This dissertation is an attempt to analyze language, writing and literature from a purely communication theory viewpoint. The author's analysis draws chiefly upon the works of the so-called Toronto School, above all from those of Harold Innis, Marshall McLuhan and Walter J. Ong. The research of Hungarian professor Kristóf (J. C.) Nyíri is also widely used.

The communication theory approach in the works of the abovementioned authors covers a spectrum from cultural history to social history. This dissertation's scope is less broad; it focuses primarily on the linguistic and literary theory aspects, striving for a systematic analysis of these topics. A constant effort to prove by linguistic means all conclusions made through a philosophical approach has accompanied the writing. On the other hand, I also strive to place well-known linguistic facts, heretofore somewhat overlooked by communication theory, in a philosophical dimension.

However, the goal of my analysis is above all to discover how the evolution of communications technology influenced human language, and through it, human thought. Special attention has been given to the role of writing, as well as that of images, which following the so-called iconic turn play an increasingly important role in human communication.

Chapter 1 attempts to outline the contours of language in its so-called primary orality, i.e., the contours of language which functioned before the invention of writing. This preliterate period -- primary orality -- covers many tens of thousands (perhaps hundreds of thousands) of years, consequently that period's language cannot be described statically, but only as an evolutionary process of human communication. The study of that language state is extremely difficult due to the lack of analyzable linguistic material and conclusions can only be drawn theoretically. Of course this circumstance increases the possibilities of error.

It is probable that the three divisions of communicative features which are postulated by communication science -- extralinguistic features (gestures, mimicry, body language, etc.), suprasegmental linguistic features (analog linguistic features, such as word and sentence intonation, etc.) and segmental linguistic features (words constructed from discrete sound signs) -- functioned intertwined and inseparably as an organic whole until the appearance of writing.

The relative weight of the three abovementioned communication resources constantly changed. The changes probably followed the progression: extralinguistic features --> suprasegmental features --> segmental features.

The appearance of writing became possible only in that relatively advanced evolutionary level of language and its use, in which man's thought was already sufficiently nuanced to realize speech's spatial and temporal limits, and in which man felt a true and pressing need to expand those limits.

For the possibility of cenemic⁽¹⁾ writing systems (systems recording phonetic information) it was also necessary for the relative weight of discrete communicative features to attain a sufficiently high proportion in comparison to the other two communication resources, i.e., in comparison to extralinguistic communication tools and to suprasegmental linguistic resources.

In the last phase of primary orality, some mnemonic techniques for preserving and transferring texts are created; they are characterized above all by the acoustic organization of texts and the use of structural possibilities such as repetition, etc. However, with the passage of time those techniques were less able to satisfy the existing needs, and the realization that they were not efficient enough spurred the search for a more efficient technology.

Chapter 2 deals with writing. Its birth is very likely due to the needs of commerce and governmental administration because, on one hand, commercial contracts had to be fixed in order to prevent cheating; on the other hand, somewhat larger human groups cannot be efficiently organized by mere oral language use.

Writing systems can be classified into two large categories. Pleremic⁽²⁾ writing systems record only semantic information; therefore they in fact bypass spoken language, creating direct contact between the concept represented and writing. One could call them scripts for recording meaning. These in fact function as independent sign systems; one could call them graphical languages. It is only natural that the first writing systems recorded meaning, since the person employing them was interested not in recording language but in recording matters represented by language.

The encounter of writing and language occurs in cenemic writing systems, which record only phonetic information; therefore it is possible to call them writing systems which record sound. In those systems, writing relinquishes its independence and aims to record not matters and concepts themselves, but the already well functioning acoustic sign system: speech. The recognition that recording sound was more efficient than recording meaning became possible only on a relatively high level of thought. The appearance of cenemic writing systems can be regarded as an important step in the evolution of communication.

A hierarchy of values can be established also among the different subsystems of cenemic writing. The place of a concrete writing system in that hierarchy can be defined according to what proportion of the necessary phonetic information can be registered by the system in question, and to what degree it taxes the writer's acoustic memory. Based on that criterion, alphabetic writing is shown to be the most highly evolved writing system. It is possible to divide alphabetic scripts into consonantal writing systems -- used chiefly by Semitic languages -- and fully alphabetic systems. A full alphabet was born in the eighth century B. C. when the Greeks filled out the consonantal alphabet they adopted from the Phoenicians (who spoke a Semitic language) with vowel signs.

