Vai are also literate in Arabic (Koranicschools), English (state schools)

Vai-literate adults do no better than illiterateson most cognitive tests (resorting) unless tests

were directly related to writing (rebus puzzles)

But different for English-literate Vai.

E.g. be careful in ascribing cognitive benefits to"literacy" itself. (Cf Heath's work in Southerntown )

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The Complexity of LiteracyPractice

After Head Start "failures": Research on "earlyliteracy" (Shirley Brice Heath, Yetta Goodman.Etc/)

Learning the functions of literacy

Bedtime stories and other rituals of literacy:building expectations, postponing questions,"reading" in pre-literate children: "talking likea book"

Discourse structure -- topic shifts. Oralprecursors in religious services

How literate parents talk to infants…

Moral: "Literacy" is a broad range of socialpractices

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The Complexity of LiteracyPractice

Knowing when to write & read…

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Co-existence of writing withother forms of transmission

Cf Somali oral forms (gabay--alliterative 21 syllable form)

Roman alphabet introduced in 1972, but hasnot replaced gabay as means of politicaldiscourse.

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Co-existence of writing withother forms of transmission

Cf Somali oral forms (gabay--alliterative 21 syllable form)

http://youtube.com/watch?v=rFFgHwwnD_k&mode=related&search=

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