As a student, throughout my educational stage, I have always had problems with my writing, and I always thought that writing was not my thing. But after reading the article “Writing is not Natural” by Dylan B. Dryer, my point of view on this subject completely changed. In the article, the author explains why writing is not something natural for people.
Dryer argues that not all civilizations on the planet have developed a written language, but they do have some form of speech that is easy for children to learn and is taught by adults. This proves that speech is something natural for our body since it is anatomically prepared to do so without the use of any tools. On the other hand, he defines writing as technology, since technology is the set of knowledge and techniques that are applied in an orderly manner to achieve a certain objective or solve a problem. Taking writing from this point of view, we can say that it is a type of language that requires support tools for its creation and dissemination, such as pencil, paper, pen, crayon, among others. Written communication was created to represent the sounds of our speech through symbols.
Additionally, Dryer emphasizes that as writers it is not good comparing writing with speech. In contrast with speech, writing is not natural and it will not be as easy as speaking. Among the factors that help speech to be understood more easily, we find agents such as gesture, expression, rhythm, silences, and clarifications. Consequently, combining these factors during a talk improves the audience’s comprehension and the transmitter’s awareness about audience understanding. For example, when a teacher explains a new topic to the students, she might notice if they are having trouble understanding what she is explained by looking at their faces. By doing this, it is very easy to know if students are confused, depending on the expressions they make, the teacher can know if they are understanding or not. Considering all these factors are absent for writers and they are using an inherited system, the article author suggests accepting that writing is not natural and taking it as a type of technology. This will allow writers to improve their writing skills.
Dryer’s article exposes a point of view on writing, makes us see writing as a type of technology, completely denaturing it. Something that I had never considered, but after having read the article I think that seeing writing as something unnatural might be considered by all people to avoid struggling while writing. Most of us tend to think about writing as a natural process and that it should be fluent like speech. Thinking in that way, we end up frustrated because we do not achieve that fluidity that we expect. That is why I think that Dryer’s point of view could help us improve as writers.