The full alphabet is an economic system; it is capable of recording speech by means of a few dozen graphic signs. However, economy comes at a price: it must renounce perfection. With the exception of a few punctuation marks -- such as the question mark, exclamation mark, comma, etc. -- alphabetic writing is incapable of recording suprasegmental linguistic features. In addition, it does not fully record segmental linguistic features; it offers only the minimum information necessary to evoke the sound represented.

The alphabetic ways of writing used for individual languages formed spontaneously; one calls these specific manners of writing orthographies. In practice this spontaneity led to deviations from the system's basic principle. Those deviations resulted in markedly significant differences between the scripts of different languages concerning the quantity of recorded phonetic information. Accordingly, one differentiates between shallow (transparent) orthographies, intermediate orthographies and deep orthographies.

By its nature writing is more permanent than speech, consequently it changes less rapidly. Therefore those languages which have used writing for a long time ordinarily have deep orthography, while one encounters shallow orthography in languages which have begun to use writing relatively recently.

In the initial phase of its diffusion, alphabetic writing had already acquired a certain autonomy from acoustic language. That autonomy is manifested, among other things, by the fact that it is superior to speech vis-à-vis the discretization of linguistic signs and can even influence pronunciation: one calls this phenomenon "spelling pronunciation". At first, people usually regard spelling pronunciation as a pronunciation error but these variations in pronunciation, inspired by writing, after some time gain the status of a pronunciation norm.

While intermediate and deep orthographies offer relatively less phonetic information than shallow orthographies, they can convey a very large quantity of morphological, even lexical information. For that reason the customary practice in schools is to combine the teaching of grammar and spelling. English spelling -- which is typically deep -- in fact exhibits a pleremic character in many cases, although in principle it is cenemic.

The type of writing system used can significantly influence the dissemination of literacy. Such differences can exist even within alphabetic writing, depending on the character of the orthographies employed. Ordinarily it is less easy to learn a deep orthography than a shallow one.

Chapter 3 briefly treats the history of writing's social use and its intensive evolution.

Section 3.1 presents a concise history of the dimensions of writing's application. The dimensions of that application essentially define the influence that writing may have on the processes and structure of human society. Section 3.2 analyzes the history of writing technique.

A large part of writing's several thousand-year history is characterized by limited use. Periods of regression and diminution often interrupt the tendency towards writing's continual diffusion.

The intensive, qualitative evolution of writing in every age shows a strict connection with its extensive, quantitative progress: namely, the extent of actual usage. The demands resulting from widespread use can cause internal perfection, which always meant greater efficiency. On the other hand, greater efficiency -- i.e., simplification -- of writing technique was able to stimulate its broader application. The technical evolution of writing instruments, as well as that of the material on which people wrote, also significantly influenced the process of writing's internal perfection.

The invention of printing is a milestone in writing's evolution both from a quantitative and qualitative viewpoint. The increase in readable texts and also a reduction in their price accelerated the quantitative evolution, the spread of writing's use. Printing influenced writing's intensive evolution through its use of lead type, which brought dramatic uniformity to the letters' shapes, thereby causing greater abstraction of the writing system. This uniformity gave great impetus also to language's process of discretization (which has already been alluded to several times); whereas handwriting still preserved some features of analog signs, the uniform letters of lead type can be considered fully digital.

It is worth noting that people encountered the uniform letter shapes of printed texts only as readers; as writers they continued to write by hand, i.e., with letters which were less uniform, less abstract, always bearing individual traits. This changed with the invention of the typewriter at the end of the nineteenth century. The typewriter played a very significant role in the acceleration of that process which led to an even greater discretization of speech. By means of the typewriter, discretization also entered into man's active language use; while typing one constantly differentiates, divides language elements into particles.

