Psycholinguistics/Writing

Introduction

Definitions of writing exist on a continuum, so that what constitutes writing may be interpreted differently depending on context and the author. Regardless if one takes an inclusivist (least stringent) or exclusivist (most stringent) approach, writing is fundamentally a system of graphic symbols used to convey thought. Fully developed writing systems are capable of representing any and all aspects of thought and sound. In the English language, the graphic symbols of written language represent the translation of phonemes - the smallest unit of distinguishable sound - into graphemes, or functional letter units (Metsala and Ehri, 1998). Writing has evolved steadily from pictograms to syllaberies to phonetic alphabets as part of a process to create an increasingly more appropriate reflection of the phonetic requirements of a language more completely and accurately (DeFrancis, 1989).

Historical Evolution of Writing

Writing has long been considered the marker of an advanced society (Ezzamel and Hoskin, 2000). As a hunter-gatherer, early man had little use for a written system to record or communicate. It was only with the proliferation of agriculture and subsequently trade between individuals and entire villages and even nations that a need for a writing system emerged. Written markings were physically permanent memory aids that andswered the need for a record-keeping system. This new form of preservation of info was employed in three essential arenas: state administration and bureacracy; trade and commerce; and religion. This form of recording marked not only the departure from a primitive, barbaric version of man but also characterized the transition from prehistory to history, distinguishing "the time that can be studied through written records from the time that can be studied only through arcaheology" (Gnanadesikan, p.2, 2009).

Humble Beginnings

A Cuneiform tablet from Iraq dating back to approximately 2350 BCE. Currently residing in the British Museum of London, it depicts an account of barley rations issued to adults and children.

The earliest script-like markings were found in Jiahu in Henan Province, China, dating back to the 7th and 6th millenium BC (Li, Harbottle, Shang and Wang, 2000). While this Jiahu script cannot be considered a full writing system because it is so primitive in nature, it is proof of “a lengthy period of sing-use which led eventually to a full fledged writing system” (Li et al., p.31, 2000). Tortoise shells excavated from graves in the area were engraved with approximately 11 different signs and believed to be a significant aspect of burial ceremonies.
Despite the presence of this incomplete and extremely primitive sign usage, Mesopotamia is widely agreed upon as the birthplace of writing (Ezzamel and Hoskin, 2000). This area between the Mediterranean, Red and Caspian Seas and the Persian Gulf was the centre of agriculture and trade in the early world. As such, the need for a way to keep track of supplies, stocks and trades developed around 3000 BC. Early symbols consisted of tokens with engraved markings meant to represent objects directly using a combination of linguistic and numerical signs. This required an extremely wide repertoire of signs, as every agricultural commodity, tool, etc. required its own marking, and tokens were used on a one-to-one ratio, so that 100 pounds of grain required 100 'grain' tokens (Ezzamel and Hoskin, 2000). Eventually, this system was standardized and simplified by Akkadian scribes, who also introduced the concept of linear, horizontal writing (Postgate, 1992). While early signs represented morphemes, or units of meaning, a gradual shift towards phonetic representation occurred. These syllabic signs were able to represent the complex grammatical structures of written communication that had developed over time. This shift in focus to phoneme-oriented signs “increased the number of signs needed to convey a given statement, but improved the accuracy and versatility of the script” (Postagate, p.64, 1992).

From Scratchings to Syntax

Hieroglyphics engraved on one of the walls inside the Mastaba of Mereruka in Saqqara, Egypt.

Only a few hundred years later, Egyptian hieroglyphics began to emerge further west. Around 3400 BC, the world’s first alphabet was in use, consisting of 26 consonants and no vowels (Fischer, 2001). While there is little similarity between the visual aspects of the Akkadian script and that used by the Egyptians, the Egyptians based their writing system on the “logography, phonography and linearity” of the earlier Mesopotamian writing systems. With time, several written dialects emerged from hieroglyphics, including a highly abbreviated, cursive script employed by the public on a daily basis. Fischer is quick to point out that while “the idea of complete writing may have arisen on Sumer [Mesopotamia], the way we write and even some of our signs, which we call ‘letters’, are the ultimate descendants of ancient Egyptian founders” (Fischer, p.47, 2000).

