The Alphabet and the Brain: The Lateralization of Writing

455 Pages·1988·7.42 MB·English

by  Derrick de Kerckhove

Derrick de Kerckhove
Charles 1. Lumsden (Eds.)
The Alphabet
and the Brain
The Lateralization of Writing
With 59 Figures
Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg GmbH
Associate Professor DERRICK DE KERCKHOVE
Co-Director
The McLuhan Program in Culture and Technology
University of Toronto
39A Queen's Park Circle
Toronto, Ontario M5S IAI, Canada
Associate Professor CHARLES 1. LUMSDEN
Sociobiology Research Group
Department of Medicine
University of Toronto
Medical Sciences Building, Room 7313
Toronto, Ontario M5S lA8, Canada
ISBN 978-3-662-01095-2 ISBN 978-3-662-01093-8 (eBook)
DOI 10.1007/978-3-662-01093-8
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data. The Alphabet and the Brain. I. Alpha
bet. 2. Writing. 3. Neuropsychology. 4. Laterality. 5. Cerebral Dominance. l. De Kerckhove,
Derrick. II. Lumsden, Charles 1., 1949-
QP399.A435 1988 152.3'35 87-23351
ISBN 978-3-662-01095-2
This work is subject to copyright. All rights are reserved, whether the whole or part of the
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© Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 1988
Originally published by Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 1988
Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 1988
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Preface
This book is a consequence of the suggestion that a major key to
ward understanding cognition in any advanced culture is to be
found in the relationships between processing orthographies, lan
guage, and thought. In this book, the contributors attempt to take
only the first step, namely to ascertain that there are reliable con
stancies among the interactions between a given type of writing and
specific brain processes. And, among the possible brain processes
that could be investigated, only one apparently simple issue is being
explored: namely, whether the lateralization of reading and writing
to the right in fully phonemic alphabets is the result of formalized
but essentially random occurrences, or whether some physiological
determinants are at play.
The original project was much more complicated. It began with
Derrick de Kerckhove's attempt to establish a connection between
the rise of the alphabetic culture in Athens and the development of
a theatrical tradition in that city from around the end of the 6th
century B.c. to the Roman conquest. The underlying assumption,
first proposed in a conversation with Marshall McLuhan, was that
the Greek alphabet was responsible for a fundamental change in
the psychology of the Athenians and that the creation of the great
tragedies of Greek theatre was a kind of cultural response to a con
dition of deep psychological crisis. Thus, if a causal connection
could be shown between alphabetic literacy and the development of
theatrical phenomena, then theatre could be understood as a privi
leged cultural medium to work out cognitive and emotional solu
tions to the reorganization of the Greek and later the whole West
ern mind set. It should be noted that the subsequent Western
theatrical tradition ranges all the way from the late Middle Ages
and the Renaissance to our present "audio-visual era."
The editors hope to return eventually to this line of investi
gation. However, at the time, it appeared impossible to deal ad
equately with such vast issues without first establishing a scientific
basis for the hypothesis. It became necessary to narrow the focus of
the research to a single core issue, that of the lateralization of the
Greek alphabet. Even so, as simple and straightforward as this
question may appear, it does not automatically evoke un
controversial evidence or answers.
VI Preface
Obviously, it was difficult to be informed and persuasive in the
exact sciences with a background in literature and the sociology of
art. A first attempt at bringing scientists and humanities scholars to
bear upon the issue took the form of a day colloquium on "neuro
cultural research," that is, research focusing on the interactions be
tween the human nervous system and technological or cultural en
vironments, at St. Michael's College (University of Toronto), in
May 1982. The second effort was made during a colloquium on
McLuhan in December 1983 at the Canadian Cultural Centre in
Paris. A special section of the colloquium was devoted to neuro
cultural research, and specifically to the issue of literacy and the
brain, with papers from Professors lean-Pierre Changeux, Michel
Imbert, Andre Roch Lecours, Derrick de Kerckhove, Lynd For
guson, and Anthony Wilden. The proceedings of the colloquium
were eventually published by the Canadian Commission for
Unesco. Though the publication was well received, it did not attract
much attention from the scientific community because it stood
somewhere between the humanities and the exact sciences.