Electronic -- computer -- writing is the pinnacle of discretization, as it were, and at the same time the reduction of linguistic information: it can form one phoneme's graphic sign with only seven bits of information. The use of word processing also influences the text's genesis; in electronically created texts, the structural models of spoken and typographic texts intermingle.

Chapter 4 deals with the relationships between writing and language. Essentially writing was born to spread the possibilities of language function, i.e., to serve language, but in addition writing also significantly influences language.

Writing does not perfectly record acoustic language; in fact, it significantly reduces it. Above all this reduction affects language's suprasegmental elements and in this way, writing in fact impoverishes language.

In a written text, one must segmentally encode all those meanings which spoken language expresses by suprasegmental resources. This need causes the enrichment of segmental linguistic resources. The impoverishment with regard to suprasegmental resources causes, in turn, an enrichment of segmental resources. Therefore as intonation flattens and becomes monotonic, simultaneously the lexicon becomes more extensive.

Written language use ordinarily occurs in a communication situation which is very different from that which characterizes spoken language use. Since writing is not interactive, a mandatory requirement is to make word meanings precise and to provide a clear context. As a result the process of discretization, which has long been evolving in the acoustic dimension of language, also appears in its semantic dimension; complex word meanings must at least in part become separate.

The discretization of meanings -- and also of course the constant creation of new meanings -- leads to a deficiency of signs. Language users solve the problem chiefly by the creation of new word forms, or by metaphoric use of already existing word forms.

Writing's inability to record suprasegmental linguistic features, as well as a communication situation which differs from that of spoken language use, means that writing has evolved from the role of mere recorder of speech to a more or less autonomous form of language use. A written text differs from a spoken text above all by its abstractness: "writing is the algebra of speech." Writing, as a specific linguistic technology, enables man to concentrate his intellectual potential to a high degree; one can indeed create a written text over an extended period of time, if desired, whereas one creates a spoken text at the same time one pronounces it.

The relationship between writing and speech is characterized by constant interference. As a result of this interference, writing makes speech more precise; in turn, speech prevents written language from becoming too abstract, from becoming overly severed from its prototype: spoken language. Writing is an irreplaceable force in linguistic evolution, i.e., a growth in language's expressive power.

Due to the abovementioned interference, the relationship of a written and spoken text is not characterized solely by opposition: one must distinguish between the medial and conceptual dimensions. Texts possessing characteristic features of spoken text structures may exist also in written form, and on the other hand, spoken texts may also be constructed according to the principles for creating written text. Whereas from the viewpoint of medium, texts show a clear opposition -- a text is either written or spoken -- from the conceptual viewpoint no such opposition exists. Texts can be placed on a continuum which is labelled "very spoken" at one extreme, and "very written" at the other. The latter category includes, for example, texts of laws and legal texts generally.

Thanks to the interference between writing and speech, human language can be simultaneously precise and rich in meaning, and therefore it is a communication tool which is well suited to the dual character of human nature.

Chapter 5 deals with the relation between writing and belles-lettres. Belles-lettres is, from the perspective of both quantity and quality, perhaps the most important form of writing which exists. Quantitatively because for centuries, the majority of the printed texts which people encountered were belletristic texts. Qualitatively because public opinion (and in part also science itself) regards literature as the principal accomplishment of writing and language. Public opinion tends to ascribe -- not entirely correctly -- value or lack of value to a language based on whether it possesses an extensive corpus of high quality literature.

The name for belles-lettres in every European language is linked to writing, i.e., to letters. Therefore some scholars believe that the concept "spoken literature" is a contradiction in terms. However, the majority accept that spoken literature can also exist.

Spoken and written literature differ from each other in at least two ways. The first difference is that spoken literature is characteristic of langue (in the Saussurean sense) and as such it is under rigorous community censorship both in terms of content and form. In contrast, written literature is characteristic of parole (in the same terminological sense) and in this way the appearance of individual preferences is possible, both from the viewpoint of content and form. The second difference between spoken and written literature results from the dissimilar origins of spoken and written texts: a written text can contain more complex meanings.

