Tuesday, 12 October 2010

Reflections on writing: the four statements

According to the statements given in class, writing is the means through which speech can be transmitted and preserved. I consider really accurate this assertion, for human beings writing is a necessity in order to preserve knowledge even though speech can also transmit what people have in their minds. Knowledge through speech would remain alive as long as the society keep strong the oral tradition as a fundamental practice to access knowledge, transmit cultural values and social organization. However, speech can not record every single detail of the complexities of new social and economic organizations. In this place appears writing, to serve as a means for the constant development of societies.
Since the practice of writing uses different kind of tools, it can be understood as a technology, but in my view is not artificial. I do believe writing is a technology in the sense that its beginnings were quite primitive, from pictures to scripts, and finally we have improved it. Writing is a technology because it has helped us to access knowledge, to share thoughts with other people, to develop new tools, to expand ideologies. Therefore, writing is not artificial just because of authentic origins, the development of writing was not planned to imitate nature but to improve social relationships. It is natural the need of humans to socialize, then writing is natural because of its social function for human beings.
Although some people believe writing destroys the ability to memorize and weakens thought and those who use it tend to forget as they rely on an exterior mechanism in order to remember, I personally disagree with this statement because writing demands complex processes of the brain in which the writer increases consciousness that allows him to internalize a complete view of the subject matter in a meaningfully way. For this simple reason, memorize words is worthless when what is being memorized does not have any significance for the writer.
Writing establishes a context- free language as opposed to the context-linked language in orality. When a writer is building a text he/she needs to establish the purpose of the text and consider the audience for it in order to explain in a comprehensive way what his/her thoughts are. Because of this, the reader could not question directly or interact with the writer, in this situation the reader must start using the complex functions of thought and develop new strategies to understand what the text says. This mutuality sets up the real importance of these two practices for society; it encourages people to think about the other, to use many mental processes in which the brain strengthens.

2 comments:

  1. I'd like to know what comes to your mind when you think in the adjective "artificial".

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