The solution came from joining forces with Charles Lumsden,
who took interest in the project because he saw in the specific issue
under discussion a possible indicator of a co-evolutionary pattern
between genetic and cultural trends and constraints. Indeed, the
area of interface between the human body and mind and the social
environments created by human technologies may be best repre
sented by writing systems, if only because writing is a formal code
which represents language outside the human body, presumably
along some of the lines of linguistic representations within the body
- i. e., thought.
It is surprising that it has taken so long to address the issue of
formal codes in terms of evolutionary biology. It is even more sur
prising that in the heyday of talks about the "two sides of the
brain," when scientists and media would vie to find ways to divide
the world in left and right, few people seemed to have been very
concerned with the fact that in the West, people write from left to
right, as if it were a natural thing. Regarding the particular im
pression that Western cultures were prone to favour what were
deemed to be "left-hemisphere" approaches to general information
processing, problem solving, and social organization, there were a
lot of conjectures, but precious little firm evidence to support
claims. This is partly why both editors felt to an equal degree the
need to explore the issue by concentrating their attention on the
structural features of the single most important system of processing
information in their own cultural environment.
We have called upon scholars from different fields to ask their
opinion on the principal issues relevant to the basic hypothesis. The
Preface VII
key areas were provisions in the human body for different levels of
biological adaptation, historical development of orthographies, re
lationships between the structure of specific languages and the
structure of their writings systems, relevant neuropsychological in
vestigations to date, and finally, the working out of the basic hy
pothesis from different angles.
Thus, what began as an unpublished monograph on theatre and
the alphabet in Athens has now become a collection of scientific
essays. Our first words of thanks must go to the contributors, who
devoted time, effort, and attention to an issue that was presented to
them often as a challenge outside the immediate focus of their
specialty. And before anything else, the editors would like to pay
tribute to many people who, for editorial or other reasons, do not
appear among the contributors, but who have helped the project
along at various stages. Two workshops, one in Paris at the Canadi
an Cultural Centre and the other in Toronto at the McLuhan Pro
gram were held in April and July 1985 during the planning stages of
the book. Our thanks go to Professors Michel Imbert, Lynd For
guson, Brian Stock, Sandra Witelson, as well as to the regretted
Paul Kolers, all of whom attended these workshops and have sub
sequently spent valuable time with us to guide the project along the
way. Other supporters and collaborators of the project have includ
ed, at different times, in different places, sometimes in person,
sometimes by mail, Professors Jean Saint-Cyr, Morris Moscovitch,
Jacques Mehler, Louis Holtz, Denise Schmandt-Besserat, and Al
fonso Caramazza. The editors have also benefited from suggestions
and comments from Professors Karl Pribram, Diane McGuinness,
Anthony Wilden, Marcel Kinsbourne, E. B. Hunt, and Daniel
Schacter. A special mention should go to Sally Grande, who, as an
informal volunteer researcher in the literature on the brain, sharing
a fascination for literacy iIi early Greek culture with the editors, has
provided much needed support and information especially in the
early stages of neuro-cultural research. Some of the contributors
themselves have gone extra lengths. Professor Insup Taylor, Jean
Luc Nespoulous, and David Olson, for example, carefully reread
manuscripts pertaining to their fields in order to offer valuable
suggestions. Professor Bhatt kindly provided translations for the
papers of Jean-Pierre Changeux, Claude Hagege, Robert Lafont,
Baudouin Jurdant, Jean-Luc Nespoulous, Andre Roch Lecours, and
Collette Sirat.
In addition to the diligent work of our publishing team at
Springer including Thomas Thiek6tter, Janet Hamilton, and Susan
Kentner, the production of the book required considerable prep
aration and revisions. For these, we are especially thankful to Ann
Stilman, our copy editor, Cassie Rivers, who helped with proof-
VIII Preface
reading and indexing and Sylvia Wookey, who, along with the
Membrane Biology Group and Ann Hansen at the McLuhan Pro
gram did much of the time-consuming administrative and office
work.
Another aspect of book production today is the rising cost of
pre-production. We want to thank last, and certainly not least, insti
tutions and individuals who have supported the project financially
and without whom it could not have been carried to term.
