Hostname: page-component-8448b6f56d-tj2md Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-18T03:17:06.232Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Language and Literacy: what writing does to Language and Mind

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  19 November 2008

David R. Olson
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

With the ascendance of new information technologies, the significance of writing has, it seems, slipped from view, in spite of the fact that the conceptual and cognitive implications of the newer technologies is a matter of enthusiastic speculation rather that serious research. On the other hand, it is now reasonably well established that the invention of the first “information” technology, namely writing, has had a profound effect on the ways in which we think about language, the mind, and the world, effects which have taken millenia to unfold. “Effects” is perhaps too strong a term as it is less a matter of how technology affects people than a matter of the ways in which people in different cultures have used and applied the technology and the ways they have altered the technology to suit their purposes. In the West, some of these uses have involved institutional change; thus, to make use of a technology such as writing requires the development of monasteries, schools, and other institutions. Indeed, some of the cognitive effects we usually attribute to schooling are better thought of as consequences or implications of literacy.

Type
Language and Technology
Information
Annual Review of Applied Linguistics , Volume 16 , March 1996 , pp. 3 - 13
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1996

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

UNANNOTATED BIBLIOGRAPHY

Amiet, P. 1980. La glyptique mesopotamienne archaïque. [The written signs of archaic Mesopotamia.] 2nd ed.Paris: Editions du Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique.Google Scholar
Aristotle, . 1938. De Interpretatione. [Trans. Cook, H. P..] London: Loeb Classical Library.Google Scholar
Bertelson, P., de Gelder, B., Tfouni, L. V. and Morais, J.. 1989. The metaphonological abilities of adult illiterates: New evidence of heterogeneity. European Journal of Cognitive Psychology. 1. 239–250.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bloomfield, L. 1933. Language. New York: Holt, Rinehart & Winston.Google Scholar
Carruthers, M. J. 1990. The book of memory: A study of memory in medieval culture. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Clanchy, M. 1993. From memory to written record: England, 1066–1307. Oxford: Blackwell. [First published in 1979.]Google Scholar
Ehri, L. C. 1985. Effects of printed language acquistion on speech. In Olson, D. R., Torrance, N. and Hildyard, A. (eds.) Literacy, language, and learning: The nature and consequences of reading and writing. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 333–367.Google Scholar
Eisenstein, E. 1979. The printing press as an agent of change. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Ferreiro, E. and Teberosky, A.. 1982. Literacy before schooling [Los sistemas de escritura en el desarrollo del nino.] Exeter, NH: Heinemann. [English translation. Original work published 1979; Mexico DF: Siglo Veintiuno Editors.]Google Scholar
Foucault, M. 1970. The order of things. London: Tavistock.Google Scholar
Gaur, A. 1987. A history of writing. London: The British Library. [Paperback ed. Original work published 1984.]Google Scholar
Gombrich, E. 1960. Art and illusion: A study in the psychology of pictorial representation. New York: Bollingen/Pantheon Books.Google Scholar
Green, D. H. 1994. Medieval listening and reading: The primary reception of German literature 800–1300. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Harris, R. 1986. The origin of writing. London: Duckworth.Google Scholar
Larsen, M. T. 1989. What they wrote on clay. In Schousboe, K. and Larsen, M. T. (eds.) Literacy and society. Copenhagen: Centre for Research in the Humanities, Copenhagen University.Google Scholar
Magnusson, E. and Naucler, K.. 1993. The development of linguistic awareness. First Language. 37. 93–112.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mann, V. A. 1986. Phonological awareness: The role of reading experience. Cognition. 24. 65–92.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Morais, J., Alegria, J. and Content, A.. 1987. The relationships between segmental analysis and alphabetic literacy: An interactive view. Cahiers de Psychologie Cognitive. [Cognitive Psycology Records.] 7. 415–438.Google Scholar
Morais, J., Alegria, J. and Content, A., Bertelson, P., Cary, L. and Alegria, J.. 1986. Literacy training and speech segmentation. Cognition. 24. 45–64.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Morais, J., Alegria, J. and Content, A., Cary, L., Alegria, J. and Bertelson, P.. 1979. Does awareness of speech as a sequence of phones arise spontaneously? Cognition. 7. 323–331.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Morrison, K. 1982. The mimetic tradition of reform in the West. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Morrison, K. 1990. History as a visual art in the twelfth-century renaissance. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Olson, D. R. 1994. The world on paper: The conceptual and cognitive implications of writing and reading. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Popper, K. 1972. Objective knowledge: An evolutionary approach. Oxford: Clarendon.Google Scholar
Prakash, P., Rekha, D., Nigam, R. and Karanth, P.. 1993. Phonological awareness, orthography, and literacy. In Scholes, R. (ed.) Literacy and language analysis. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum. 55–70.Google Scholar
Read, C. 1971. Pre-school children's knowledge of English phonology. Harvard Educational Review. 41. 1–34.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Read, C., Zhang, Y., Nie, H. and Ding, B.. 1986. The ability to manipulate speech sounds depends on knowing alphabetic reading. Cognition. 24. 31–44.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Reid, J. F. 1966. Learning to think about reading. Educational Research. 9. 56–62.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Saenger, P. 1991. The separation of words and the physiology of reading. In Olson, D. R. and Torrace, N. (eds.) Literacy and orality. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 198–214.Google Scholar
Saussure, F. de. 1916/1983. Course in general liguistics. London: Duckworth.Google Scholar
Schmandt-Besserat, D. 1992. Before writing. Austin: University of Texas Press.Google Scholar
Scholes, R. J. and Willis, B. J.. 1991. Linguists, literacy, and the intensionality of Marshall McLuhan's Western Man. In Olson, D. R. and Torrance, N. (eds.) Literacy and orality. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 215–235.Google Scholar
Shankweiler, D. and Liberman, I.. 1972. Misreading: A search for causes. In Kavanaugh, J. and Mattingly, I. (eds.) Language by ear and language by eye: The relationships between speech and reading. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 293–317.Google Scholar
Smalley, B. 1941. The study of the Bible in the Middle Ages. Oxford: Clarendon.Google Scholar
stearns, R. P. 1948. Pageant of “Europe”: Sources and selections from the Renaissance to the present day. New York: Harcourt, Brace.Google Scholar
Torrance, N. and Olson, D. R.. 1987. Development of the metalanguage and the acquisition of literacy: A progress report. Interchange. 18. 1/2. 136–146.CrossRefGoogle Scholar