Page 37 - Literacy in the New Media Age

26 LITERACY IN THE NEW MEDIA AGE

change that spoken language might otherwise be subject to. Perhaps most
importantly, the inevitable authority of the written form has a levelling and
homogenising effect, as there is a tendency for speakers of different dialects to
attempt to approximate their pronunciations to the orthography of writing in their
reading of written texts.
In alphabetic cultures this relation is subject to greater or lesser regulation at
different times and in different societies. It is, among other things, one means of
exerting and exercising ‘authority’, and a means for trying to bring about
conformity and stability. ‘Spelling’ was used in that way in the attempts by the
Tudor state to spread and entrench its authority. Alphabetic writing is a readily
available metaphor for the expression of all kinds of social factors. At the
moment – the year 2002 at the time of writing – there is a heavy emphasis, in the
school systems of anglophone societies, on correctness of spelling, and an
insistence on the rules for the transliteration of letters (in words) into sounds (in
words), as in the practice of ‘phonics’, so called. This is more than mildly
paradoxical at a time when English, as a language, is escaping the control of
those who previously had been able to (deceive themselves that they could)
legislate in this way. English is now the language – both as a first language or as
an other language – of very many different communities around the world, all of
whom pronounce English in increasingly distinct and different fashion.
Of course, it might be said that this is precisely a ground for insisting on
maintaining a close relation between sound and letter, for reasons of continued
communicability and comprehension. But there are too many real problems: for
one thing, the changing Englishes around the world are subject to quite other
forces – for instance the influence of the sound-systems of the other languages
spoken in a particular locality together with English. Indian English sounds as it
does because of the sound-systems of Hindi, Urdu, Bengali and many others; as
does Welsh English, which reflects the sound-system of Welsh. For another
reason, it is quite simply an impossible undertaking to settle on one of these forms
of English as the standard by which all others would have to arrange themselves.
That had never been a possibility, and it certainly is not now.
Of course, this enterprise of insisting on conformity between letter and sound
is also paradoxical given the fragmentary and centripetal forces of globalisation.
What might be possible is a relatively unified form of spelling. Not only is it
likely to be sustainable, it is desirable and even necessary for English to function
as a global language. The effects and uses of the new media are likely to support
this. But the insistence on the close and ‘logical’ link between sound and letter is
a forlorn enterprise. English the language is, in that respect, heading in a similar
direction to the different forms (languages or dialects) of Chinese and their
writing system: relatively unified, mutually and widely comprehensible writing
system, only loosely linked to the sound-systems of the different ‘dialects’ or
languages of Chinese.
But perhaps the most significant effect of the alphabet is its effect on the
views of language by those who use it. The alphabet focuses its users on