scholarly journals Writing systems as modular objects: proposals for theory design in grapholinguistics

2015 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Martin Neef

AbstractThis paper gives an outline of the Modular Theory of Writing Systems by answering the question: what are the elements or modules that are necessary for a writing system to work? A writing system is a notational system for a natural language. Based on this characterization, it is obvious that a necessary component of a writing system is a specific language system. What eventually constitutes a writing system in addition to this language system is a device that, put simply, relates units of a language system to units of a script. This component is termed ‘graphematics’ in the present framework and is regarded as a necessary module of a writing system. Above that, another typical component of writing systems, namely ‘systematic orthography’, applies to the ‘graphematic solution space’ and restricts the spelling possibilities of specific words in accordance to their belonging to a specific level of the vocabulary of the language. Supplemented by reflections on the status of scripts as well as of IPA as a writing system, an answer is finally given to the pertinent question how spoken language and written language are related to each other. The answer is that this relation is of a considerably indirect nature.

2020 ◽  
Vol 34 (10) ◽  
pp. 13941-13942
Author(s):  
Shresth Verma ◽  
Joydip Dhar

Learning to communicate is considered an essential task to develop a general AI. While recent literature in language evolution has studied emergent language through discrete or continuous message symbols, there has been little work in the emergence of writing systems in artificial agents. In this paper, we present a referential game setup with two agents, where the mode of communication is a written language system that emerges during the play. We show that the agents can learn to coordinate successfully using this mode of communication. Further, we study how the game rules affect the writing system taxonomy by proposing a consistency metric.


2005 ◽  
Vol 7 (2) ◽  
pp. 205-234
Author(s):  
Martin Neef

Assuming that a writing system is inevitably dependent on a language system, the main function of written representations is to give access to the basic representations of the language system. In this paper, I want to deal with graphematic phenomena, i.e. the relations of written representations to corresponding phonological representations. In particular, I will delve into the relation of written representations to the phonological factor of the number of syllables, based on data from English and German. Though in these languages, there is neither a specific written element relating to the syllable number nor an isomorphic relation between vowel letters and the number of syllables, two questions are worth examining: Can a word have more syllables than vowel letters? Can a word have less syllables than uninterrupted sequences of vowel letters? The first question will be answered positively for both languages although there are some severe differences to be stated; the second question will be answered positively only for English. I will show that these results are side-effects of more basic regularities of the writing systems under consideration.


2020 ◽  
Vol 13 (1) ◽  
pp. 288
Author(s):  
Edeil Reis do Espírito Santo ◽  
Osvaldo Barreto Oliveira Júnior

