In teaching students to write at a college level, I try to stress that although college writing conforms to a certain structure and set of rules, they shouldn’t lose their unique voices in the process. I agree with most of what Emig has to say about writing, but drew different conclusions from some of her points. Yes, writing is an artificial process as compared to talking and I guess I can see that that makes writing into a kind of technological device, certainly one slower than talking. But I don’t think the natural next conclusion is that, “writing is stark, barren, even naked as a medium; talking is rich, luxuriant, inherently redundant.”
By separating writing from talking in such strict form, I think Emig wanders off course and starts to draw differences that don’t exist. Writing doesn’t, in fact, have to be a stark, barren medium. Good writing is often conversational and redundant the same way speech is. The dominant characteristics of an individual’s writing and talking are formed by that individual’s concepts of language. Anyone who has mastered speech and writing should, I think, see the two mirror one another. I
know that Emig is making an argument for the value of writing, so there’s really no reason for me to argue, but her concept of writing feels stiff, almost scientifically come by. Good writing, even good scholarly writing, to me should be more organic, less “technological”, just like good conversation.
A few days later: Reading through the other responses to Emig so far, I think I must have missed the point. Must slow down my reading. I love speech! Speech generates writing!
Well I think that Emig kind of overstates the case, but her point is correct. Speaking is a natural act that all humans will do unless there are serious constricting circumstances, like being raise in complete isolation from other humans. Reading and writing, by contrast, are not natural to humans. It is a forcibly learned skill that people master to different abilities. For the majority of the human race's existence, reading and writing was a bizarre arcane thing that only a select few practiced. Indeed, there are still cultures today that do not prize literacy as highly as we do.
ReplyDeleteWe have just become so accustomed to writing that it strikes us as normal. But in fact, the notion of bending over some dead tree pulp and smearing ink on it as a way of communicating with others is really quite weird compared to simply speaking. Writing is impossible without a rather sophisticated bit of machinery underneath to provide to tools we use--whether these be pen and paper or laptop.