The Evolution of the Alphabet

Inscriptions on this stone in both Phonecian (top) and Greek (bottom) allowed for the eventual translation and deciphering of the Phonecian alphabet.

The ‘demotic script’ adapted from hieroglyphics by the Egyptians was eventually replaced by the written language of the conquering Greeks around the second century BC(Fischer, 2000). The Greek alphabet was unique in its regular and consistent use of vowels, building on the basic syllaberies of Mesopotamia and Egypt to employ a more evolved alphabet (Carpenter, 1933). Much like the evolution of Egyptian hieroglyphs, the Greek alphabet evolved into two distinct writing styles, one formal and angular used for manuscripts, the other slanted and interconnected and used for daily uses. This second, less formal writing system continued to evolve over hundreds of years into a compact and more rounded script, that more closely resembles our modern alphabet.

The tumultuous history of this part of the world involved a revolving door of conquering and conquered. Written language has, therefore, an extremely non-linear developmental path, with many cultures borrowing and re-inventing writing multiple times throughout this portion of early human history. The geographic borders between countries were changing constantly during this portion of history. As a result, cultures were frequently abolished and absorbed by the victors, and writing was no expection. The Roman Republic, one of the greatest civilizations of the ancient world, was established in 509 BC and, in its youth, was heavily influenced by the neighbouring Etruscans (Gnanadesikan, 2009). One of many aspects of the Etruscan culture adopted by the Romans was their alphabet, a derivative of the Greek alphabet created around 700 BC. The earliest Roman alphabet was written “entirely in capital letters and, at first, occasionally from right to left ... It ran A B C D E F H I K L M N O P Q R S T V” (Gnanadesikan, p.229, 2009). It was the Romans who gave the letters the names we are familiar with today, dropping the distinctive Semitic-derived names (e.g. alpha, omega, etc.) for unisyllabic representations of the phonetic sounds they made. The additional seven letters found in our modern day alphabet resulted from a fusion of Roman and Greek vocabulary, requiring additional letters to represent the new sounds of the evolving hybrid language (Gnanadesikan, 2009). As the Romans conquered the better part of mainland Europe and Africa, their written language spread across the globe, most notably to England in the 400s AD. As the English proceeded to colonize much of the Western world, the use of the Roman alphabet continued to spread, going “from strength to strength, … being used today for more languages than any script ever has been” (Gnanadesikan, p. 248, 2009).
It is impossible to establish a linear or causal evolution of writting throughout the course of history. Many cultures have played a part in the development of the alphabet we currently employ, and while the origins of the writing system are credited to the inhabitants of prehistoric Mesopotamia, it is perhaps Fischer who best describes the history of writing:

"No-one invented writing…. All writing systems appear to be descendents of earlier prototypes or systems, whose idea of graphically depicting human speech, scheme for accomplishing this, and/or graphic signs used in this process were borrowed and adapted or converted to fit some other people’s language and social needs" (Fischer, p.8, 2000).

Writing and the Brain

Anatomical Structures and Writing

The brain’s left hemisphere has long been assumed to be dominant in language activities for right handed people. Because of the crossover of many neuronal signals in the brain (i.e. visual signals from the right eye cross over at the corpus callosum to the left side of the brain), it was assumed for a long time that this cross-over occurred in writing as well. If this were true, the left hemisphere of right-handed individuals would be dominant in language activities, and the reverse would be true for left-handed people (Katanda, Yoshikawa, Sugishita, 2001). However, because writing requires the integration of several diverse neuronal pathways, it is more difficult to pinpoint the unique structure responsible for the process as a whole.

Animation of the brain's left parietal lobe. This is the brain structure responsible for the generation of written text.

