首页
登录
职称英语
"Speech and Writing" It is a widely held misconcept
"Speech and Writing" It is a widely held misconcept
游客
2025-02-08
15
管理
问题
"Speech and Writing"
It is a widely held misconception that writing is more perfect than speech. To many people, writing somehow seems more correct and more stable, whereas speech can be careless, corrupted, and susceptible to change. Some people even go so far as to identify language with writing and to regard speech as a secondary form of language used imperfectly to
approximate
the ideals of the written language.
→ One of the basic assumptions of modern linguistics, however, is that speech is primary and writing is secondary. The most immediate manifestation of language is speech and not writing. Writing is simply the representation of speech in another physical medium. Spoken language encodes thought into a physically transmittable form, while writing, in turn, encodes spoken language into a physically preservable form. Writing is a two-stage process. All units of writing, whether letters or characters, are based on units of speech, i.e., words, sounds, or syllables. When linguists study language, they take the spoken language as their best source of data and their object of description (except in instances of languages like Latin for which there are no longer any speakers).
There are several reasons for maintaining that speech is primary and writing is secondary. A First, writing is a later historical development than spoken language. B Current archeological evidence indicates that writing was first utilized in Sumer, that is, modern-day Iraq, about 6,000 years ago. C As far as physical and cultural anthropologists can tell, spoken language has probably been used by humans for hundreds of thousands of years. D
→ Second, writing does not exist everywhere that spoken language exists. This seems hard to imagine in our highly literate society, but the fact is that there are still many communities in the world where a written form of language is not used, and even in those cultures using a writing system, there are individuals who fail to learn the written form of their language. In fact, the majority of the Earth’s inhabitants are illiterate, though quite capable of spoken communication. However, no society uses only a written language with no spoken form.
Third, writing must be taught, whereas spoken language is acquired automatically. All children, except children with serious learning disabilities, naturally learn to speak the language of the community in which they are brought up. They acquire the basics of their native language before they enter school, and even if they never attend school, they become fully competent speakers. Writing systems vary in complexity, but regardless of their level of sophistication, they must all be taught.
Finally, neurolinguistic evidence (studies of the brain in action during language use) demonstrates that the processing and production of written language is overlaid on the spoken language centers in the brain. Spoken language involves several distinct areas of the brain; writing uses these areas and others as well.
→ So what gives rise to the misconception that writing is more perfect than speech? There are several reasons. For one thing, the product of writing is usually more aptly worded and better organized, containing fewer errors, hesitations, and incomplete sentences than are found in speech. This perfection of writing can be explained by the fact that writing is the result of
deliberation
, correction, and revision, while speech is the spontaneous and simultaneous formulation of ideas; writing is therefore less subject to the constraint of time than speech is. In addition, writing is ultimately associated with education and educated speech. Since the speech of the educated is more often than not set up as the "standard language," writing is associated indirectly with the varieties of language that people tend to view as "correct." However, the association of writing with the standard variety is not a necessary one, as evidenced by the attempts of writers to transcribe faithfully the speech of their characters. Mark Twain’s Huckleberry Finn and John Steinbeck’s Of Mice and Men contain examples of this, Furthermore, because spoken language is physically no more than sound waves through the air, it is transient, but writing tends to last, because of its physical medium (characters on some surface), and can be preserved for a very long time. Spelling does not seem to vary from individual to individual or from place to place as easily as pronunciation does. Thus, writing has the appearance of being more stable. Spelling does vary, however, as exemplified by the differences between the American ways of spelling gray and words with the suffixes -ize and -ization as compared with the British spelling of grey and -ise and -isation. Writing could also change if it were made to follow the changes of speech. The fact that people at various times try to carry out spelling reforms amply illustrates this possibility. [br] Look at the four squares [■] that show where the following sentence could be inserted in the passage. The Sumerians probably devised written characters for the purpose of maintaining inventories of livestock and merchandise. Where could the sentence best be added? Click on a square [■] to insert the sentence in the passage.
选项
A、Square A.
B、Square B.
C、Square C.
D、Square D.
答案
C
解析
Reference is a transitional device that connects the insert sentence with the previous sentence. The Sumerians in the insert sentence refers to "Sumer" in the previous sentence.
转载请注明原文地址:https://tihaiku.com/zcyy/3947589.html
相关试题推荐
[audioFiles]audio_etoefz_037(20051)[/audioFiles]A、Writingherthesiswaseasier
CarlRoger’sclient-centeredtherapyisnow(widely)employedandisamong(the
[img]2012q1/ct_etoefm_etoefwriteb_2099_20121[/img]IndependentWritingDirec
TheWritingsectiontestsyourabilitytowriteessaysinEnglishsimilarto
[img]2012q1/ct_etoefm_etoefwriteb_1920_20121[/img]IndependentWritingDirection
TheWritingsectiontestsyourabilitytowriteessaysinEnglishsimilarto
"SpeechandWriting"Itisawidelyheldmisconcept
"SpeechandWriting"Itisawidelyheldmisconcept
"SpeechandWriting"Itisawidelyheldmisconcept
"SpeechandWriting"Itisawidelyheldmisconcept
随机试题
Themeetingroomissosmallthatitcanhold20people________.A、atlastB、atf
【S1】[br]【S6】noise→noisesoneortwo按照复数对待,所以后面是noises。
December15(Thursday),BeijingART:YanClubGroupExhibitionGroup
对铜绿假单胞菌感染患者可选用下列哪些药物?()A.红霉素 B.头孢孟多 C
某工厂的一个工作中心有20台相同的设备,生产单一的甲产品,如果生产一件甲产品所需
循行于体前正中线的经脉是A.督脉 B.任脉 C.冲脉 D.阴维脉
证券投资基金财产可以用于()。A:向他人贷款B:从事承担无限责任的投资C:向
可以纳入国家基本药物目录遴选范围的有A.主要用于滋补保健作用,易滥用的品种 B
作为资本市场的直接金融机构,投资银行的基本功能包括()。A、媒介资金供求
对于燃煤发电厂应设室内消火栓的建筑物是()。A.集中控制楼、继电器室 B.主
最新回复
(
0
)