"The Influence of Writing on Language
The study of writing and language as semiotic codes in contact should have logically followed from the Saussurian statement: "Language and writing are two distinct systems of signs". On the same theoretical basis as that of contact linguistics, the contact between language and writing might be conducive to mutual semiotic transfer. The acquisition of writing induces a radical cognitive change and the emergence of writing within a linguistic community modifies its organisation. The greater physical force of the visual stimulus as against aural stimulus and the high prestige gained by the mastery of writing are the cognitive and social factors that favour semiotic transfer from writing to language.
With regard to lexicon, a writing tradition accompanied by an orthoepy (rules of reading aloud) provides the language with words from afar in place and in time, like learned words from classical tongues and graphic loanwords between languages whose linguistic communities are not in direct contact. Graphemic words with no linguistic provenance are also vernacularised, like the lexicalisation of abbreviations. The vernacularisation of written elements enriches language. A particularly extreme case of vernacularised written sources is that of the emergence of spoken Modern Hebrew – literary non vernacular Hebrew of early 20th century being its main source.
On the phonological level, orthoepy may modify phonology, as can be shown by the emergence of consonantal clusters in French and of /θ/ in author in English. On the semantic level, writing may be the source of the reorganisation of the signifiés based on spelling; numerous figures of speech are inspired by the attributes of writing.
Keywords:
Writing, orthoepy, semiotic transfer, lexical enrichment, morphophonology, linguistic change
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