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From: taylor@hplabsc.UUCP
Newsgroups: comp.society
Subject: Re: Written Literacy
Message-ID: <1673@hplabsc.HP.COM>
Date: Mon, 27-Apr-87 18:37:58 EDT
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Posted: Mon Apr 27 18:37:58 1987
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Peter Kiehtreiber raises some very interesting points in his recent
posting to the group that I'd like to discuss a bit further...

> It is quite clear that conventional script is a way of copying, storing 
> and repeating human speech.

I'm not sure I agree with this.  It seems to me that we're needlessly
limiting ourselves to the vocal aspects of communication.  Written
communication, by virtue of being able to provide contextual clues and
non-standard-English information (like italics and font changes) has the
ability to extend beyond the subset of communication that we vocalize.

Next time you're talking to someone close your eyes and listen to what
they're saying versus keeping them open and watching the gestures, 
expressions, and other information being transmitted.  Certainly there
is a lot more to communication than words themselves!

Instead, I would like to suggest that written communication is (ideally) a
vehicle for the transliteration of communication between individuals to
a permanent medium.  (a thought: now that we have the ability to videotape
discussions, does that make transcripts obsolete?  Should we start giving
people *films* of plays, rather than *scripts* of plays?) (of course that
leads to another interesting point, that the ``higher the bandwidth'' of
a form of communication, the more likely that it will be a subject
interpretation of the information, rather than the information itself.
This is exemplified by the increased bias shown in TV news reporting 
versus newspaper news reporting, and that versus radio news reporting).

> My experience is, however, that written script serves as more than just a
> recording medium.  It is also a medium of reflection. 

This is indeed an interesting point however, he later comments:

> ...when we speak ad lib, we do not produce, on the average, particularly 
> profound output. 

I strongly disagree with this.  I would in fact argue that conversations
are the most natural form of communication that we have, and that our
languages are designed for that.  The point is that there is a whole lot
more to communication than just `the words we're saying'.  A somewhat
social example is that at a party quite a bit more can be learned about
peoples attitudes towards each other by examining their posturings and
expressions than by listening to what they're saying to each other.

So with written communication - we can reproduce quite a large set of
information in a written medium, but the more 'bandwidth' we add, the
more likely we are to convey the ideas we're attempting to.  For 
example, textbooks are almost invariably written using different fonts,
with lots of photographs, shaded boxes for key phrases, and so on.
The meta-information is at least as important as the information (some
famous writer or the other once said that if his book wasn't good enough
to leaf through and enjoy, it certainly wasn't good enough to READ and
enjoy...)

Also, one of the advantages to dialogues, as Peter points out, is that
it is a high-feedback system where people can convey confusion, disagreement,
and so on all without ever having to wait for even the speaker to finish
their sentence, let alone their entire thoughts on the subject.  There are
truly a lot of subtle cues that are present in discussions.

> It's no accident that many animal races have *language* but almost none 
> have *written language*. 

I'm quite intrigued by the 'almost none' in this phrase.  It is my
understanding that us humans are the only creatures on this planet that
have a written form of communication.  Am I wrong?

						-- Dave Taylor