O domínio do Sistema de Escrita Alfabética (SEA) requer do sujeito cognoscente um eivado esforço conceitual, no sentido de perceber o que a escrita representa e como ela representa. Nós, adultos, por vezes, nos esquecemos de que a construção da base alfabética é um processo que exige estratégias, levantamento de hipóteses e superação paulatina dessas hipóteses, numa ação de monitoramento cognitivo. O domínio progressivo das propriedades do SEA depende da compreensão conceitual da escrita como objeto do conhecimento e da capacidade do professor alfabetizador em, por meio dessa compreensão, engendrar propostas que contemplem ações interventivo-mediadoras voltadas à problematização dos conhecimentos e concepções prévias dos aprendentes, fazendo-os construir novos esquemas e ampliar suas estruturas cognitivas. Entender a escrita como código ou como sistema notacional tem implicações didático-pedagógicas e epistêmicas, haja vista a prática alfabetizadora ser condicionada pela forma como se pensa a escrita e o papel que o sujeito tem nesse processo de apropriação. Defendemos um ensino explícito das propriedades do sistema alfabético aliado aos usos socioculturais da escrita e da leitura, por entendermos que desse ensino intencional resulta a ajuda (mediação) que o docente presta ao sujeito aprendente no percurso em busca de se tornar um proficiente leitor e produtor de textos, afinal, o fim basilar da alfabetização é levar o sujeito a ler e escrever com autonomia, uma vez que leitura e escrita são ferramentas de inserção sociocultural. Contudo, sem domínio das convenções da notação alfabética não se participa de situações de escrita e de leitura como tecnologias inclusivas.Palavras-chave: Sistema de escrita alfabética. Psicogênese da língua escrita. Ação interventivo-mediadora.Alphabetical writing system: problematizing a conceptual systemABSTRACTThe domain of the Alphabetic Writing System (AWS) requires the cognoscent subject to express a conceptual effort in order to perceive what writing represents and how it represents it. Us, adults, sometimes forget that the construction of the alphabetical base is a process that requires strategies, hypothesis collection and gradual overcoming of these hypotheses, in a cognitive monitoring action. The progressive mastery of SEA properties depends on the conceptual understanding of writing as an object of knowledge and the ability of the literacy teacher to, through this understanding, generate proposals that contemplate intervening-mediating actions aimed at the problematization of knowledge and conceptions of learners, making them construct new schemes and expand their cognitive structures. Understanding writing as a code or as a notational system has didactic-pedagogical and epistemic implications, since the literacy practice is conditioned by the way in which writing is thought and the role that the subject has in this process of appropriation. We advocate an explicit teaching of the properties of the alphabetic system combined with the sociocultural uses of writing and reading, since we understand that from this intentional teaching results the help (mediation) that the teacher gives to the learner in the course in order to become a proficient reader and producer of texts, after all, the basic aim of literacy is to lead the subject to read and write with autonomy, since reading and writing are tools of socio-cultural insertion. However, without mastery of the conventions of alphabetic notation, writing and reading situations are not included as inclusive technologies.Keywords: Alphabetical writing system. Psychogenesis of written language. Interventional-mediating action.Sistema de escrita alfabética: problematizando un sistema conceptualRESUMENEl dominio del Sistema de Escritura Alfabética (SEA) requiere del sujeto cognoscente un eivado esfuerzo conceptual, en el sentido de percibir lo que la escritura representa y cómo ella representa. Los adultos a veces nos olvidamos de que la construcción de la base alfabética es un proceso que requiere estrategias, levantamiento de hipótesis y superación paulatina de esas hipótesis, en una acción de monitoreo cognitivo. El dominio progresivo de las propiedades del SEA depende de la comprensión conceptual de la escritura como objeto del conocimiento y de la capacidad del profesor alfabetizador en, por medio de esa comprensión, engendrar propuestas que contemplen acciones intervencionista mediadoras volcadas a la problematización de los conocimientos y concepciones previas de los alumnos, haciéndoles construir nuevos esquemas y ampliar sus estructuras cognitivas. Entender la escritura como código o como sistema notacional tiene implicaciones didáctico pedagógicas y epistémicas, hay que la práctica alfabetizadora estar condicionada por la forma en que se piensa la escritura y el papel que el sujeto tiene en ese proceso de apropiación. Defendemos una enseñanza explícita de las propiedades del sistema alfabético aliado a los usos socioculturales de la escritura y de la lectura, por entender que de esa enseñanza intencional resulta la ayuda (mediación) que el docente presta al sujeto aprendente en el recorrido en busca de convertirse en un proficiente lector y el productor de textos, alfinal, el fi n basilar de la alfabetización es llevar al sujeto a leer y escribir con autonomía, una vez que lectura y escritura son herramientas de inserción sociocultural. Sin embargo, sin dominio de las convenciones de la notación alfabética no se participa de situaciones de escritura y de lectura como tecnologías inclusivas.Palabras clave: Sistema de escritura alfabética. Psicogénesis de la lengua escrita. Acción intervencionista-mediadora.


Author(s):  
Kathy Rastle

Writing is a relatively recent cultural invention, and reading is a skill that requires years of instruction, dedication, and practice. My talk will consider how the nature of a writing system influences reading acquisition and skilled reading. I consider the nature of statistical regularities that characterize English orthography and show across several experiments that knowledge encoded in the skilled reading system mirrors these regularities. This analysis reveals that weaknesses in the relationship between spelling and sound give rise to powerful regularities between spelling and meaning that are critical for text comprehension. I conclude by thinking about how written language differs from spoken language and argue that these differences may be at the heart of human capacity for rapid, skilled reading.


