ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses the intellectual functions of written language, as well as its administrative and bureaucratic functions. It discusses the ways in which writing can lead to the increased functional capacity of a language. The chapter speaks that the argument will not be able to progress much further than common-sense discussion, since it is only recently that scholars have begun seriously to consider written language from a functional perspective. One easy way to demonstrate that writing is not speech written down is to compare a close transcript of normal conversation with any piece of written language. Many of the differences in form, particularly in grammar, between spoken and written language are due to different purposes they serve, and are especially due to the rather restricted and specialized functions of most written language. The basic function of a written language, on which other functions logically depend, is what could call the recording or storage function, and hence the transmission function.
