Rewrite of Essay #2 Expository Essay Topic: Different Types of Writing Systems with a Special Focus on Alphabetic Writing Systems and Alphabetic Literacy

Throughout Western history, the way we communicate has evolved from cave drawings to remarkably complex languages and writing systems. Civilization today is dependent on the written word, of which two main systems are the most widely used: logographic and alphabetic. Deeply enmeshed in our culture, these writing systems have pervaded -- and evolved -- through thousands of years of human history and social transformation. As humanity evolved from the crudest forms of communication to the more advanced linguistics we know today, civilization and society has remained deeply connected to language and how we use it. The changes in writing systems reflect that evolution, moving from pictograms to logograms to syllables. In many ways, language is semiotic, or essentially, it is a system of symbols. To read and write, or be literate, is to derive meaning from these symbols (Olson, 1). Writing is defined as a form of human communication by means of a set of visible marks that are related, by convention, to some particular structural level of language. Yet it is also notational system for representing some level or levels of linguistic form – the words on the page represent sounds and the words they say and hear. Literacy makes it possible to speak our written language, and in turn, written language bears responsibility for injecting the concepts of the properties of speech into the public consciousness (Olson, 1). It is unknown exactly how or when the first writing systems were conceived, yet scholars point to evidence indicating human beings were developing forms of written communications as early as the 2nd millennium BC (Olson, 1). The history of writing is partly, as Olson describes, “a matter of the discovery and representation of these structural levels of spoken language in the attempt to construct an efficient, general and economic writing system capable of serving a range of socially valuable functions” (Olson, 1). Writing has evolved not only in tandem with our spoken language, but as a means of refining and strengthening that spoken language: the two are inextricably linked. By examining two of the major writing systems in contemporary use, logographic and alphabetic, we can better understand how critical the written word is to communication, and how literacy is developed in practitioners of the system. The written word is not necessarily required to communicate in a civilized society. Oral tradition can function perfectly well as a means of communicating, and continues to do so, in many cases. But speech alone is ephemeral: once words are spoken, they can be remembered, but never accessed exactly as they were first given. And human memory is notoriously unreliable. But the written word preserves information—across time and space. Canadian economist Harold Innis makes the notable distinction between writing systems bound “through time,” exemplified by Egyptian hieroglyphics carved in stone, or Akkadian cuneiform incised in clay, and those that bind “across space,” exemplified by the portable papyri used by the Romans (Olson, 4). It wouldn’t be practical to send the Rosetta Stone through the mail, but papyrus on the other hand can be taken from one place to the next. Likewise, leaving a piece of papyrus in the desert for future generations to find is probably not a good idea either. These two methods of preserving information served the society at the time. Indeed, throughout history, the very systems of writing we use have evolved to reflect society’s needs. The systems of writing developed by the Chinese and the Sumerians produced logographic and alphabetic writing systems, respectively. A logographic writing system is also known as an ideographic writing system. It is defined as a writing system in which each symbol represents a complete word or morpheme. The symbols do not indicate the word's pronunciation, only its meaning. Historically, Sumerian cuneiform and Egyptian hieroglyphics were logographic, but today Chinese is the only known writing system in the world that remains logographic. In Chinese writing, many words that sound the same do not have the same meaning. There are many homophones and it is monosyllabic. In order to eliminate this ambiguity and confusion for speakers and learners, the logographic writing system provides one character for one meaning. Therefore when one is reading the logographs, the reader can tell which meaning is in use. A multitude of symbols exist in the Chinese writing system; however according to Olson a literate Chinese person today knows about 4,000 of the most important characters (Olson, 3). From the text of Writing: A writing system, technically referred to as a script or an orthography, consists of a set of visible marks, forms, or structures called characters of graphs that are related to some structure in the linguistic system. Roughly speaking, if a character represents a meaningful unit, such as a morpheme or word, the orthography is called a logographic writing system if it represents a syllable, it is called a syllabic writing system; if a segment of a syllable, it is called a consonantal writing system or an unvocalized syllabary; and if a phoneme, it is called an alphabetic system (Olson, 5). Reading, writing and understanding Chinese is all about placing the words in context. John Man elegantly describes the necessity of language, and where a basic pictogram system fall short in a world of competing cultures, identities and perspectives: Does the image of a figure in a skirt say "female toilet' to a kilt-wearing Scot as surely as it does to trousered Sassenachs? A hard-hat symbol means 'wear hardhats (and if you don't have one get one)', but a wheelchair symbol does not mean 'sit in a wheelchair (and if you don't have one, get one)'. Ambiguities can never be ironed out with pictures alone, because the human brain is not set up to process them as it processes language (Man, 19). Though logographic writing systems dominated many, mostly Eastern, cultures, other, Indo-European cultures such as Semitic, Phoenician, Sumerian, and Greek, developed writing systems based around syllables, also known as alphabetic writing systems. The first writing system consistently based on the sound structure was Linear B, a Mycenaean Greek orthography developed around 1400 BC. Alphabetic writing systems represent the phonological structure of the language. The smallest pronounceable segment of speech is a syllable, but a syllable may be analyzed