The Impact of Digital Text

This chapter discusses reading on screen and in print, as the emergence of digital age has transformed our reading and attention. Digital reading reshapes the concept of reading with the use of various forms of social media that are full of acronyms and emoticons or emoji. Advantages and disadvantages of reading on screen and in print are reviewed. The effects of digitally-mediated text on information processing and reading comprehension are also discussed. Although reading online has merits, such as convenience, low cost, and easy accessibility, readers are likely to scan through an F-shaped gaze pattern. The use of digital media may have a significant influence on brain networks due to the brain’s adaptability and accommodating abilities. Digital text that includes more images and visual aids than hardcopy text may lead to more balanced brain functions. This may have implications for reduced script relativity in the future.

Conclusion: Convergence or Divergence between the East and the West?

This chapter briefly reviews language as a cultural tool and claims written language or script to be the influential force that runs cognition and culture. As an extension of the linguistic relativity hypothesis, script relativity is considered to be the engines and underpinnings of our cognition, everyday problem-solving strategies, and overarching culture as the consequence of accommodated brain pathways upon reading. The mixed-script advantage is also discussed. Uni-script use has evolved to the use of bi-scripts or multi-scripts, as in Chinese with Pinyin and Japanese multi-scripts as well as the recent adoptions of Hindi-English bilinguals’ Romanagari, Aralish that is used to supplement Arabic, and the Greeks’ additional use of Greeklish. As the results of the co-use of words and images, the adoption of bi-scripts or multi-scripts, and a mixture of digital and paper-based texts, more convergence as well as the state of complementarity and harmony between the East and the West are expected. The chapter ends with the notations of limitations of the book and recommendations.

The East and the West

This chapter reviews the cultural aspects of the East and the West. A wide range of differences between the East and the West is discussed in terms of the extrinsic and intrinsic differences. The extrinsic differences comprise architecture, the mode of clothing, everyday practices, and language and script, while the intrinsic differences consist of culture and value systems, attention and perception (holistic vs. analytic), problem solving (relation vs. categorization), and rhetorical structure (linear vs. roundabout). The locus of these differences is identified with respect to philosophical foundations and the characteristics of Eastern and Western cultures. The prevalent interpretations of the differences between the East and the West center on Diamond’s (1999) guns, germs, and steel, Nisbett’s (2003) geography of thought, and Logan’s (2004) alphabet effects. However, these interpretations cannot explain differences in ideologies, religious practices, and societal values among Chinese, Japanese, and Koreans. Therefore, script relativity becomes a new interpretation of the engine behind the differences among the three East-Asian nations and between the East and the West.

Chinese, Japanese, and Korean Writing Systems: All East-Asian but Different Scripts

The three East-Asian scripts—Chinese (characters and Pinyin), Japanese (multi-scripts), and Korean (alphabetic Hangul)—are discussed. Under each script, a brief historical account of the given writing system, the key features of the script, and the strengths and weaknesses as a script are described. The commonalities and differences among the three scripts are next discussed. Since it is claimed that Asian orthography, particularly Chinese characters, curbs Asians’ creativity (Hannas, 1997, 2003), East-Asian students’ performance in international comparison tests is reviewed in comparison to that of American counterparts. Finally discussed are the implications of script differences among the three writing systems for script relativity.

The New Trend: The Word Plus the Image

This chapter discusses the new trend of co-use of words and images in digitally-mediated text as well as its impact on our cognition. The function of the left and right hemispheres of the brain is first reviewed. Next, how images are processed, compared to words, is reviewed. Reading words recruits different neural networks than those of “reading” images. Literacy acquisition changes neuronal pathways in the brain, as evidenced by the research findings of pre-literate and literate subjects. Based on the suggestive evidence, script relativity is revisited and highlighted. Research evidence from the comparison of image processing and word processing as well as the comparison of how literate and illiterate subjects process objects and faces indirectly support script relativity.

Linguistic Evidence for Script Relativity

Using the universal grammar of reading and the system accommodation hypothesis (Perfetti, 2003) as theoretical frameworks, this chapter reviews a wide range of linguistic evidence that supports script relativity. Universality and specificity found according to script features are discussed with respect to the operating principle (alphabet vs. logography), psycholinguistic gran size (phoneme vs. syllable), graph configuration (linearity vs. block), symbolic representation (arbitrariness vs. iconic quality), graph complexity (traditional characters vs. simplified characters), and multi-script representation (phonogram Kana vs. Ideogram Kanji). Linguistic skills associated with reading in terms of orthography, phonology, morphology as well as cross-linguistic and cross-scriptal transfer are reviewed. Next, based on the reviewed literature, each criterion for causality from script to cognition through reading as a multifaceted cognitive activity is checked. Although the existing literature did not aim to directly test script relativity, research findings collectively suggest script effects on readers’ thought and cognition.

Language, Cognition, and Script Effects

This chapter begins with the discussions of what language is and the relationship between spoken language and written language, along with the early view of language-is-speech in linguistics as well as a written-language bias. A series of questions are posed and answered, covering whether we think differently according to the language we speak, whether language affects thinking or thinking affects language, and what the impact of literacy is. These questions are closely related to the linguistic relativity hypothesis. Based on empirical evidence for linguistic relativity, script relativity is proposed as an extension. Fundamental challenges in research into both linguistic relativity and script relativity are identified. The chapter ends with the introduction to this book, including the scope of the volume, terminology used throughout the book, and intended audiences.

From Linguistic Relativity to Script Relativity

This chapter reviews the evolution of the linguistic relativity hypothesis and how it was dismissed. The opponents of linguistic relativity misinterpreted the hypothesis itself and research results. With new interpretations and more scientific research findings, the hypothesis has gained rekindled interest in recent years. Empirical evidence for linguistic relativity is reviewed from the perspectives of first language influences on cognition, including color, motion, number, time, objects, and nonlinguistic representations, and from the prism of cross-linguistic influences. The chapter drives the discussion from linguistic relativity to the introduction to script relativity. The chapter ends with the claim that, among other factors that can explain cross-linguistic and cross-scriptal influences, script relativity has the greatest competitive plausibility to explain the consequences of reading.

The Alphabet

This chapter discusses the characteristics of the alphabet as a writing system. It first describes the classifications of writing systems and the criteria for an ideal writing system, including representability, producibility, and interpretability. The alphabet is considered to be a more efficient writing system than Chinese characters in that it takes only 20 to 30 graphs to represent the entire repertoire of spoken language. This enhances learnability because learners do not have to rote-memorize thousands of syllables or characters. An ideal orthography is also discussed. Finally discussed are the strengths and weaknesses of the alphabet as a writing system.

The Emergence of Written Language: From Numeracy to Literacy

This chapter reviews how written signs first emerged and developed into systematic writing systems. The first sign system appeared to fulfill accounting purposes for the preservation of private properties in antiquity. Initial written signs, including plain tallies, complex tokens, and tokens in clay envelopes, are reviewed. Written signs before the emergence of the Greek alphabet, such as cuneiforms and hieroglyphs, are also reviewed. As agricultural culture and urbanization took place, writing systems became more multifaceted and systematized. The characteristics of true alphabets are discussed. For a comparison purpose, the Chinese writing system is briefly mentioned. The chapter ends with a discussion of the transition from numeracy to literacy.