In the book Naming What We Know, the chapter “Writing Is Not Natural” by Dylan B. Dryer discusses how speech comes naturally, while writing is more difficult to learn. Writing is often more difficult to understand because unlike speech, the writer must find ways to portray the correct tone or “voice” in their work. When speaking, the useful visuals like gestures or expressions help convey emotion to support your thoughts, but that is much harder to do while writing. Understanding that writing does not come naturally can help ease a struggling writer who may be judging themselves too harshly.
Learning to speak comes naturally to most children as they are surrounded by language every day, whether it be from interactions with caregivers and other children or through music and television. According to the Linguistic Society of America, many linguists believe that the ability to learn language is innate in humans and is as instinctive as a spider knowing how to spin a web.
Speech and writing are often seen as similar activities, writing being another way of “speaking” to an audience. Although this is partly true, writing requires much more time and effort to learn. Writing is by definition a technology—knowledge put into practical use to invent useful tools. While the technological acts of writing such as writing letters or typing without looking at a keyboard may become naturalized, writing itself is unnatural in the sense of translating thoughts and speech into meaning.
Thinking of writing as a technology helps solidify the idea that writing is not natural. Dylan B. Dryer addresses this, writing, “Once it is understood writing itself is a technology, comparisons to speech become obviously limited or downright misleading since no inscriptive system could possibly capture a language’s full range of communicative potential.” This realization can help ease the minds of struggling writers by reminding them of the major differences between speech and writing that are often overlooked when discussing the idea.
Once it is understood writing itself is a technology, comparisons to speech become obviously limited or downright misleading since no inscriptive system could possibly capture a language’s full range of communicative potential.
Writing and speech are connected in some ways, although speech has many social cues writing does not. Modalities such as gestures and expressions help deliver a message, as well as being able to get feedback in real time from whoever may be listening. While writing, it is important to remember not to judge yourself too harshly because of these reasons.