Of the institutional support received, we would like to acknowl
edge that of the University of Toronto's General Research Grant
and the Connaught Development Fund Grant for general editorial
expenses. A travel grant from the Canadian Ministry of External
Affairs also contributed to the Paris meeting. Some expenses for
supplies and secretarial help were borne by the McLuhan Program
in Culture and Technology, the Canadian Cultural Centre in Paris,
and the Membrane Biology Group at the University of Toronto. Let
them be thanked for this. Weare also truly indebted to the people
who have taken enough personal interest in the project to help sup
port it financially. Among these, may we thank in closing Ms.
Catherine Harris, Professor Robin Harris, Mrs. Dorothy Dunlop,
and the late Janet Underwood.
Toronto, May 1988 DERRICK DE KERCKHOVE
CHARLES J. LUMSDEN
Contents
General Introduction 1
Part I Biological Foundations 15
Introductory Remarks . . . . . . 15
Chapter 1 Gene-Culture Coevolution: Culture and Biology
in Darwinian Perspective .
CHARLES 1. LUMSDEN (With 4 Figures) 17
Chapter 2 Learning and Selection in the Nervous System
JEAN-PIERRE CHANGEUX ......... 43
Chapter 3 Neuronal Group Selection:
A Basis for Categorization by the Nervous System
LEIF H. FINKEL (With 3 Figures) . . . . . .. 51
Part 2 The Evolution of Writing Systems 71
Introductory Remarks . . . . . . . . . . 71
Chapter 4 Writing: The Invention and the Dream
CLAUDE HAGEGE ...... . 72
Chapter 5 The Origin of the Greek Alphabet
JOSEPH NA VEH ....... . 84
Chapter 6 Relationships Between Speech and Writing Systems
in Ancient Alphabets and Syllabaries
ROBERT LAFONT . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 92
Chapter 7 Graphic Systems, Phonic Systems, and Linguistic
Representations
PARTH M. BHATT (With 2 Figures) . . . . . . 106
x Contents
Part 3 Writing Right and Left 121
Introductory Remarks . . . . . . 121
Chapter 8 Canons of Alphabetic Change
WILLIAM C. WATT (With 4 Figures) . . . 122
Chapter 9 Logical Principles Underlying the Layout
of Greek Orthography
DERRICK DE KERCKHOVE ....... .. 153
Chapter 10 The Material Conditions of the Lateralization
of the Ductus
COLETTE SIRAT (With 16 Figures) . . . . .. 173
Chapter 11 Psychology of Literacy: East and West
INSUP TAYLOR (With 2 Figures) 202
Part 4 Neuropsychological Considerations 235
Introductory Remarks . . . . .. 235
Chapter 12 The Biology of Writing
ANDRE RoCH LECOURS and JEAN-Luc NESPOULOUS 236
Chapter 13 Language Processing: A N euroanatomica1 Primer
PATRICIA ELLEN GRANT (With 7 Figures) 246
Chapter 14 Orthography, Reading, and Cerebral Functions
OVID lL. TZENG and DAISY L. HUNG . . 273
Chapter 15 Literacy and the Brain
ANDRE RoCH LECOURS, JACQUES MEHLER,
MARIA-ALICE PARENTE, and ALAIN VADEBONCOEUR 291
Chapter 16 The Processing of Japanese Kana and Kanji
Characters
EDWARD A. JONES and CHISATO AOKI
(With 10 Figures) ............. 301
PartS Brain, Lateralization and Writing:
Initial Models 321
Introductory Remarks . . 321
Chapter 17 The Bilateral Cooperative Model of Reading
M. MARTIN TAYLOR (With 10 Figures) . . 322
Contents XI
Chapter 18 Right Hemisphere Literacy in the Ancient World
JOHN R. SKOYLES .......... 362
Chapter 19 The Role of Vowels in Alphabetic Writing
BAUDOUIN JURDANT . . . . . . . . . 381
Chapter 20 Critical Brain Processes Involved in Deciphering
the Greek Alphabet
DERRICK DE KERCKHOVE (With 1 Figure) 401
Chapter 21 Mind, Media, and Memory: The Archival
and Epistemic Functions of Written Text
DAVID R. OLSON 422
General Conclusion 442
Index . . . . . . 445