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<DIV><FONT size=2></FONT><FONT color=#000000 size=2>In thinking about the issues
surrounding reading and diglossia, I think the issue in part has to do with how
we process when we read. </FONT><FONT size=2>When people first learn to
read an alphabetic type language, an awful lot of effort goes into just the
decoding process. And with a language like English, where the orthography
lacks a nice one-to-one correlation with the phonology, it's a real headache to
learn to decode. But as we become better readers, we are NOT
"decoding" most words. Instead we're sort of gestalting
them--recognizing the whole shape at once as it were. And for a really
fast reader, maybe even reading a clause at a time, rather than a word at a
time. (Hence some of the arguments about whether phonics is or is not the
best way to teach kids to read.) So when you're faced with a somewhat
unfamiliar system even for a language you know, it becomes much harder to
process because you have to go back to the "beginner stage" of
actually reading word-by-word and sounding each one out.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=2>Part of the reason I've become aware of this is the rather
different system in Japanese. There kids learn to read using a nicely
phonological syllabary which is extremely easy to learn. Having mastered
that, they then begin the Herculean task of memorizing Chinese characters where
each symbol corresponds to one (or often several related) meanings. Now
foreigners like me often bemoan the hassles of the charcter system and wonder
why everything can't just be written in hiragana (this nice easy
syllabary). But if you give an adult Japanese something written completely
in hiragana, they complain that it's hard to read. There are a number of
different things going on here (some ideological, some having to do with lack of
a convention for spaces between words), but I think a lot of it is just having
become accustomed to a particular set of sound/idea/symbol
correspondences. If it's written phonologically then they have to sound it
out and that actually slows down comprehension.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=2>Actually, I've seen the same thing with psuedo-phonetic style
spellings in English. Try writing a paragraph where you replace all the
"c"'s with either s's or k's, all ph's with f's etc. and it is
actually quite difficult to read silently at normal speed. For that
matter, think how hard it is to learn to actually read IPA (which should in
theory be easy). I can sound things out, but I can't read IPA it silently
at normal speed. If someone were to hand me a novel or newspaper written
in IPA, I too would be reluctant to "bother" reading it.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=2>In , I think the issue is one of the conventionality of
writing systems and how deeply engrained they become in our minds become
after years of practice. Getting back to Mark's original situation,
arguably one reason for trying to write down what is actually said is precisely
to focus one's attention on the details of linguistic form by short-circuiting
one's normal reading habits. I like the comment that Agar makes somewhere
in Language Shock to the effect that transcription conventions allow one to
"score" a conversation. Maybe transcription shouldn't really be
thought of as "writing" but as either a formal representation of
spoken data or a "performance script" (I think Tedlock wrote a book
along these lines presenting what he suggesting thinking of as a script for the
performance of some Hopi poetry--don't remember the exact reference). And
actually, getting back to the Arabic situation--how do people handle scripts for
plays, movies, soap operas? Surely they're not all in Classical or even
Modern Standard Arabic. It's true of course that "dialogue" in
English plays, novels, movie scripts etc. is not actually the same as the
patterns found in natural conversations (another interesting comparison-contrast
for students to do), but there are various conventions for representing
non-standard pronunciations as well as some of the ubiquitious slurring-together
that all speakers do (didja? whatcha do? etc.). What happens
in Arabic when literary characters speak in dialect?</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=2>Cyndi Dunn</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=2>cdunn@gte.net</FONT></DIV></BODY></HTML>