Speech and Writing
Most contemporary linguists work under the assumption that spoken language is more fundamental than written language. This is because:
- 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
- People learn to speak and process spoken language more easily and much earlier than writing.
Nonetheless, linguists agree that the study of written language can be worthwhile and valuable. For research that relies on corpus linguistics and computational linguistics, written language is often much more convenient for processing large amounts of linguistic data. Large corpora of spoken language are difficult to create and hard to find, and are typically transcribed and written. In addition, linguists have turned to text-based discourse occurring in various formats of computer-mediated communication as a viable site for linguistic inquiry.
The study of writing systems themselves is, in any case, considered a branch of linguistics.
Read more about this topic: Linguistics
Famous quotes containing the words speech and, speech and/or writing:
“In our time, political speech and writing are largely the defence of the indefensible.”
—George Orwell (1903–1950)
“True and false are attributes of speech not of things. And where speech is not, there is neither truth nor falsehood. Error there may be, as when we expect that which shall not be; or suspect what has not been: but in neither case can a man be charged with untruth.”
—Thomas Hobbes (1588–1679)
“I am writing to resist the view that Europe and civilization are going to Hell. If I am being “crucified for an idea”Mthat is, the coherent idea around which my muddles accumulated—it is probably the idea that European culture ought to survive, that the best qualities of it ought to survive along with whatever cultures, in whatever universality. Against the propaganda of terror and the propaganda of luxury, have you a nice simple answer?”
—Ezra Pound (1885–1972)