Belles-lettres is a specific, risk-free form of communication because in practice no negative consequences result if the message is not understood. This "quasi-communicative" situation offers writers vast terrain for linguistic experimentation. Thanks to these experiments, the limits of linguistic expression are continually expanding. Verbalization techniques created in this way can also enrich nonliterary language use.

The expansion of linguistic expression is the fruit of the writer's struggle with language; that struggle is directed, above all, against linguistic poverty. In that struggle one of the writer's most effective weapons is the creation of metaphors. At the turn of the twentieth century, a new phenomenon impeding literary creation makes an appearance: it is the "semantic pollution" of words, fixed (or rigid) word meanings which make it impossible for the writer to express his own ideas through words.

The fight against fixed word meanings is practically ineffectual, as it is impossible to cleanse words of "semantic pollution." Modern literature is progressively losing its referential character; language becomes an exclusive actor of the literary work, which in fact is created not by the author but by the fixed word meanings. Earlier periods in literary history, in which parole constantly nourished langue, could be characterized by the label "literature creating language." In the modern and especially the postmodern literary period, that label changes to "language creating literature." In the latter period it is almost as if langue paralyzes parole, parole becomes decrepit at the mere concreteness of one of langue's facets. In this period, interference between literary and nonliterary language use almost completely ceases.

Originally a literary text was oral both in medium and in conception. In antiquity all works were created for aural perception; if the text was written at all, it was done only to preserve it or to read it aloud. After the invention of print and the resultant diffusion of writing and reading ability, a conceptual literacy characterized the literary texts being created. In that period, silent reading appeared on a wider scale, and in this way a literary text becomes purely written, both from the medial and conceptual viewpoint. As a reaction to this, at the turn of the nineteenth century a conscious shift towards spoken language and the products of oral culture occurs.

The prelude to that process is the appearance of sentimentalism; however, its full development occurs in the Romantic period. An important result of the process is that several traits of conceptual orality -- such as the complexity of word meanings, for example -- become a criterion of literary value. However, the return to the ideals of orality is not absolute; for almost a century and a half, literature provided excellent examples of the synthesis of spoken and written procedures for creating texts.

It is worth noting that written literature elaborated a very good technique to make linguistic acousticity virtually appear in writing. That virtual acousticity also appears in postmodern literary texts and that fact can serve as a source for the renewal of interference between literary and nonliterary language use.

Chapter 6 deals with the new secondary orality, following which the realm of writing's application shrinks. Secondary orality is Walter J. Ong's term; he uses it to label the phenomenon in which spoken language's efficiency increases, thanks to the perfection of the technical tools used to record sound and image. This orality markedly differs from the primary orality of the pre-writing period; in the background of secondary orality, writing is ever present as an auxiliary and checking factor.

It must be noted that oral language use has had unbroken continuity ever since language originated. Writing monopolized only a few prestigious linguistic fields, such as science, law, etc. In other realms, speech preserved its preeminent position; its role in education, religious life and politics was unshaken. It should also be remembered that spoken language was the medium of daily communication among people, thus its preponderance was always preserved, even if its prestige declined.

The technical tools whose appearance gave birth to secondary orality also brought about that linguistic unity which writing had accomplished earlier in written language use. In particular, radio greatly contributed to the spread of the limits of linguistic expression, because it constantly had to verbally portray different sensory experiences, among which were many things which had never before been expressed through language. Sound recording and broadcasting tools conquered important territory in language use for themselves; however, they did not significantly dislodge writing's position. The growth in general education (which radio, for example, brought about) even contributed somewhat to the spread of writing's intensive application.

In contrast to this, image-recording devices -- above all motion pictures, simultaneously recording image and sound, and later television, which is capable of forwarding these recordings to an infinite number of addressees -- deprived not only writing but also language of important functions. Much which could previously be communicated only with the help of linguistic formulations, was now capable of being shown very realistically. Therefore we may also rightfully call the period of secondary orality a period of iconicity, since indeed images take on an unprecedented status and importance on all levels of human communication.

Developing economic processes -- above all the growth of the relative weight of the service sector, a sector requiring the most abundant communication -- made the diffusion of the ability to write absolutely necessary. This lead to the practical elimination of illiteracy in the majority of developed countries. Other factors -- such as the increase in telephones and computers -- produced opposite consequences: a large part of mankind does not need writing in its work. A new phenomenon, functional illiteracy, arose from these circumstances. Functional illiteracy occurs when people who once learned to write and read, largely lose those abilities a certain amount of time after their school years.

