Written or Spoken Language Exercise

Written or Spoken Language Exercise

Joseph Arnold: G03397187
Speech 100: Doss
06/25/2009

Written!

A long time ago, there was spoken language. Oral tradition survived by it. Indians would rehearse it near a fire. The Torah (first five books of the Bible), written by Moses, was originally repeated, orally. Presently, spoken language is still playing a huge role. For example, just take a look at how the youth write, their grammar: they write like they speak. Like totally! Slang is a direct product of spoken language. LOL stands for laugh out loud. Therefore, it is also a product of subcultures (people, or teens, who talk in slang, or whatever). Accents can be recognizable, quicker than a play script that lacks special instructions (say this in a Russian accent: this is a written instruction, just for example). Some will even learn better, auditorily, than they do, sequentially (through words).


Children will hear it before they read it. The children in the Hispanic families, in the trailer-park I was raised in, would quickly learn English and Spanish by, say, the age of five. To an extent, spoken language is music. When birds talk, we say that they are singing. It has rhythm. It has tone. It has style (or accent).


Practically, still, language had to be sketched in caves, inside Egyptian pyramids, on stone tablets, on animal skins, paper, or anywhere that is visual. Visual learners learn this way, quite frankly. Oral tradition, apart from written preservation, have been lost (some of it has been, at least, or will be). The strengths of vocalized language (the style, like music, the accents, the meanings expressed [communicated] through the toning, the timing, location, volume, speaker) are still outweighed (thrown off balance) by its weakness. That is, orally, language, history, apart from written preservation, will occasionally disappear. That is not effective, that is not essential. I love talking. I will even write the way that I talk. Sorry. But you may forget what you hear. It goes in one ear and out the other. It may be music to the ear. But the pen is still mightier than the sword. Sticks and bones may break my bones. Criticism (words) can be said out-loud. However, written words will probably do more damage in the long run. They can hold onto what you wrote about them. Throw it back into your face, years later. Which could be a good thing if you are an encouraging writer. The Bible, for example, is encouraging. Need I say more? And that is the beauty in written language.

In the long run, written language, which is visually stimulating, will outlive oral tradition.