Austrian physician Sigmund Exner is credited with discovering what is now accepted as the writing centre, an area in the posterior portion of the middle frontal gyrus. Exner’s area works in conjunction with the left superior parietal lobule to control the generation of script, in that “the left parietal region provides graphic images for letters while the left premotor region organizes graphic motor images” (Katanda, Yoshikawa, Sugishita, 2001). Lesions to this area of the brain have been shown to result in pure agraphia, that is written impairment with preserved oral language capabilities. This region of the brain, collectively, termed the Graphemic/Motor Frontal Area (GMFA), allows for the bridging between orthography and hand-writing specific movements (Roux and Dufor, 2009). Only hand movements specific to writing are controlled by this area of the brain. The GMFA coordinates the interface between semantic, syntactic and orthographic representations of words via their physical appearance. This includes mechanisms such as upper and lower case, cursive versus printing, as well as the individual nuances that make each person’s hand writing unique. Damage to this area of the brain affects the easiness and fluidity of handwriting. The ability to compose sentences and generate ideas remains intact. It is the transcription process itself that becomes difficult, if not impossible.

Research on the brain structures involved in writing remains limited, and focuses primarily on those structures that govern the physical representations of sound. From the perspective of creation, writing draws on a variety of cognitive processes, including planning, problem-solving and long-term memory functions.

Writing and Cognition

Flower and Hayes Model

The integration of all of these cognitive functions required for writing occurs in a process that maintains a large degree of continuity across several variables. One of the most influential models on the writing process was proposed by Flower and Hayes in 1981 and suggests that writing relies on a series of hierarchical processes and a network of goals (Flower and Hayes, 1981). Flower and Hayes refer to the purpose of the piece of writing as the rhetorical question. This is the sum of all of the goals of the piece of writing and acts to guide the development of the piece of writing throughout the many stages of composition. Their model is divided into four key points, with the focus of demonstrating that their cognitive process theory of writing shows that “the act of creation is fed and sustained by the ever-changing imagination, art and goals of the writer” (MacKay, 2003).

Diagram of the Flower and Hayes Model of the writing process, demonstrating both its hierarchical nature and the room for flexibility that exists. As the arrows indicate, the author can switch between processes at any point in time, allowing for maximal creativity while maintaining organization.

The process of writing is best understood as a set of distinctive thinking processes which writers orchestrate or organize during the act of composing. These processes are grouped into three larger categories.

Task Environment

This includes the aforementioned Rhetorical Questions, or the assignment, as well as considerations about the topic and the audience. Good writers can juggle the requirements of the audience and the writer’s own personal goals without compromising the initial rhetorical questions or assignment. The medium of external storage for the piece (hand written, word processor, etc) also impacts this portion of the writing process.

Long-term Memory

The relatively stable entity that contains the knowledge about the topic and audience, as well as certain writing plans and structural representations that may shape the composition in question. Cues in the rhetorical questions, such as ‘Convince the audience….’, lead the writer to tap into a certain plan. Comopositions that fail to meet the unique needs of the reader are referred to as “writer-based prose” and often occur because the author failed to transform and reorganize the information they retrieved from long-term memory. The organizational issues that characterize children’s writing, in which they simply write everything they know about the subject in question, is knowledge-telling and fails to take into account both the audience and the plan.

Working Memory

The process of writing occurs through the integration of task environment demands and long-term memory processes into the key component that reflects the establishment and progression of a piece of composition. The writer begins to form an internal, subjective idea representation of the information to be used in the piece. Textual decisions about the order of information begin to take shape as ideas are generated and organized within the context of the overarching goals. For a particular piece of composition, sets of both procedural and substantive goals are established, and these are “generated, developed and revised by the same processes that generate and organize new ideas…. Just as goals lead a writer to generate ideas, those ideas lead to new, more complex goals which can then integrate content and purpose” (Flower and Hayes, 1981). An important difference separating strong and weak writers is the network of goals they develop. Stronger writers derive a higher quantity and quality of middle range goals, in that they are not just focused on the end-result but consciously develop the body of the text to reflect the specific framework required. The working-memory portion of writing also includes the process of translation. This includes the navigation of the English language, from “generic and formal demands through syntactic and lexical ones down to the motor tasks of forming letters” (Flower and Hayes, 1981). All of the pertinent pieces of knowledge the writer has collected must be brought together in the context of the specific piece and brought in line with the network of goals to result in a linear composition that develops in a logical sense.

