To Investigate Spoken Language and Written Language in Thought: An Introduction
Speech and writing appear more or less important for different people, in various occasions, for different purposes.
Some people like writing more than speaking.
Speaking is more important in public gathering, while writing more important for making records.
In terms of usage, neither of speech and writing has absolute advantage over the other.
There is no mystery in speech and writing as we hear, see and use them.
We choose writing or speech, whichever is more practical.
However, it has long been held that spoken language is primary.
The main point is: speech is related to human nature.
Firstly, speech appears to be universal to all human beings capable of producing and hearing it, while there have been many cultures and speech communities that lack written communication.
Speech evolved before human beings invented writing.
Secondly, People learn to speak and process spoken languages much earlier than writing.
Earlier-learned speech does great help in learning writing.
Thirdly, speech is closely associated with the speaker.
Speech is produced (spoken) from the head (mouth), while writing is done (written) by hand.
Speech sounds vanish after speaking while writing remains.
Thus speech is associated with, while writing is separated from, presence of the person.
Writing is artifact among things that are created by hands, while speech is expression of thought.
Every person has unique accent.
Although individuals' handwritings differ, the differences are not as significant as accents'.
Moreover, the mostly read are prints and typed texts.
When people are face to face, they presumably communicate by talking but not writing.
Oral communication is emotional, filled with participants' laughers, excitement, sorrow etc.
People observe each other's facial expressions and the surrounding situations.
During writing and reading we only focus on the texts.
As a result, speech appears more human and real, while writing is external symbols.
There is strong relation between speech and writing, especially for today's dominant alphabetic writing systems.
Writing is considered record of speech.
Although writing as record of speech can hardly apply to logographic writing system, it is indeed alphabetic writing systems are dominant today.
Thus a widely held notion is writing system evolved to represent speech, although there is no theoretical proof.
The concept of language is more about speech than writing.
With the widespread of literacy, more and more knowledge is represented in writing.
Writing is arguably the most important invention in human history (Rayner and Pollatsek, 1994, p.
37).
To date, most knowledge we got is from reading.
Literacy contributed greatly to the progress of society.
In society, writing possesses noble status higher than speech's.
Speech is mostly employed in presentation and interaction among people.
It is not preferred for wide-spreading knowledge.
In some occasions, important knowledge is obtained by listening.
But usually this knowledge is of smaller amount.
Although audio recording can spread as far and fast as text[1] through internet, audio is mostly unattended.
It is reading that builds solid knowledge of a person.
It seems that writing is advanced whilst speech is primitive.
Knowledge transmitted via writing has by far surpassed that transmitted via speech.
Speech's primary status seems to be challenged by the growing volumes of text.
The writing as record of speech notion is agreed by many.
It is intuitive instead of proven.
However, the growing role of writing doesn't change its identity as artifact.
Speech is associated with nature of mankind.
It is integrated in people's thought.
People hear voices in their brain when they are thinking.
It seems that we think in the language we speak.
To clarify the nature of speech and writing, it is essential to study language in thought.
The relation between speech and writing is not preexisting, which is set up in human mind/brain.
Studying language in thought would also make clear the relations between speech and writing.
In fact, many researchers have pointed out the significant role of writing in thought.
Olson (1996) concluded that literacy contributes to conceptual structure rather than merely reporting it.
However, speech is still considered primary that written language provides a model for.
We hold that both the structure and content of thought are in writing itself.
Olson (2000) argued due to writing, language is able to stand as unambiguous and autonomous representation of meaning.
'The development of this explicit formal system accounts for the predominant features of western culture and for our distinctive ways of using language and our distinctive modes of thought' (Olson, 2000).
Thought is not present to our senses.
We cannot study it directly.
It is generally agreed that thought happens inside the brain/head.
We can study the effect of spoken language and written language on the brain.
Speech and writing in thought can be studied via analyzing the effect of listening and seeing on human body (brain) and relating seeing and hearing to thought.
This brings thought closer to the world as we sense it.
Neuroscience and cognitive science are two main fields in which thought is studied.
Investigation can be carried out in these two domains.
Future work will include (1) presenting the basic concept of studying thought from visual and auditory inputs, (2) study of hemispheric lateralization of language by analyzing visual and auditory inputs and association of visual info and auditory info, (3) Heavily employing introspective approach to study thought, inner speech from seeing and hearing; Reading's cognitive effect on speech will also be a focus.
I will have three articles on these three topics, respectively.
Written language's fundamental status in thought will be asserted.
References Olson, D.
R.
1996: Towards a psychology of literacy: on the relations between speech and writing.
Cognition, 60, 83-104.
Olson, D.
R.
2000: From utterance to text: the bias of language in speech and writing.
In P.
K.
Smith, and A.
D.
Pellegrini (ed.
), Psychology of Education: Major Themes, volume iii.
New York, NY: Routledge.
Rayner, K.
and Pollatsek, A.
1994: The Psychology of Reading (reprint edition), Routledge.
