English Education

Speech and writing

Cognitive psychologists treat writing and developments in wring as distinct from speech and general language development.  Some of the reasons for this distinction between speech and writing are as follows:

a.         Written language in most language systems has its own conventions and purpose separate from spoken language.

b.         Written language posits a different relationship between the writer and reader that between the speaker and listener.

c.         Written language may be supported by a kind of thought different from that associated with spoken language.  (Dillon, 1981).

Done Byrne (1997) also agrees with the view that writing is different from speech in a number of ways.  Speech takes place against the background of a situation and much of what we say can be understood from the situation.  Besides the listener is physically present and offers us constant feedback so that we can modify our message to make our meaning clear.  We can also use number of prosadic features like pitch, loudness, rhythm and pauses, as well as, facial expressions and gestures to help the listener understand what we want to convey.  All these facilities are not available to us when we write.

“Writing by contrast, is the whole of the relevant activity and we create the context as we write  . . . there can be no interaction between the writer and reader.  Although we may try to anticipate reactions and build them into the text, we have to sustain the whole process of communication on our own and try to stay in contact with our reader thorough words alone”. (Donn Byrne, 1979: 3)

Though writing seems to be a very difficult activity, it has some definite advantages over speech.  We can write at our speech.  We can write at our own pace while writing whereas in speech we need to have adequate fluency so as not to test the listeners’ patience.  We can also rewrite and revise our sentences and paragraphs till we are satisfied with the result.  The reader can also read at has own pace and reread what we have written as often as he likes.  These advantages of writing can be put to maximum use if we understand the factors that affect written communication.