Table Of ContentTHE LINGUISTICS OF LITERACY
TYPOLOGICAL STUDIES IN LANGUAGE (TSL)
A companion series to the journal "STUDIES IN LANGUAGE"
Honorary Editor: Joseph H. Greenberg
General Editor: T. Givón
Editorial Board:
Wallace Chafe (Santa Barbara) Charles Li (Santa Barbara)
Bernard Comrie (Los Angeles) Johanna Nichols (Berkeley)
R.M.W. Dixon (Canberra) Andrew Pawley (Canberra)
John Haiman (St Paul) Doris Payne (Oregon)
Kenneth Hale (Cambridge, Mass.) Frans Plank (Konstanz)
Bernd Heine (Köln) Jerrold Sadock (Chicago)
Paul Hopper (Pittsburgh) Gillian Sankoff (Philadelphia)
Margaret Langdon (San Diego) Dan Slobin (Berkeley)
Sandra Thompson (Santa Barbara)
Volumes in this series will be functionally and typologically oriented, cover
ing specific topics in language by collecting together data from a wide vari
ety of languages and language typologies. The orientation of the volumes
will be substantive rather than formal, with the aim of investigating univer
sals of human language via as broadly defined a data base as possible, lean
ing toward cross-linguistic, diachronic, developmental and live-discourse
data. The series is, in spirit as well as in fact, a continuation of the tradition
initiated by C. Li (Word Order and Word Order Change, Subject and Topic,
Mechanisms for Syntactic Change) and continued by T. Givón (Discourse
and Syntax) and P. Hopper (Tense-Aspect: Between Semantics and Pragma
tics).
Volume 21
Pamela Downing, Susan D. Lima and Michael Noonan (eds)
THE LINGUISTICS OF LITERACY
THE LINGUISTICS
OF LITERACY
edited by
PAMELA DOWNING, SUSAN D. LIMA
and MICHAEL NOONAN
JOHN BENJAMINS PUBLISHING COMPANY
Amsterdam/Philadelphia
1992
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
The Linguistics of literacy / edited by Pamela Downing, Susan D. Lima, and Michael
Noonan.
p. cm. -- (Typological studies in language, ISSN 0167-7373; v. 21)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
1. Written communication. 2. Oral communication. 3. Language and languages-Orthog
raphy and spelling. 4. Psycholinguistics. 5. Literacy. I. Downing, Pamela. II. Lima, Susan D.
III. Noonan, Michael (Michael P.) IV. Series.
P211.L69 1992
302.2'244--dc20 92-7341
ISBN 90 272 2903 1 (hb.) / 90 272 2904 X (pb.) (European; alk. paper) CIP
ISBN 1-55619-406-4 (hb.) / 1-55619-407-2 (pb.) (U.S.; alk. paper)
© Copyright 1992 - John Benjamins B.V.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form, by print, photoprint, microfilm, or any
other means, without written permission from the publisher.
John Benjamins Publishing Co. · P.O. Box 75577 · 1070 AN Amsterdam . The Netherlands
John Benjamins North America · 821 Bethlehem Pike · Philadelphia, PA 19118 · USA
Table of contents
Contributors vii
Introduction ix
Pamela Downing and Susan D. Lima
PART I: WRITTEN LANGUAGE AND SPOKEN LANGUAGE 1
COMPARED
Variation in the intonation and punctuation of different adverbial 3
clause types in spoken and written English
Cecilia E. Ford
Information flow in speaking and writing 17
Wallace Chafe
How is conversation like literary discourse? The role of imagery and 31
details in creating involvement
Deborah Tannen
Modern American poetry and modern American speech 47
Eleanor Berry
PART II: ORTHOGRAPHIC SYSTEMS 69
Segmentalism in linguistics: The alphabetic basis of phonological 71
theory
Mark Aronoff
The syllabic origin of writing and the segmental origin of the 83
alphabet
Peter T. Daniels
Phonemic segmentation as epiphenomenon: Evidence from the 111
history of alphabetic writing
Alice Faber
VI CONTENTS
Aspiration and Cherokee orthographies 135
Janine Scancarelli
Interpreting Emai orthographic strategies 153
Ronald P. Schaefer
Linguistic aspects of musical and mathematical notation 169
James D. McCawley
PART III: THE PSYCHOLOGY OF ORTHOGRAPHY 191
Orthographic aspects of linguistic competence 193
Bruce L. Derwing
The costs and benefits of phonological analysis 211
John J. Ohala
Morphological relationships revealed through the repetition priming 239
task
Laurie B. Feldman
Orthography and phonology: The psychological reality of ortho- 255
graphic depth
Ram Frost
A model of lexical storage: Evidence from second language learners' 275
orthographic errors
J Ronayne Cowan
PART IV: CONSEQUENCES OF LITERACY 291
Writing is a technology that restructures thought 293
Walter J. Ong, SJ
Language Index 321
Author Index 323
Subject Index 331
Contributors
MARK ARONOFF, Department of Linguistics, State University of New York at Stony
Brook, Stony Brook, NY 11794, U.S.A.
