Review of Josef Vachek: Written Language Revisited.

Abstract

It is not easy to realize how complex and manysided the issues of written (and printed) language, of spelling and orthography are; if the relationships of the graphemic subsystem to the other parts of the language are to be accounted for, then, however, this complexity does become apparent. The volume under review recalls and illustrates the development of the research and of the various discussions which, within the Prague School, have led to a deepened elaboration of these issues. Vachek's selected writings, published at the occasion of his 80's birthday, document the history of this branch of research, of which the author has been the main protagonist; although he stresses the role of A. Artymovyc as that of his predecessor, and presents also comments on insights published by A. Frinta, D. L. Bolinger, W. Haas, H. Glück and many others, it is clear and well known that the main role in the elucidation of the status of written language has belonged to his own contributions.The first part of the volume, introduced by a short, although highly instructive and convincing summary by P. A. Luelsdorff, includes three of Vachek's papers from the years 1945 through 1965. In the first of them writing is compared with phonetic transcription, the main point consisting in the inadequacy of considering the former just to represent an imperfect alternative to the latter; the functions proper to writing are pointed out here, which lead to the estimation of writing systems as specific parts of language. A functional differentiation between written and printed language is the objective of the second included paper, where Buhler's tripartition of the functions of the utterance is applied in the sense that written texts differ from printed ones in their primary means serving to fulfil the function of expression, while with printed texts those of appeal and reference are the main ones. The third paper concerns the functional autonomy of written language; Vachek argues here that languages having no written norm should not be understood as the normal, or prototypical, cases, since they cannot serve as a suitable starting point for a general linguistic investigation; they Brought to you by | Nanyang Technological University Authenticated Download Date | 6/8/15 2:16 PM