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Why is writing more than speech written down, and why can speech not be judged
by its closeness to writing?

“Each kind of rhetoric has its own appropriate style.

”
The style of written prose is not that of spoken oratory

Aristotle.

There exists a difference between spoken and written forms of German (as well as any
other language with a writing system). Everyone knows that there is a difference but no
one can pinpoint what the exact difference is. Experts of language are even more
confused and divided on this topic than a layperson uninitiated to linguistics. This is
because in truth, the differences are not clear cut. Both mediums share the same
underlying grammar of the language and can be used to fulfil the same functions. In a
modern, literate western society, which the German speaking World is part of, speaking
and writing have been used to do different things. This is where the difference comes
from. That is why writing is not speech and speech not writing. Thus, one cannot say
that writing is more than speech or judge one medium by its closeness to the other.

One should note that both mediums can be used interchangeably. Hansel and Gretel can
be read out loud and a linguistics lecture can be written down. The difference between
the two mediums thus lies in style, function and appropriateness to the context rather than
the fact that speech is spoken and writing involves putting pen to paper.

It is important to note that both mediums have great variety within themselves as well as
between each other. For example, the language in a copy of Hansel and Gretel is about
as different from a note on a fridge door as a conversation at a train station. Hence, one
cannot think of the differences between written and spoken language as being static. The
differences ought to be thought of as a range, a continuum and dynamic. This leads to
the idea that some written texts may resemble some spoken texts.

The most common type of speech is an everyday conversation, be it on the telephone,

over lunch or on the bus. Speech is used in these situations because of its inherent
strengths. Speech can be produced very quickly with rapid adjustments and corrections
being made. Most importantly, in conversations, timely response is needed and thus
speech is the ideal medium. This responsiveness includes adding new points, restating or
exemplifying the previous point, adding qualifications and incorporation of others’ ideas
into one’s own discourse. Speech is usually, if not always, accompanied by other forms
of communication. These include hand gestures, intonation, pausing, loudness and facial
expressions and body gestures. This allows speech to carry more information than if only
words were used. Writing typically does not contain these features due to the limitations
of writing technology as well as to the very use of writing. Writing tends to be detached
from its immediate context as it does not need to be linked to the surroundings of the
reader. For example, writing does not require an equivalent of hand gestures, or
intonation or any other particular link to the immediate environment of the reader.

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That is not to say that writing cannot record these features of language. An example of
this is the use of punctuation. German uses exclamation marks, question marks and
quotation marks as well as other punctuation marks to achieve a sense of intonation and
possibly an indication of the writer’s emotions. Still, a usual written texts’ detachment
from the context enables the meaning to be conveyed without punctuation. The actual
written text is more than enough for the reader to understand the meaning.

As human society evolved over the years, writing has become a way of recording ever
increasing abstract ideas, notions and abilities to pass information to people across both
physical distances and time which has pushed writing further away from speech.
Transformation of human society from nomadic hunter-gather to a settled, agricultural
society brought about the need for information about trade, law and religious rituals to be
recorded. Over time the subject matter of writing has become more abstract. People
began to use written text for education and discussion so it became a convention to think
of written text as something to be criticised and evaluated.

Today when people think of writing they tend to think of school essays and journalistic
articles. These uses of language have a different requirement from speech. These
examples of writing require abstraction and generalisation of ideas and events. More
precisely, because more time is afforded to the writer than the speaker, by the reader or
listener respectively, written text tends to be more packed with information per clause.
More nouns, adjectives and relative clauses tend to be used in order to achieve higher rate
of information transfer through written text. The written text will usually be read over
and over again thus clarity is a requirement. Although speech can be just as clear if not
more than writing, because written text can be redrafted, they tend to be clearer and
easier to understand. Of course it is common to find cryptic, impenetrable texts which
are incomprehensible. This may be due to the individual writer than the nature of the
written text. For example, a very well read university professor may write a text which to
him seems perfectly clear while an uneducated youth may look upon the text as if it was
written in another language. Indeed to him, the vocabulary, as well as complexity of the
issue will be a foreign language even if the fundamental grammar is familiar.

Generally speaking, writing has rarely been speech written down. In the past writing has
been used primarily for valued information like religious texts, contracts, treaties and
scientific research. The meaning conveyed in written form thus tends to differ from the
meaning conveyed through speech.

Although the very nature of the written versus spoken language may be different the
differences may also arise from the fact that each person is different. Socio-economic
status, age, life experiences and sex all will affect both the written texts and speech
produced. As mentioned before, the differences, being a continuum rather than
distinctive and clearly defined, mean that there will be great amount of overlapping of
written text on spoken text. A written theatrical play may be very close to an everyday
conversation while a university lecture may be very close to a textbook. This implies that

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differences between the two mediums are inherently dependent on circumstances. To put
it simply “it all depends”.

In recent years, with the advent of the telephone, radio, television and most importantly
digital telecommunication such as mobile phone text messaging and internet based
instant messaging (IM), the distinction of writing versus speaking is blurring more and
more. A typical IM conversation would actually be just like a spoken conversation. The
written IM conversation is speeded up with the dropping of double letters and vowels,
shortening of words, use of emoticons and in the latest IM software even sound and
pictures.

There has always been a feedback effect between writing and speaking. In the past the
direction of influence was usually the written to the spoken medium because writing has
higher social status and thus people want to be as eloquent in their speech as they are,
ideally, in the written medium. Today this effect is getting reversed with writing
becoming more like speaking since text is becoming more contextualised. It is now more
important to interact with the immediate environment and the reader of the text. Of
course written and spoken forms of German will never fully merge because there will
always be a need for written accounts, for example, scientific exploration and journalistic
prose.

In conclusion writing is more than speech written down; it is something different. That
something tends to be abstract, detached because the function of writing is different from
that of speech. In the same way speech is not something read out loud. Speech is used
for a different function. It is used to interact with the environment and the audience. As
Aristotle said “ach kind of rhetoric has its own appropriate style. The style of written
prose is not that of spoken oratory”. Time and progress of course has a way of
debunking even the smartest of philosophers, and it seems that the very functions of
spoken and written language are changing to make the distinction between writing and
speaking blurred if not nonexistent.

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Bibliography

• Beedham (1995) German Linguistics, an introduction indiciumverlag GmbH

• Biber (1988) Variation across Speech and Writing Cambridge
• Durrell (1992) Using German, a Guide to Cotemporary Usage Cambridge
• Chafe, Tannen (1987) The Relation between Written and Spoken Language
Annual Review of Anthropology
• Halliday (1985) Spoken and Written Language Deakin University Press
• Halpern (1984) Differences between Speaking and Writing and their Implications
for Teaching College Composition and Communication vol. 35 no. 3 pp.345-357
• Stevenson (1997) The German Speaking World Routledge