into the distinctive underlying constituents called phonemes. The Romans borrowed the Greek alphabet to form the Roman, or Latin alphabet. To this day, the majority of language written and spoken in the world continues to use the same 26 letters found in the Roman alphabet, including the words on this page. Language has not just evolved in reaction to the needs of human civilization. In fact, it has also influenced our development and altered the course of our own evolution: from how we read and write, to the creation and evolution of printing technology and even the development of our cognitive faculties and how we perceive that process. "Today, literacy is meant to be the birthright of all, without it no one can be truly part of society," writes Man. Indeed, the knowledge of the written word has become essential for both communicating and participating in the modern economy; literacy rates are seen as a proxy for the success of developed nations. Culturally, it is equated with competence and worthiness within society, and without such knowledge one cannot hope to equally participate. We closely identify literacy with learning (Olson, 1), and indeed, formalized education systems place their primary focus on teaching kids how to read. However, alphabetic literacy encompasses a broader range of interpretive behavior, including comprehension, decoding and contextualizing. The growth and development of literacy and its installation into society have played a crucial role in the chart of Western history. As reading and writing slowly became not only the provenance of the nobility, but trickled down into the masses, more materials for those people to read proliferated, necessitating the invention of new printing techniques and technology. (Olson, 14). Indeed, it encouraged more writing in general and the invention of different types of writing – from the novel to the propaganda pamphlet. The claim that rising literacy levels played a crucial role in shaping “social transformation” is equally compelling: the Protestant Reformation could not have had such a strong impact had the defense of Protestantism not been based on the strict understanding that it was the right of people to read and understand the Bible on their own terms. Taking the role of interpretation out of the hands of the rarified clergy and putting more onus on individual practitioners was a critical part of Protestant thought. Of course, the tension wrought by the reformation, and the broader concept of challenging the Catholic Church would prove to be essential elements in the charting of future events in human history, notably the Enlightenment. Without the Enlightenment, we would not have progressed to making the scientific achievements we take for granted today; without the emphasis placed on individual responsibility in Calvinism, we might not have adopted the cultural norms and adages we do now, and so on, and so forth. Reading and writing have done more than just help us communicate. They have changed the way we live and influenced the course of human events. Compelling claims can be made as well about the relationship between literacy and cognition. The part of the human brain associated with cognitive abilities may develop in different ways depending on whether or not the person is literate and exposed to a system of alphabetic literacy. Studies have shown that learning an alphabetic written language as a child, when the brain is developing at rapid rate, actually changes the way that person communicates, i.e., their person auditory-verbal language system and the part of the brain that govern it, going so far as to suggest that “functional architecture of the brain is modulated by literacy” (Petersson, 4). Lack of literacy can also affect one’s ability to learn secondary languages, even when solely confined to oral skills in that language (Tarone, 26). The brain’s ability to comprehend language function on a variety of levels: what specific skills are required to achieve competency in an alphabetic writing system? As discussed, part of how we understand language is semiotic: words are symbols, associated with meaning; through context, we can piece together what sentences mean. In observing how foreigners being to grasp the English language, researchers found students actively decoding certain words based on the context they were placed, referencing existing information they had in their head and using that to infer meaning from words they may not have known. As Papalia writes: Comprehension, then involves the use of multiple, overlapping strategies. It requires attention, decision-making, and a committal of details to memory, where they interact not only with existing schemata but incoming information. Phonemic awareness is the ability to separate sounds into their smallest units and differentiate them to create meaning. For example, even a small word like house has three distinct phonemes (the “h” sound, the middle vowel sound, and the “s” sound at the end). This principle is critical to reading an alphabetic writing system. Indeed, research continues to point to phonemic awareness as a crucial factor in the acquiring literacy and, in fact, contributes to the reader’s ability to decode (Steinhaus, 12). Literacy is at once more complicated and more intuitive than we realize. We need to know far more than just how to spell in order to read and write—we have to know meanings of words, how they sound, and be able to synthesize meaning based on context. But just as we have evolved to better thrive in our world both our language and our writing systems have evolved to suit our needs. Works Cited Man, John. Alpha Beta: How 26 Letters Shaped the Western World. New York: Wiley, 2000. Print. Olson, David R. "Writing." Encyclopaedia Britannica Online. Encyclopedia Britannica, n.d. Web, 2006. Olson, David R. "Chinese Writing." Encyclopaedia Britannica Online. Encyclopedia Britannica, n.d. Web, 2006. Papalia, Anthony. “Interaction of Reader & Text.” Interactive Language Teaching. Cambridge University Press, 1987. Petersson, KM, A. Reis & M. Ingvar. “Cognitive processing in literate and illiterate subjects: a review of some recent behavioral and functional neuroimaging data.” Scandinavian Journal of Psychology, 42(3), Jul 2001, 251-267. Steinhaus, Patricia. “Nurturing Phonemic Awareness and Alphabetic Knowledge in Pre-kindergartners.” Issues in early childhood education: Curriculum, teacher education, & dissemination of information. 2001. Tarone, Elaine, Martha Bigelow and Kit Hansen. Literacy and Second Language Oracy. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009. Print.