2020 ◽  
Vol 6 (3) ◽  
pp. 591-598
Author(s):  
A. Akynbekova

The issue of the existence of Kyrgyz literature and literary language prior the Soviet period has not yet been resolved and still remains an open topic for discussion. There is no nation without a writing system, the history; the past and experience of folk are presented to the next generation through written system. This paper provides information about the formation stages of Kyrgyz literature and literary language, written works, documents and letters written in one of the Turkic languages — Kyrgyz in the pre-Soviet period, especially in the XVIII–XIX centuries. Also, in this paper there are an assessment of ideas, criticism and opinions of Kyrgyz culture researches about Kyrgyz written system such as: A. Kanymetov, S. S. Danyarov, philologists turkologists: I. A. Batmanov, K. K. Yudakhin, S. E. Malov, V. M. Ploskikh, E. Tenishev, A. Nallo, B. M. Yunusaliev, S. K. Kudaibergenov and Kh. K. Karasaev. In this study we attempted to determine the creation dates of some written works found today. The found documents and manuscripts, relating to the middle of the XIX century, create more opportunities for linguistics’ study, for ideas and suggestions on the status of the Kyrgyz language as being Turkic of almost sesquicentennial prescription. We tried to provide the most information on the topics of study and collection of works, characterized as the most significant documents of Moldo Niyaz — one of the first representatives of ‘zhazgych akyn’s’ (reading and chronicling improvising poets). The fact that the turkologists linguists did not carry out the necessary works and did not present documentary evidence of the Kyrgyz written language results to the opinion of non-existence of Kyrgyz written language, thus literary language. However, to the present day the activities of collection of the original manuscript’s copies of ‘zhazgych akyn’s’ important representatives among the public, a compilation of manuscripts, and their linguistic studies are still ignored. This kind of work will be a valuable and useful resource for large text research in the field of hermeneutics.


2019 ◽  
Vol 72 (4) ◽  
pp. 677-692 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kathleen Rastle

Skilled reading reflects an accumulation of experience with written language. Written language is typically viewed as an expression of spoken language, and this perspective has motivated approaches to understanding reading and reading acquisition. However, in this article, I develop the proposal that written language has diverged from spoken language in important ways that maximise the transmission of meaningful information, and that this divergence has been central to the development of rapid, skilled reading. I use English as an example to show that weaknesses in the relationship between spelling and sound can give rise to strong regularities between spelling and meaning that are critical for the rapid analysis of printed words. I conclude by arguing that the nature of the reading system is a reflection of the writing system and that a deep understanding of reading can be obtained only through a deep understanding of written language.


2014 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-21 ◽  
Author(s):  
Florian Coulmas

AbstractOn the social level languages contact usually implies hierarchies, reflecting historical processes of adaptation and power relations between groups of speakers. This paper considers language contact in the written mode from the point of view of choice, that is, choice of language and choice of writing system. A wider range of factors that have a bearing on choice in contact situations of languages and their writing systems must be taken into consideration: political, social, linguistic and ideological. Examples of each kind from the Eurocentric and Sinocentric worlds are discussed and compared with each other. Particular attention is paid to the relationship bilingual writers create between the units of two languages and two writing systems which, from a sociolinguistic point of view, is seen as indicative of the status and function of the languages involved.


Author(s):  
Demberel Kolyagiyn ◽  

Introduction. The Mongolian script is a prime example of the written culture of Mongols. Over the past 30 years, the Mongolian State and Government have been implementing step-by-step measures to restore and apply the Mongolian script. Goals. The survey study aims to provide an analysis on the content of each event thereto, scope of corresponding activities, and outcomes of those actions — and also identify at what level these orders and decrees are not being implemented, and what should be done to ensure that these measures be fully executed. Materials. The study analyzes decrees, orders and resolutions of the President and the Government of Mongolia. It largely focuses on the ‘National Program for Mongolian Script — I, II, III’ which was conducted by the Government since 1995. Results. The paper shows that the restoration of the national written language is one of the important tasks of the state system in Mongolia. The decree of the Small State Khural (1991) on the introduction of records management in Mongolian script in the country and the corresponding decree of the Great State Khural (1994) on the intensification of work for the implementation of this goal and the development of the National Program for Mongolian Script were of great importance for the restoration of the significance of Mongolian script. In subsequent years, the solution of the tasks was facilitated by decrees of the President of Mongolia on the celebration of the 800th anniversary of Mongolian script (2003) and on the expansion and acceleration of work on the use of Mongolian script (2018). The National Program developed in accordance with the decision of the supreme legislative body has been implemented since 1995 and contains tasks for the transition to the use of two scripts from 2025. But the measures that have been carried out since 1995 at various levels did not provide a sufficient basis for introduction of the two scripts (national Mongolian and Cyrillic ones) into the public life from 2025. However, in 2020, the practice of accelerated learning of the Mongolian script and its application began. At the moment, it is necessary to identify the difficulties that may arise when using two scripts in Mongolia since 2025. Thus, for a quarter of a century, the issue of restoring the status of the national writing system has been consistently resolved.