In this cognitive process model of writing, the decision on when to move between processes is made by a function Flower and Hayes refer to as the monitor. It is this function that determines when a writer will stop generating ideas and progress to the actual stage of composition. Knowing when to make this transition comes with experience, and is another key distinction between experienced and novice writers.

These processes have a hierarchical, highly embedded organization in which any given process can be embedded within any other. This hierarchical nature allows the writer to switch between processes at any point in time. In fact, according to Flower and Hayes, the power of the writing process is that it is organized in such a way that “a large working system such as composing can subsume other less inclusive systems, such as generating ideas, which in turn contain still other systems, and so on” (1981). The flexibility that stems from such a hierarchical system is what gives writing its power, as the author can do many things with just a few simple processes (e.g. plan, translate, review).

The act of composing itself is a goal-directed thinking process, guided by the writer’s own growing network of goals. Despite the fact that the writing process frequently feels unguided and almost accidental in its progression, Flower and Hayes argue that the writer establishes a network of goals that grows increasingly elaborate as composition progresses. These networks have three features:

1. They develop gradually and can emerge at any point in the composition process
2. These goals exist in a variety of different levels, but ultimately they all work to progress the piece of writing towards a completed work of prose. Goals act to mediate all of the forces that act to advance a piece of writing, and even when subconscious, these plans are set in place by the writer.
3. A writer’s higher-level goals are what give prose its direction and identity, and as such, they are revisited frequently. The more conscientious a writer is of their middle and higher process goals, the more complex and complete a work they will create (Flower and Hayes, 1981).
   

It is the balance between carefully scripted and planned out and inspirational or spontaneous nature of writing that this cognitive process model of writing seeks to denote, in that: “the remarkable combination of purposefulness and openness which writing offers is based in part on a beautifully simple, but extremely powerful principle, which is this: in the act of writing, people regenerate or recreate their own goals in the light of what they learn”.

Writers create their own goals in two key ways: By generating both high-level goals and supporting sub-goals which embody the writer’s developing sense of purpose, and then, at times, by changing major goals or even establishing entirely new ones based on what has been learned in the act of writing.

It is this step that reflects the creative nature of writing and the process of inspiration that occurs. The ability to re-examine, re-evaluate and remove goals for a certain piece reflects a certain amount of both confidence and competence. Flower and Hayes refer to this process of revising and clarifying goals as the root of the writers power, as it is “through setting these new goals that the fruits of discovery come back to inform the continuing process of writing”.

Writing as Communication

The Relationship Between Speech and Writing

There has been much dialogue on the interaction between speech and writing, with many famous philosophers and linguists attempting to 'solve' the nature of the relationship. As previously discussed, writing is most commonly seen as the younger brother to the crown prince that is speech. Writing is a "secondary representation of the primary speech" (Powell, 17), created in the image of speech and therefore dependent upon it for both its form and meaning. Writing is frequently distinguished from language, in that it is "merely a way of recording language by means of visible marks" (Bloomfield, p.21, 1933). Despite this sense of almost inferiority, it is through writing that spoken words gain a sense of permanency (Gnanadesikan, 2009). Writing is deliberate, and acts to preserve speech in a material form that can continually and repeatedly be accessed and recalled. Writing reaches a larger audience than speech, and is fundamentally different from speech in that it is a tangible entitiy (Powell, 2009). In fact, writing is such a monumental ability that is often seen as a form of technology, not a method of communication. While the primacy of speech may be a given, the importance of writing to civilizations demonstrates its value to society and its superiority as a cultural practice that symbolizes thought and renders it timeless and concrete.

Record of an official inspection of the royal tombs in Thebes. Transcriptions such as these represent the precise copying of spoken word into text. While this may seem like a linear process, the relationship between speech and writing is much more complex and requires unique skills learned through an active teaching process.

