What are your language preferences in terms of authenticity: speech or writing?
My dear Marwan,
What a fine question; thanks for inviting me: I love anything to do with language. Any form of communication--gestures, para-verbal sounds, whispering, speaking, writing, translating-- has a deficient mode of performing and an optimal mode. When you do it deficiently, you may be understood, but you do not abandon the daily, inauthentic routine in which you and I are immersed-- Heidegger´s term, "das Man." On the other hand, when you perform it in an optimal way, you rise above the routine and engage in authentic creation. This creativity is contagious. You communicate it to your interlocutor, and he feels impelled to be creative as well. Let me give you an example, in tribute to our Brazilian friend Nelson Elias, who always provides us such brilliant answers-- a form of communication in optimal form:
The first time I was invited to give a course in Brasília, Brazil, I was contracted to teach in Spanish, in which I am fluent. However, half-way through the course, I was on such excellent terms with my students, that they begged me to teach them in Portuguese. I had a pocket dictionary with me, so I could learn the basic vocab and inflections of Brazilian Portuguese. I am sure that I was addressing them In "Portunhol," a weird mixture of Portuguese and Spanish. Yet they understood me and while "creating" my own mode of communication, I noticed that they were giving me their own most creative, most inspired work in response!
Dear Marwan
In terms of authenticity the spoken is truer than writing
The writing is a later stage of a language . The spoken language is more spontaneous , covers linguistic communication throughout its entirety. Moreover, it is accompanied by the voice , sometimes for mimicry , including faces . The written language is not just a representation of the spoken language, but rather a more disciplined and rigid system , since it does not have the physiognomy play, mime and the voice of the speaker.
In Brazil , for example, all speak Portuguese , but there are different uses of language due to several factors . Among them are:
Regional factors : You can notice the difference from the Portuguese spoken by an inhabitant of the Northeast and other southeastern Brazil .
Cultural factors : the degree of schooling and cultural background of an individual are also factors that contribute to the different uses of language .
Contextual factors : our speech varies according to the situation in which we find ourselves, when we talk with our friends , we do not use the terms that we would use if we were addressing a graduation ceremony .
Professional factors : the exercise of certain activities requires mastery of certain types of technical language called tongues .
Natural factors : the use of language by speakers is influenced by natural factors such as age and sex. A child does not use the language the same way as an adult , there is talk in child language and adult language
My dear Marwan,
What a fine question; thanks for inviting me: I love anything to do with language. Any form of communication--gestures, para-verbal sounds, whispering, speaking, writing, translating-- has a deficient mode of performing and an optimal mode. When you do it deficiently, you may be understood, but you do not abandon the daily, inauthentic routine in which you and I are immersed-- Heidegger´s term, "das Man." On the other hand, when you perform it in an optimal way, you rise above the routine and engage in authentic creation. This creativity is contagious. You communicate it to your interlocutor, and he feels impelled to be creative as well. Let me give you an example, in tribute to our Brazilian friend Nelson Elias, who always provides us such brilliant answers-- a form of communication in optimal form:
The first time I was invited to give a course in Brasília, Brazil, I was contracted to teach in Spanish, in which I am fluent. However, half-way through the course, I was on such excellent terms with my students, that they begged me to teach them in Portuguese. I had a pocket dictionary with me, so I could learn the basic vocab and inflections of Brazilian Portuguese. I am sure that I was addressing them In "Portunhol," a weird mixture of Portuguese and Spanish. Yet they understood me and while "creating" my own mode of communication, I noticed that they were giving me their own most creative, most inspired work in response!
Dear Nelson
Thank you for your comment. In Latin America we use the expression "Portunhol" a mix of Portuguese and Espanhol. Its very common in this region
Dear Nelson,
Brazilian Portuguese is much closer to South American Spanish (especially in the Southern Cone) than Portuguese from Portugal. This is why it is not difficult at all to speak "Portunhol." Anyway, the mixture enabled me to teach Xavier Zubiri´s philosophy, which is very subtle and difficult, to students without any philosophical background at all!
I assume (though I'm not so sure) that speech is more valid because it requires a "presence" of a person/speaker to support/defend what he/she says. On the other hand, writing implies an "absence," of the speaker/writer, in this case, a fact which makes the written text liable to interpretations, reinterpretations and misinterpretations that may not be true or authentic, for the simple reason that there is no one "present" to ask him/her whether or not the written text actually means what it offers in terms of the written words, thus making it open to slippery suggestions and interpretations!
Nice question and answers from all as well.
I think that spoken language is richer in information than the written. those information include and not limited to:
1- Emotions
2- stress to show importance
3- facial expressions and lip movements, which are used for visual speech recognition
4- hand gestures while talking
5- etc.
That why (in my opinion) spoken language is more valid, reliable and authentic .
and this is why my students keep videoing my lectures, they claim that the lecture is more understood in that way, rather than reading the notes and the book.
Different factors are invovled in this context and it varies from region to region. For some people mother tongue or resgional language is much more effective and authoritative and they prefer to communicate in that language. Whereas for some national language and other ma believe in English language to communicate effectively across cultures.
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