ABSTRACT
Writing, we propose to argue, accounts for nothing less than the discovery of language. By “discovery” we do not wish to make the absurd claim that writing preceded speech either historically or developmentally but rather the plausible claim that writing is instrumental in making language an object of consciousness, of turning language into an object of thought. Franz Boas (1911) early in this century noted the unconscious character of language, unique among cultural inventions. One has to be taught to dance, sing or read but language is just picked up more or less automatically by children. Chomsky has made much of this insight although as Bruner (1983) and Nelson (1996) have shown even if easily picked up, it is picked up because of the supportive, intentional environment provided by adults. Because speech is more or less automatic and unconscious, theorists and educators, prior to the 20th Century, thought about language primarily in terms of the written form with speech being seen as “a tongue” or as “a loose and unruly possession of the people” (Illich 1982). One learned their proper language by becoming literate, by being taught to “speak grammatically” or to “speak in whole sentences”. Grammar was prescriptive grammar, the special expertise of the grammar teacher.
