Embark on a journey of knowledge! Take the quiz and earn valuable credits.
Challenge yourself and boost your learning! Start the quiz now to earn credits.
Unlock your potential! Begin the quiz, answer questions, and accumulate credits along the way.
Embark on a journey of knowledge! Take the quiz and earn valuable credits.
Challenge yourself and boost your learning! Start the quiz now to earn credits.
Unlock your potential! Begin the quiz, answer questions, and accumulate credits along the way.
Writing is a medium of human communication that involves the representation of a language with written symbols. Writing systems are not themselves human languages (with the debatable exception of computer languages); they are means of rendering a language into a form that can be reconstructed by other humans separated by time and/or space. While not all languages use a writing system, those with systems of inscriptions can complement and extend capacities of spoken language by enabling the creation of durable forms of speech that can be transmitted across space (e.g., correspondence) and stored over time (e.g., libraries or other public records). It has also been observed that the activity of writing itself can have knowledge-transforming effects, since it allows humans to externalize their thinking in forms that are easier to reflect on, elaborate, reconsider, and revise. Writing relies on many of the same semantic structures as the speech it represents, such as lexicon and syntax, with the added dependency of a system of symbols to represent that language's phonology and morphology. The result of the activity of writing is called a text, and the interpreter or activator of this text is called a reader.
As human societies emerged, collective motivations for the development of writing were driven by pragmatic exigencies like keeping history, maintaining culture, codifying knowledge through curricula and lists of texts deemed to contain foundational knowledge (e.g., The Canon of Medicine) or to be artistically exceptional (e.g., a literary canon), organizing and governing societies through the formation of legal systems, census records, contracts, deeds of ownership, taxation, trade agreements, treaties, and so on. Amateur historians, including H.G. Wells, had speculated since the early 20th century on the likely correspondence between the emergence of systems of writing and the development of city-states into empires. As Charles Bazerman explains, the "marking of signs on stones, clay, paper, and now digital memories—each more portable and rapidly traveling than the previous—provided means for increasingly coordinated and extended action as well as memory across larger groups of people over time and space." For example, around the 4th millennium BC, the complexity of trade and administration in Mesopotamia outgrew human memory, and writing became a more dependable method of recording and presenting transactions in a permanent form. In both ancient Egypt and Mesoamerica, on the other hand, writing may have evolved through calendric and political necessities for recording historical and environmental events. Further innovations included more uniform, predictable, and widely dispersed legal systems, distribution and discussion of accessible versions of sacred texts, and the origins of modern practices of scientific inquiry and knowledge-consolidation, all largely reliant on portable and easily reproducible forms of inscribed language.
Individual, as opposed to collective, motivations for writing include improvised additional capacity for the limitations of human memory (e.g., to-do lists, recipes, reminders, logbooks, maps, the proper sequence for a complicated task or important ritual), dissemination of ideas (as in an essay, monograph, broadside, petition, or manifesto), imaginative narratives and other forms of storytelling, personal or business correspondence, and lifewriting (e.g., a diary or journal).
referencePosted on 29 Apr 2022, this text provides information on Miscellaneous in Community related to Community. Please note that while accuracy is prioritized, the data presented might not be entirely correct or up-to-date. This information is offered for general knowledge and informational purposes only, and should not be considered as a substitute for professional advice.
Turn Your Knowledge into Earnings.
Ever curious about what that abbreviation stands for? fullforms has got them all listed out for you to explore. Simply,Choose a subject/topic and get started on a self-paced learning journey in a world of fullforms.
OPEN APP
Click "Allow Notifications" in Your Browser to Access Quiz and Earn Rewards! 🚀
Write Your Comments or Explanations to Help Others