Author(s):  
DENNIS KURZON

AbstractThis article will discuss two attempts at the romanisation of Indian languages in the twentieth century, one in pre-independence India and the second in Pakistan before the Bangladesh war of 1971. By way of background, an overview of the status of writing in the subcontinent will be presented in the second section, followed by a discussion of various earlier attempts in India to change writing systems, relating mainly to the situation in Bengal, which has one language and one script used by two large religious groups – Muslims and Hindus (in modern-day Bangladesh and West Bengal, respectively). The fourth section will look at the language/script policy of the Indian National Congress in pre-independence days, and attempts to introduce romanisation, especially the work of the Bengali linguist S. K. Chatterji. The penultimate section deals with attempts to change the writing system in East Pakistan, i.e. East Bengal, to (a) the Perso-Arabic script, and (b) the roman script.In all cases, the attempt to romanise any of the Indian scripts failed at the national – official – level, although Indian languages do have a conventional transliteration. Reasons for the failure will be presented, in the final section, in terms of İlker Aytürk's model (see this issue), which proposes factors that may allow – or may not lead to – the implementation of romanisation.


2016 ◽  
pp. 1-14
Author(s):  
Irena Smetonienė ◽  
Antanas Smetona ◽  
Audrius Valotka

After we started direct communication and collaboration with foreign scholars, we immediately noticed that one of the reasons of miscommunication derives from the lack of discussion of terminological synonymy as well as the concept of a term. For example, miscommunication may occur due to such issues as the understanding and the relationship of such terms as a borrowing and a foreign word, such Lithuanian words as naujadaras, naujažodis and neologizmas which are usually all rendered in English as a neologism, language policy and language planning, etc. In addition, numerous debatable issues arise regarding the use of the term marker and its synonyms in the context of morphology and the choice of different terms to refer to the administrative style (kanceliarinis, dalykinis, administracinis stilius in Lithuanian). There is a tendency to opt for an international term since it facilitates communication with foreign scholars. This article explores terms that deal with language ‘standardness’ used in linguistic research and in written public discourse. In addition, it raises a question of whether it would not be useful to replace the term of common language with that of standard language. In our opinion, the term standard language better reflects such aspects of a given language variety as its normative nature, national status, formality, a consistent and natural acquisition of the language system as well as the application of the acquired knowledge in the processes of language standardisation and language policy. Certainly, replacing a term with a different one is not difficult, i.e. it is a matter of agreement and intention; however, in our case the question seems to be directly related not only to terminology but also to the concepts that they signify. On the one hand, international practice shows that local terms remain local and cause problems in translating them into other languages; on the other hand, it also reflects differences in the content of the terms when they are used to refer to different stages of language development.Several terms were used in Lithuanian linguistics to refer to language standardness. Jonas Jablonskis used the term written language. The scholar emphasised that he chose the term deliberately since he was not aiming at codifying spoken language and since written language was deemed as the most important in his time. The term common language created by Pranas Skardžius entered public use only in 1927. However, after 1950, the term of common language was replaced by the Russian term literary language. It was no better than other terms, it had no traditions in Lithuania but it was important as a political stance of showing how united Soviet linguistics was. Such purposeless change of terms was not accepted well by linguists working both in Lithuania and abroad. This issue was discussed on many occasions in writings by Skardžius, Jonikas and it was debated widely by Lithuanian linguists. The term common language was started to be used again in 1969.Today the status of our language is different: we have the system of established vocabulary, grammar, the whole language system is standardised, we have institutions that set and monitor language norms (State Commission of the Lithuanian Language and the State Language Inspectorate), institutions that foster Lithuanian, standardised language is used in all public domains, its status is established by a special law. As a result, contemporary situation can be defined by two clear terms: 1) Lithuanian which encompasses dialects, sociolects, idiolects and which also subsumes borrowings and jargon since it is part of our daily language which is not regulated by any laws or resolutions; 2) standard language which is understood as a language variety of the highest prestige. We do not suggest that the use of the term common language should be abandoned but we believe it should have a different place in the system of terms. As we are familiar with the way language development processes are termed in other countries the examples of which are provided in the first part of this article, we argue that common language may refer to a certain stage in the development of our language. Thus the language of a pre-standard stage used by the whole nation which has been more or less standardised can be referred to by the term common language. It would involve such language use which occurs in the initial stages of the development of a standard language, i.e. it would no longer refer to some tribal or dialectal language but rather to the general language used by the whole nation or its substantial part which first occurs in a written form and which is standardised only on the primitive or intuitive level without any language policy at the national or any other institutional level. However, this stage is over now and therefore, similarly to Latvians, we have to use the term standard language. In our opinion, standard language is a standardised language variety which is used in public discourse (state management, media, school) and in international communication.


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