In this way, speech is the primordial form of communication, both in a historical and developmental sense. Not only do humans as individual people learn to speak before they can write, but societies as collectives develop written communication significantly later in their own developmental course. It stands to reason, therefore, that writing stems from spoken language. However, Liberman and Whalen (2000), argue that writing is not merely a linear progression from speech. Instead, writing is a unique intellectual achievement requiring explicit teaching and active learning. Engaging with language in such an active manner brings both structural and semantic properties of speech into conscious awareness (Olson, 1995). In learning to transcribe the oral language, people become aware of the rules and structures that govern their language, such as sentence structure and punctuation. In learning to apply these rules, language is transformed from the concrete, context-dependent and structurally simple form of communication that is speech to a complex and elaborate method of transcribing and preserving the full range of tasks in the English language.

The Relationship Between Reading and Writing

Theoretically, the process of reading is the reverse of writing. While writing is an attempt to translate graphemes into phonemes, reading seeks to sound out these graphic signs into the phonetics of oral language (Olson, 1995). While this is an oversimplification, reading does involve regenerating words into sounds and subsequently into units of meaning. It has been suggested that reading and writing are related in a variety of areas including knowledge of sound-symbol relations, metacognition, vocabulary meaning, sentence structures, cohesion, passage organization and syntax (Shanahan, 1988). Since both reading and writing are developmental processes, with proficiency developing over time, it stands to reason that the relationship between these two skill sets may not be constant. Depending on grade level, reading and writing will interact in different ways and will share different aspects and levels of cognitive processing. As children become more competent readers, they begin to see written words in a different light, and this in turn informs the way they see and conceptualize written language (Olson, 1995). The relationship between knowledge of the alphabet and the ability to execute phonological segmentation exercises has been shown to consistently predict reading success (Ehri, 1985). This means children who are more comfortable with the alphabet and who are better at sounding out letter combinations and syllables will better readers. Shanahan also describes the shared process knowledge shared between reading and writing, those “strategies and procedures for solving problems or for carrying out complex activities” (Shanahan, 1988). These means that problem solving strategies can be shared between the two activities.

Writing and Society

The establishment of a written language is viewed as an accomplishment in the evolution of a culture. Writing was originally created to facilitate accounting, and contributed to advancements in exchange and the management of economic affairs (Goody,1986). From a human perspective, writing serves to “extend the possibilities of social action…. Creating more precise types of transaction and relationship…. That give these partnerships the strength to endure in more complex, more ‘anynoymous circumstances” (Goody, 1986, 175). Writing facilitates the development of a beaurocratic state, and contributes greatly to the dissemination of political and religious information. The twenty-first century alone has witnessed countless manifestations of the power of written texts, as acts of martydrom, tyranny, fanaticism, oppression and liberation have been committed in deference to the written word of God (Powell, 12). Powell makes a point of describing writing as a "technology of explosive force.... sprung from the human mind" (Powell, p.11, 2009), not an inevitable progression in natural development but as the single most important invention in the history of humanity.

Writing and Technology

A motorized Platen printing press dating back to 1942 from Vancouver, BC.

The world’s first form of mass communication was the printing press which, in conjunction with paper, allowed for the dissemination of the written word to an ever-increasing population (Gnanadesikan, 2009). The printing press also played a prominent role in the spread of literacy from the upper echelons of religious and royal societies to the general public. The first printed book was Johannes Gutenberg’s version of the Bible, of which almost 200 copies were printed in 1455. This monumental event served to further change writing, which moved from a process centered on the creation of letters to a process of “writing by selection from a preformed set of letters” (Gnanadesikon, p.252, 2009). The demand for written texts continued to grow through the religious turmoil of the Medieval and Renaissance times and into the Industrial revolution of the late 1700s.

