Chapter 7
Writing and Literacy
What is Writing?
• Graphic representation of language
– Recording language by visible marks
– Symbols that convey thought
– System of storage and retrieval
• Generally considered secondary to
speech
• Complete vs partial writing systems
– Complete: any and all thoughts and words
– Partial: limited in what they can convey.
How Does Writing Work?
• Using marks to represent sounds, ideas/meanings
– Phonetic sign: mark that represents one or more sounds
• English sign <s> = the sound [s]
• Arabic sign <‫ = >س‬the sound [s]
• But <s> can also = [z]
• And <x> = [ks]
– Semantic sign: mark that represents specific idea/meaning
• <2> in English, French, German, Swahili, etc.
– Combining phonetic and semantic signs:
• <2nd> (English)
• <2e > (French)
Classic classifications
• Based on predominance of sign types
– Semantic vs. phonetic signs
– Ideographic/logographic vs. syllabic/alphabetic
systems
• This classification assumed a progression from
semantic to phonetic
• This assumption does not hold up in the face of the
existing data
Contemporary classifications
• Recognize that all systems use combinations
– Pictographic
– Rebus
– Logographic
– Syllabic
– Logosyllabic
– Alphabetic
Even Pictographs must
be deciphered
• Pictures/images represent things
– Meanings can be extended
• Drawing of a sun can equal warmth
• But extensions require cultural context:
Is this a picture of a woman in a skirt,
or a man in a kanzu, a Swahili robe?
Writing Systems
• Writing and symbolism
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– Universal symbols? Arbitrary symbols?
What is writing?
How does writing work?
Kinds of systems
Analyzing writing systems
Developing/having writing
Literacy and representation
The ethnography of writing
Rebus Writing
• Picture represents words that sound the same:
– Drawing of the sun represents (in English):
• Sun and Son
– Drawing of a star represents (in Sumerian):
– [an] = Star, Heaven, Sky-God
• A major breakthrough in writing
– Allows for sentences like
• Eye sea ewe, Eye c u, Got 2 go
• Independently discovered in:
– Sumeria 3,000 BCE
– China 1,500 BCE
– Mayan America 0 BCE.
Logographic Writing
• Signs stand for words (or ideas)
• Also called Ideographic
– One sign = one word
• sign for sun = the spoken word “sun” [sən]
• @ sign = “at” (in English), “herring” (in Czech)
• May have evolved from pictographs
– Becoming more abstract over time.
Chinese sign for [ma] horse;
Sumerian sign for [an] star
Syllabic Writing
• Signs stand for syllables
– a sign for sun = the syllable “sun” [sən]
• sunken, sunder, sundry, sunshine.
Cherokee
Logosyllabic Writing
• Signs carry both semantic and phonetic
information
– Useful when words are written alike
– Determinatives help to clarify:
• Semantic determinatives help to clarify meaning
– Chinese [yang] = “sheep” & “ocean”
– Semantic determinative for water produces “ocean”
• Phonetic determinatives help to clarify pronunciation
– English <2> = “two” “second”
– Phonetic determinative <nd> produces “second”.
Alphabetic Writing
• Signs stand for individual sounds
– e. g., consonants & vowels
• English sign <s> = the sound [s]
• Arabic sign <‫ = >س‬the sound [s]
• Arabic sign < َ > = the sound [a]
– Goal not always achieved:
• English sign <x> = [ks].
Beginnings of Alphabetic Writing
• 17th century BCE
– Akkadians/Phoenecians adapt Sumerian system
• From CVCV syllabary to tri-consonantal roots
– Signs used for consonants (and vowels)
 Aleph-bet / Alif-bet
• 9th century BCE
– Greeks adapt Phoenecian system
• More vowels, fewer consonants
– Reassigning some C signs to Vs
 Alpha-bet.
The Rosetta Stone 200 BCE
Hieroglyphic, Demotic, Greek
The Rosetta Stone
Khipus
Khipus
• A special case
– Tying knots into cords
• Calendrical?
• Economic?
• Historical data?
– May be a full-blown writing system.
Analyzing Writing Systems
• Determine the principles/strategies
– Syllabic, alphabetic, etc.
• Identify units
– Graphemes
• Smallest segment of speech represented in system
– Sounds, syllables, whole words
– Allographs:
• predictable variants of graphemes
– English print and cursive styles; initial and final shapes
– Lexemes/Frames
• Units of writing surrounded by white space
• Look for minimal pairs, similarity of shapes
What Does it Mean to Have Writing?
• Association with “civilization”
• Does an introduced writing system “count?”
– The Lahu example
• Developing new writing systems
• How are words put together? CV, CCC, etc
• Issues of identity
– Spelling in the Comoros
 French? Arabic? African? Phonemic?
• Promoting literacy
– So what is there to read?
Writing, Reading, Identity, Power
• Learning to read and write
• Defining literacy
– Using what writing system?
• Defining correctness
– Night v. nite
• Writing and representation….
• Who is literate?
Writing and Representation
• Entextualizing speech
– Getting words onto paper
• Questions of representation
– Rapid speech
– Dialectical speech
• couahfee; warsh, crick
• gonna - goin’ - gon’ - gwine
– Power and politics in representation
Literacy and Literacies
• What does it mean to be literate?
– kinds of literacy: print, map, computer
• Defining literacy
– Literacy as technology
• Atonomous approach
– Literacy as practice
• Practice approach to literacy
• New Literacy Studies
• Ethnographic approach
– Taking context and experience into account
The Consequences of Literacy
• Literacy and Orality
– Abstract, generalizing, context-free, objective
– Concrete, particularizing, situational, subjective
• Bantu abstractness (ubuntu)
• Vai triliteracy
• Chinese and Indian literacies
• Literacy and linguistic awareness
– Writing “changes the way we think about
language” (Coulmas).
Literacy and Permanence
• Written records v. oral traditions
– Finding archaeological sites in the Comoros
Following clues from oral tradition.
http://www-personal.ksu.edu/~omar/Comoros
Literacy in Cross-Cultural Perspective
• The ethnography of reading/writing
– Heath’s practice approach to literacy events
– How does reading/writing function in a culture?
– What kinds of things are read/written?
• Letters, cards, lecture notes, PowerPoint slides
– Reading/writing styles (and linguistic capital)
• Trackton, Roadville, Maintown
– Ideas about reading/writing
• When is handwriting preferred to typing?
• And vice versa
– Condolence letters, form letters, job applications.
Literacy and Power
• Issues of access
– Who should read/write? (From Middle Ages to 1700’s?)
• Issues of colonialism
– Destroying Mayan writings
– Introducing “book authority” among Kaluli in New Guinea
• Issues of standardization
– Dialects and politics
• Issues of reform
– Changing spellings
• Americanizing English
– Reforming scripts
• Nationalism and orthography in Ukraine
• Scriptal change in Turkey (1928-1931).
Ways of Reading/Writing
• Linear v. multimodal reading/writing
– The Machine Is Us/ing Us
• Public v. private reading/writing
– blogging.
• Challenges to standardization
– L337
– Teh kitteh