Footnotes [1]The word 'text' in this work refers to written language, excluding other symbols that do not directly associate with speech.
Some people like writing more than speaking.
Speaking is more important in public gathering, while writing more important for making records.
In terms of usage, neither of speech and writing has absolute advantage over the other.
There is no mystery in speech and writing as we hear, see and use them.
We choose writing or speech, whichever is more practical.
However, it has long been held that spoken language is primary.
The main point is: speech is related to human nature.
Firstly, speech appears to be universal to all human beings capable of producing and hearing it, while there have been many cultures and speech communities that lack written communication.
Speech evolved before human beings invented writing.
Secondly, People learn to speak and process spoken languages much earlier than writing.
Earlier-learned speech does great help in learning writing.
Thirdly, speech is closely associated with the speaker.
Speech is produced (spoken) from the head (mouth), while writing is done (written) by hand.
Speech sounds vanish after speaking while writing remains.
Thus speech is associated with, while writing is separated from, presence of the person.
Writing is artifact among things that are created by hands, while speech is expression of thought.
Every person has unique accent.
Although individuals' handwritings differ, the differences are not as significant as accents'.
Moreover, the mostly read are prints and typed texts.
When people are face to face, they presumably communicate by talking but not writing.
Oral communication is emotional, filled with participants' laughers, excitement, sorrow etc.
People observe each other's facial expressions and the surrounding situations.
During writing and reading we only focus on the texts.
As a result, speech appears more human and real, while writing is external symbols.
There is strong relation between speech and writing, especially for today's dominant alphabetic writing systems.
Writing is considered record of speech.
Although writing as record of speech can hardly apply to logographic writing system, it is indeed alphabetic writing systems are dominant today.
Thus a widely held notion is writing system evolved to represent speech, although there is no theoretical proof.
The concept of language is more about speech than writing.
With the widespread of literacy, more and more knowledge is represented in writing.
Writing is arguably the most important invention in human history (Rayner and Pollatsek, 1994, p.
37).
To date, most knowledge we got is from reading.
Literacy contributed greatly to the progress of society.
In society, writing possesses noble status higher than speech's.
Speech is mostly employed in presentation and interaction among people.
It is not preferred for wide-spreading knowledge.
In some occasions, important knowledge is obtained by listening.
But usually this knowledge is of smaller amount.
Although audio recording can spread as far and fast as text[1] through internet, audio is mostly unattended.
It is reading that builds solid knowledge of a person.
It seems that writing is advanced whilst speech is primitive.
Knowledge transmitted via writing has by far surpassed that transmitted via speech.
Speech's primary status seems to be challenged by the growing volumes of text.
The writing as record of speech notion is agreed by many.
It is intuitive instead of proven.
However, the growing role of writing doesn't change its identity as artifact.
Speech is associated with nature of mankind.
It is integrated in people's thought.
People hear voices in their brain when they are thinking.
It seems that we think in the language we speak.
To clarify the nature of speech and writing, it is essential to study language in thought.
The relation between speech and writing is not preexisting, which is set up in human mind/brain.
Studying language in thought would also make clear the relations between speech and writing.
In fact, many researchers have pointed out the significant role of writing in thought.
Olson (1996) concluded that literacy contributes to conceptual structure rather than merely reporting it.
However, speech is still considered primary that written language provides a model for.
We hold that both the structure and content of thought are in writing itself.
Olson (2000) argued due to writing, language is able to stand as unambiguous and autonomous representation of meaning.
'The development of this explicit formal system accounts for the predominant features of western culture and for our distinctive ways of using language and our distinctive modes of thought' (Olson, 2000).
Thought is not present to our senses.
We cannot study it directly.
It is generally agreed that thought happens inside the brain/head.
We can study the effect of spoken language and written language on the brain.
Speech and writing in thought can be studied via analyzing the effect of listening and seeing on human body (brain) and relating seeing and hearing to thought.
This brings thought closer to the world as we sense it.
Neuroscience and cognitive science are two main fields in which thought is studied.
Investigation can be carried out in these two domains.
Future work will include (1) presenting the basic concept of studying thought from visual and auditory inputs, (2) study of hemispheric lateralization of language by analyzing visual and auditory inputs and association of visual info and auditory info, (3) Heavily employing introspective approach to study thought, inner speech from seeing and hearing; Reading's cognitive effect on speech will also be a focus.
I will have three articles on these three topics, respectively.
Written language's fundamental status in thought will be asserted.
References Olson, D.
R.
1996: Towards a psychology of literacy: on the relations between speech and writing.
Cognition, 60, 83-104.
Olson, D.
R.
2000: From utterance to text: the bias of language in speech and writing.
In P.
K.
Smith, and A.
D.
Pellegrini (ed.
), Psychology of Education: Major Themes, volume iii.
New York, NY: Routledge.
Rayner, K.
and Pollatsek, A.
1994: The Psychology of Reading (reprint edition), Routledge.
Footnotes [1]The word 'text' in this work refers to written language, excluding other symbols that do not directly associate with speech.
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