Over the Spoken Form

Influence of Writing; Reasons for Its Ascendance

Lecture 3. GRAPHIC REPRESENTATION OF LANGUAGE

1. Need for Studying the Subject

The concrete object of linguistic science is the social product deposited in the brain of each individual, i.e. language. But the product differs with linguistic groups: we have to work with languages. The linguist is obliged to acquaint himself with the greatest possible number of languages in order to determine what is universal in them by observing and comparing them.

But we generally learn about languages only through writing. Even in studying our native language, we constantly make use of written texts. The necessity of using written evidence increases when dealing with remote idioms, and all the more when studying idioms that no longer exist.

Writing, though unrelated to its inner system, is used continually to represent language.

Language and writing are two distinct systems of signs; the second exists for the sole purpose of representing the first. The linguistic object is not both the written and the spoken forms of words; the spoken forms alone constitute the object. But the spoken word is so intimately bound to its written image that the latter manages to usurp the main role. People attach even more importance to the written image of a vocal sign than to the sign itself. A similar mistake would be in thinking that more can be learned about someone by looking at his photograph than by viewing him directly.

This illusion, which has always existed, is reflected in many of the notions that are currently bandied about on the subject of language. Take the notion that an idiom changes more rapidly when writing does not exist. Nothing could be further from the truth. Writing may retard the process of change under certain conditions, but its absence in no way jeopardizes the preservation of language.

Thus language does have a definite and stable oral tradition that is independent of writing, but the influence of the written form prevents our seeing this. The first linguists confused language and writing, just as the humanists had done before them.

But how is the influence of writing to be explained?

1) First, the graphic form of words strikes us as being something permanent and stable, better suited than sound to account for the unity of language throughout time. Though it creates a purely fictitious unity, the superficial bond of writing is much easier to grasp than the only true bond, the bond of sound.

2) Most people pay more attention to visual impressions simply because these are sharper and more lasting than aural impressions; that is why they show a preference for the former. The graphic form manages to force itself upon them at the expense of sound.

3) The literary language adds to the undeserved importance of writing. It has its dictionaries and grammars; in school, children are taught from and by means of books; language is apparently governed by a code; the code itself consists of a written set of strict rules of usage, orthography; and that is why writing acquires primary importance. The result is that people forget that they learn to speak before they learn to write, and the natural sequence is reversed.

4) Finally, when there is a disagreement between language and orthography, settlement of the dispute is difiicult for everyone except the linguist; and since he is given no voice in the matter, the written form almost inevitably wins out, for any solution supported by it is easier; thus writing assumes undeserved importance.

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