ELEANOR BERRY, R.R. 1, Box 58A, Cedar Grove, WI 53013, U.S.A.
WALLACE CHAFE, Department of Linguistics, University of California-Santa Bar
bara, CA 93106, U.S.A.
J RONAYNE COWAN, 3070 Foreign Languages Building, 707 South Mathews Street,
Univeristy of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Urbana, IL 61801, U.S.A.
PETER T. DANIELS, 1463 West Gregory, Chicago, IL 60640, U.S.A.
BRUCE L. DERWING, Department of Linguistics, 4-62 Assiniboia Hall, University of
Alberta, Edmonton, Canada T6G 2E7
PAMELA DOWNING, Department of English and Comparative Literature, P.O. Box
413, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, Milwaukee, WI 53201, U.S.A.
ALICE FABER, Haskins Laboratories, 270 Crown Street, New Haven, CT 06511,
U.S.A.
LAURIE B. FELDMAN, Department of Psychology, State University of New York at
Albany, Albany, NY 12222, U.S.A.
CECILIA E. FORD, Department of English, 6105 H.C. White Hall, University of Wis
consin-Madison, Madison, WI 53706, U.S.A.
RAM FROST, Department of Psychology, The Hebrew University, Jerusalem 91905,
Israel
SUSAN D. LIMA, Department of Psychology, P.O. Box 413, University of Wisconsin-
Milwaukee, Milwaukee, WI 53201, U.S.A.
JAMES D. McCAWLEY, Deparment of Linguistics, 1010 East 59th Street, University
of Chicago, Chicago, IL 60637, U.S.A.
MICHAEL NOONAN, Department of English and Comparative Literature, P.O. Box
413, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, Milwaukee, WI 53201, U.S.A.
JOHN J. OHALA, Department of Linguistics, University of California-Berkeley, Ber
keley, CA 94720, U.S.A.
viii CONTRIBUTORS
WALTER J. ONG S.J., School of Humanities, St. Louis University, St. Louis, MO
63103, U.S.A.
JANINE SCANCARELLI, Department of English, P.O. Box 8795, College of William
and Mary, Williamsburg, VA 23187, U.S.A.
RONALD P. SCHAEFER, Department of English Language and Literature, 3206
Peck Building, Southern Illinois University, Edwardsville, IL 62026, U.S.A.
DEBORAH TANNEN, Department of Linguistics, Georgetown University,
Washington, DC 20057, U.S.A.
Introduction
Pamela Downing and Susan D. Lima
University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee
This volume grew out of the Seventeenth Annual University of Wisconsin-
Milwaukee Linguistics Symposium, which was held in Milwaukee on April
8-10, 1988. The theme of the conference was the relationship between lin
guistics and literacy; the richness of this subject became apparent in the
wide range of topics addressed by presenters at the conference, and in the
lively discussions that followed. In this volume, we have chosen to present
a selection of papers which cluster around three of the major themes that
developed during the conference: the linguistic differences between written
and spoken genres, the relationship between orthographic systems and pho
nology, and the psychology of orthography. The volume concludes with a
solicited paper by Walter J. Ong which draws together the various strands
considered in the other sections of the book and addresses the broader
question of the social and psychological consequences of literacy.
Part I: Written language and spoken language compared
In order to reach an understanding of what it means to be literate, we must
first take care to discover those linguistic properties that distinguish written
language from its spoken counterpart. What linguistic traits mark a text as
non-spoken? To what extent are those traits common to all written genres?
Are these traits arbitrary markers of mode, or do they arise naturally from
the distinctive circumstances in which written texts are produced, and the
distinctive uses to which they are put? It is these questions that are addres
sed by the papers in the first section of this volume.
