Stylistics 6

Long before they developed writing, human beings produced graphic representations of the objects that surrounded them. The drawings and paintings that prehistoric people produced – like the cave paintings in Spain, France, the Sahara Desert – are representations of real life objects, not the words that represent these objects, though they contained the seeds of writing. At first people would communicate by using drawings.
3. Monologue? Spoken – No Written – Yes




4. Public? Spoken – No Written – Yes
-- Markers of informality -- Markers of formality

Suggested Distinctions Amongst Modes of Discourse




Though language is involved in both spoken and written communication, the two channels are fundamentally different in nature: Speaking developed in us, but we had to invent writing; Speaking has been with us hundred of millennia, but writing for only a few; Every physically and mentally healthy human being knows how to speak, but writing is an advanced technology, some might say a luxury.



In time, certain stylized representations of objects, like the drawing of 太阳 came to be associated with the words for those objects, this is what is called the primary symbolization. The drawing of 太阳, originally representing the sun as an object or concept, in time could have come to be associated with the sound of the word 太阳 – with [taiyang]. This use of a written symbol to represent a sound is the secondary symbolization, which is a great leap forward, a staggering leap in imagination, probably made only once in human history.

Crystal has an interesting classification of texts into Speech, Writing, and Mixed Medium. Within these sections there are further subdivisions.
SPEECH To be heard a. Now (the norm) b. Later (telephone answering machine) To be written down a. as if spoken （magazine interview） b. as if written (dictation of a letter) To be unheard (sotto voice speech) WRITING To be read (the norm) To be read aloud a. as if spoken （TV scripts） b. as if written (TV news-reading) MEDIUM MIXING (e.g. a lecturer talking about material that is written on the board or on a handout) --- simplified from Crystal 1995:292

As early as 3000 BC, the Egyptians had developed their own writing system. Around 2500 BC, writing also appeared in the valley of the Indus. Around 2000 BC, the Chinese began using pictograms as symbols for words rather than concepts. By 1500 BC, the world’s most technologically complex civilizations had developed systems to commit spoken language to visual representation. Use of literacy as a recording tool and as a means to communicate at a distance, could be more secure, more confidential, more good for building and maintaining large states: recording laws, transmitting orders, storing data on the citizenry.





Table of Difference Between Spoken and Written Language MEDIUM-RELATED LINGISTIC ASPECTS CHARACTERISTICS 1. Channel limitation？ Spoken---No ---Inexplicitness Written---Yes ---Explicitness 2. Prepared? Spoken---No (1) Normal non-fluency (impromptu) (2) Lack of clear sentence boundaries, simple and loose (3)Lack of precision and novelty in word choice

speaking
spontaneously non-spontaneously writing


Written---Yes (Prepared)
(1) Fluency (2) Clear sentence boundaries, complex and compact structure (3) More careful choice of words
-- Monitoring, interaction features -- No features like above
Hale Waihona Puke There are several types of writing systems in use today. In syllabic writing(音节制语言), symbols represent syllables, such as The Vai, The Tamil; in logographic writing(语标制语言), symbols represent morphemes or words, such as Chinese; and in alphabetic writing (字母制语言), symbols represent phonemes, such as Russian. As early as 3500 and 2600 BC, writing occurred between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers known as Mesopotamia, from which writing appears to have spread both south and east.
Stylistics 6
Spoken vs Written Style

Human beings have possessed the ability to speak for hundreds of thousands of years. It arose as a part of our intellectual developments during evolution and as a response to the need to communicate as efficiently as these intellectual developments allowed. In contrast, writing was invented only recently. Human beings have been able to represent speech for a mere five or six thousand years. Even today many people go through life without ever learning to read and write.