Summary from the chapter found at http://faculty.edu, from Florian Coulmas, called “What Writing is all about”.

The author points out the importance of writing, being as the most appropriate tool in the language, despite the fact that it was created after the speech, as many scientists defend; it is considered as an artifact and unique. Besides, Coulmas says that History is directed linked to the written discourse. In this way, all the cumulated knowledge of the mankind could be aimed at the written History, apart from the oral History.

In this case, writing, although being less important than speech, according to other analysts, is a special acquisition, as a cultural achievement. So it was constructed and improved by the society, indispensable nowadays, because there would be no life without writing in all respects, such as religion, law, education, culture and even cars and computers would not be made.

Coulmas confesses the difficulty to trace writing back to its historical origin and includes some historical facts and myths like the invention of writing in India, thanks to Ganesh, a god similar to an elephant, or the god Thoth, in Egypt, for instance. However, as fantastic as Egyptians` or Indians` depiction of writing creation may seem, all were considered as fairly beyond human capacities putting the evidence into a divine activity, being far away from any kind of person, an ordinary person.

Writing and literacy for everyone, though, are not correlated, because there was a considerable gap in the period of emergence between one another. And it was few thousand years. An important remark about Coulmas`s text is that the most evident finality of writing is its capacity of enlarging the range of communication and power. Power is related to communication because there was a kind of appropriation of this structure of writing, in order to create law, rules and other social organization, which is completely unknown in oral cultures, for example.

After ramblings about the importance of writing, it is necessary to remark that the question “what writing is?” is much more intriguing than wondering how would be life without writing. As a whole, economy, law, education, music, health, everything is a result of an overall contribution towards the historical progress.

There are six considered functions of writing. In this final part, writing has an important role as a memory supportive (1). Most things from the oral history were forgotten. To record past moments of a community requires mnemonic function (2). It brings the memory to the present, thanks to the relation between meaning and symbols. Oral discourse loses its materiality whereas writing transforms the information into a material device to remember facts (3). Another function is to regulate the society – social control function (4). Thus, in this case, social control may be linked to the interactional function (5). The aesthetic function (6), finally, is the peculiarities of arts, music, cinema, literature. It brings the sense of visual beauty. These six functions are inherent in language.

Reference:

COULMAS, Florian. What Writing Is All About? (available on: http://faculty.edu).