For a long time most people's main contact with writing was pleasure reading -- above all the reading of literature. Motion pictures and especially television have practically eliminated reading as a pastime because it has been shown that it is less tiring to satisfy our thirst for fiction through visual culture, i.e., cinematic and television films. This circumstance has resulted in the fact that in developed countries, approximately one-third of adults cannot adequately write and read to meet the needs of daily life, although at one time they received basic instruction in these skills.

The preservation of the general ability to write and read cannot be imagined without a renaissance in pleasure reading. The current concept of teaching literature in the schools is unsuitable for bringing about such a rebirth, therefore a radical change in this concept is needed. Obviously the change should begin in our Schools of Education.

Chapter 7 is dedicated to examining the question of whether writing's role in the economic, social and cultural evolution of mankind has truly been overestimated, as many have argued.

Opinions are sharply polarized. On one hand, theories such as the "Great Divide" or the "Grand Dichotomy" state that the application of writing radically changes human thought. On the other hand, the so-called "Continuity" theories state that it is impossible to demonstrate significant differences between the mental and intellectual capabilities and activities of literate and illiterate people. Adherents of the Continuity theory say that the followers of the Great Divide theory enormously overestimate writing's influence.

The best known representative of the Great Divide theory is Marshall McLuhan. According to him, all the results and achievements of Western civilization and culture stem from the alphabetic writing system and from the invention of print; the latter greatly expanded writing's sphere of influence. There are also more moderate representatives of the Great Divide theory than McLuhan; they say only that the differences between people's modes of thought in literate and nonliterate societies are shown to be always greater than the differences between the modes of thought of two literate people educated in literate societies.

The adherents of the Continuity theory ordinarily regard an archaic (or mythical, to use another term) mode of thought -- such a mode of thought characterizes nonliterate societies -- as being of equal rank with a rational mode of thought. They simultaneously deny any link between the characteristic modes of thought and the use of writing. The Continuity theory exhibits many traits similar to the concepts of cultural relativism.

According to the basic thesis of this dissertation, writing influences thought not directly but through language. The phases of language evolution before and after writing's invention are regarded as a uniform, continuous line; therefore in that sense, no division exists in principle between the preliterate and literate periods. However, the appearance of writing drastically accelerates the process of discretization, which was always the principal trait of linguistic evolution on the acoustic, semantic and syntactic level. Therefore in practice the appearance of writing truly gives an impetus never seen before to the evolution of language, and by this also to the evolution of thought.

After print was invented, the most important realm of our contact with writing is reading. Due to the dramatic increase in readable texts, the typical earlier practice of reading aloud relinquished its place to the greatly faster practice of silent reading. The increase in reading speed, in turn, intensified the influence of the more conceptually ordered and more abstract written texts on human thought. In that sense, therefore, McLuhan's thesis concerning the enormous significance of the invention of print can be regarded as quite right.

The essential factor, however, is writing and not print; the latter merely spread in great measure the effectiveness of the former. It can be easily demonstrated that all these elements of human thought, which caused the technical, economic and cultural ascendancy of Western civilization during the last two and a half centuries, somehow stem from those aspects of language evolution which were begotten precisely by the application of writing. Therefore writing's role in the evolution of human thought cannot be underestimated. If writing disappeared from our lives, it would very probably lead to an intense impoverishment of language and thought.

Chapter 8 attempts to analyze some theories and predictions concerning the future evolution of human communication.

We call the period in which written and printed text no longer hold a monopoly on communication and on the preservation of human knowledge the postliterate period. Even in the postliterate period, however, writing does not completely disappear. Theories which predict writing's complete disappearance from human life foresee that once speech has been deprived of the regulatory influence of writing, it will become infinitely chaotic, will lose moderation and will become unsophisticated.