The next big change in writing came with the invention of the typewriter in 1873, making typing nearly as fast as measured speech and rendering the typed word invaluable to the business community (Gnanadesikon, 2009). Despite the speed it allowed, the typewriter was “a technology destined to be superseded” (Gnanadesikon, p.267, 2009), and so it was by IBM in 1964. This new form of electronic writing lacked some of the permanence of both typewritten and handwritten text, but allowed for instant and continuous editing. This shift in the permanent and tangible nature of writing marked a departure in the essence of written script that had been preserved through all of the changes in alphabet throughout history. Gnanadesikon describes the most important threat to the printed book as the World Wide Web, but is careful to distinguish this from any threat to the written word itself (2009). There is more written language in the world today that there ever has been, a function of the proliferation of instant messaging and texting in younger generations. The instant-gratification nature of todays society will preserve the need for the written word, as rapid access to information via an internet search is the cornerstone of both intellectual and academic pursuits. While this open-access to information has drastically changed the process of educating and disseminating information, the current path of written language is not unanimously positive: “if handwriting ushered in civilization, and print ushered in modernity, it remains to be seen what hypertext will do for us” (Gnanadesikon, p.272, 2009).
Hilaryy 19:41, 15 April 2011 (UTC)

Learning Exercises

Word Search

Use the clues below to identify key terms taken from the article. Find them in the word search to test your knowledge. If you get stuck, the answers can be found on the Discussion page. Good luck!

• These scribes were responsible for the introduction of linear, horizontal writing.
• Script originally engraved on tortoise shells nearly 6.5 million BCE.
• Birthplace of writing.
• Spatial location of the motor area that integrates writing cognitions with physical movements.
• Exner's area corresponds to the middle frontal _____.
• Doctor credited with discovering the brain's writing centre.
• Reading success has been predicted by which kind of segmentation exercises?
• Writing systems have evolved from pictograms to __________ to phonetic alphabets.
• Egyptian precedent to the demotic script.
• Clay tablets originating from the Middle East that were used to facilitate record keeping.
• Primitive pictures used to represent complete ideas or actions.
• The smallest units of meaning in the English language.
• Collection of 26 letters from which all words in the English language are generated.
• The scientists responsible for theorizing writing as a series of hierarchical processes and a network of goals.
• According to the above scientists, the purpose of ever piece of writing.
• These lead a writer to generate new ideas.
• The monitor determines the point at which a writer stops generating ideas and enters this phase.
• The kind of issues that characterize children's writing.
• It is this arrangement of the processes involved in writing that give it its power.
• That writers generate their own goals reflects the __________ nature of writing.
• "Writing is deliberate and acts to __________ speech in a material form."
• Writing's vocal counterpart.
• The process that is the theoretical reverse of writing.
• Writing is not a method of communication, but a form of __________.
• This form of writing is said to have ushered in modernity.
• As of 1873, writing could be __________ (past tense).

Making Connections

The questions below are meant to expand on the knowledge and understanding gained from the article. They require you to make connections between different concepts and engage with the information presented.

1. Take a moment to reflect on the last paper, essay or article you were asked to write. On a piece of paper, brainstorm at least 10 specific actions you took during your own writing process. This list should include statements similar in nature to the following examples: "Did a google search on the topic", "Edited a draft to check for spelling" and "Brainstormed ideas to research". Once you have a complete list, examine the thought processes and actions you took in relation to Flower and Hayes Model of the writing process. Arrange your list into three new columns to reflect the Task Environment, Working Memory Tasks and Long-Term Memory Tasks. In which of these three categories do the majority of your actions fall? Based on the Flower and Hayes model, how could you adjust your own personal writing process to improve the quality of your final product?
2. There has been significant dialogue in the media of late about the many forms of slang used in text messages, instant messaging and email. Drawing on your knowledge of the both the historical evolution of writing systems and the wrole of writing in society, weigh in on this debate. Be sure to consider the impact of perpetuating slang on formal English and overall literacy levels. Do you thinking these less permanent forms of writing that never truly exist on paper impact the definition of writing as permanent, physical manifestation of speech?

References

Hilaryy 19:41, 15 April 2011 (UTC)