Human thought functions primarily by means of images and only secondarily by abstract words. The need to communicate forced man to use words; he did not know how to make pictures and consequently did not know how to communicate the elements of his consciousness in its original -- pictorial -- form. Communicating man began using symbolic acoustic signs (words) instead of analogous/iconic images only because he lacked a better solution. Words required a reduction and simplification of the element of consciousness to be communicated. The imposed use of words necessarily influenced thought itself.

The so-called "iconic turn" was brought about by the significant progress which man attained in the field of the manufacture and broadcast of images. Of course, he made full use of this progress in his communication and in this way communication's character moved nearer to the original nature of human thought.

Man's original environment in the preliterate period was typically multimedial; he perceived the world equally through hearing, smell, touch, sight and taste -- an existence with a harmonious balance of the senses. Only the appearance of writing and its consequent hegemony on communication made that environment more -- although not completely -- monomedial.

The iconic turn brought about efforts that wish to give a primary role to images, not only in the field of communicating sense-based elements of consciousness, but also communicating more abstract contents which are fruits of linguistic or supralinguistic -- purely conceptual -- thought.

Those efforts can in no way be successful. By their nature, images possess a sensory and concrete character, in contrast to the more abstract elements of linguistic thought. This contrast is even more pronounced with regard to the elements of supralinguistic, conceptual thought -- for those elements are indeed purely abstract, unapproachable by the senses. The efforts' success in giving a hegemonic role to images in communication would cause a sort of iconic-visual-sensory monomediality which would likewise contrast with the threefold nature -- sensory-linguistic-conceptual -- of human thought, just as the monomediality of writing-dominated culture contrasted with it.

At the moment it appears that the most adequate form of communication for man's mode of feeling and thought can be a multimediality linked to hypertext. Such a combination can most intimately adapt itself to human needs in general, and more specifically, to the nature of typical communications in regard to both the intended sense organs and the codes applied.

Chapter 9 is an appendix which contains the results of word-frequency studies.

A given text's richness in word forms -- the so-called type-token ratio -- is not the sole criterion of linguistic richness but it is an important component of it and furthermore is the sole component which can be measured precisely.

The goal of these investigations was to check -- and if possible, to support -- some of the theoretical assertions made in previous chapters. The primary goal was to find supporting evidence for the thesis that, with the passage of time, language evolution and human thought attain higher and higher levels, and therefore the verbal richness of texts grows.

In this chapter figures from 82 text analyses are used. Of that number, 42 were done by the author; 40 others were drawn from different sources. (The texts are in Hungarian, Latin, English, French, Spanish and Russian). The text lengths are very different; they vary between 264 and 544,000 words. Many of my own analyses were conducted using 274-word or 1000-word texts respectively. The choice of 274 words aimed to be comparable with the first complete Hungarian text, "Halotti beszéd" ("Sermon over the Sepulcher"). One thousand words is a round number which is very often used in these sorts of analyses.

The heterogeneity of the texts' languages and lengths makes it impossible to draw scientific conclusions. However, a comparison of the figures appears to confirm the accuracy of the theoretically based hypotheses in two aspects. First, it was shown that with the passage of time -- at least until the end of the nineteenth century -- the verbal richness of texts does indeed grow, even if a few exceptions exist. (Although it is almost always possible to find a plausible explanation for these exceptions). Secondly, it was proven that literary text forms -- such as description, for example -- which arose only after writing began to be used, are richer in word forms than narrative and dialogic text forms which are clearly linked to spoken language use.

The basic character of this dissertation is theoretical but its goal is essentially very practical: namely, to direct our attention to the not very rapid, but constant and apparently unstoppable reduction in writing's application. The author has wished to scientifically demonstrate that the disappearance of writing from human life would be much more than a mere change in communication technology. Language arose because man was incapable of creating a more perfect medium of communication; likewise writing exhibits several symptoms of imperfection -- but paradoxically, precisely those imperfections educed from man that which later became the basis of his miraculous career. This dissertation wishes to inspire the notion that man must consciously intervene in this already begun, spontaneously evolving process in order to avoid losing his greatest achievement and most powerful weapon: the ability to think.

Translated from the Esperanto by David Pardue

University of Kansas Libraries

Lawrence, Kansas, USA