Raquel Alicia Coy
ENGL B6400: Theories and Models of
Literacy
Professor Barbara Gleason
December 17, 2015
The
Evolution of Silent Reading and the Role of Punctuation in the Process
If one were to ask “what is
literacy?” the layperson outside of the field of education would probably
simply reply “well, reading and writing.” However, much of the literature in literacy
studies suggests that the answer is not that simply and can change depending on
context and time and that we need to look deeper into concepts we take for
granted. The same can be said about reading. Although people today may think of
silent reading as the norm, silent reading was not always considered the
natural means of taking meaning from text. Before the consistent application of
word spacing, paragraphing, and punctuation to separate phrases and clauses,
reading was treated as an oral activity, one in which the reader's role was more in line with that
of an
orator performing for an audience. The shift from an oral reading tradition to
a silent reading tradition was facilitated by the adoption of visual cueing signals and
revolutionized the way people interacted with text.
Before the wide-spread adoption of
silent reading, oral reading was the primary means of reading. In the books Space Between Words: The Origin of Silent Reading by Paul Saenger
and A
History of Reading by Alberto Manguel, the authors illustrate this with the
example of Aristotle observing St. Ambrose. In the telling, Aristotle describes observing
Ambrose as he read, “his eyes scanned the page and his heart sought out the
meaning, but his voice was silent and his tongue was still…when we came to
visit him, we found him reading like this in silence for he never read aloud”
(Manguel 42). Saenger comments that Aristole was amazed by this ability. There
are other uncertain references to silent reading prior to Aristole’s accounts
that Manguel mentions, but, for the most part, Aristotle’s story illustrates
how foreign a concept silent reading was in 383 A.D. In the ancient world, until around the time
when Irish scribes began reintroducing word spacing around the 690 A.D, scriptura continua was the dominant
format of transcribing written language, and there were many reasons why the
form persisted for so many centuries.
While it may seem more intuitive
that the march toward silent reading was
a clean, linear one that should mirror an equally linear transition from scriptura continua to word separation, paradoxically
the scriptura continua form was
actually preceded by forms of writing that embraced word separation. In the
ancient world, the written languages of Mesopotamia, Phoenicia, and Israel
utilized word separation in their texts. The reason for this stemmed from the
fact that these languages didn’t have vowel representations. Scriptura continua works in languages
with a complete set of symbols representing all of the phonemes in the
language. This is necessary because the reader must sound out the transcribed
words in order to decode meaning. Before adopting vowels from the Phoenician
alphabet, ancient Greek did not have a reliable means of representing all of
the phonemes in their language. Therefore, it was necessary to include spaces
between words. After the appearance of vowel, the ancient Greeks began to use scriptura continua. According to Saenger,
“the adoption of vowels and of scriptura
continua went hand in hand” (Saenger 9). By the 2nd century A.D,
the Romans were also putting aside word separation, interpuncts, and points in
favor of scriptura continua.
While scribes in ancient Rome were
aware of word separation, there were particular social functions of reading during
this time period that accounted for the persistence of scriptura continua. Word separation was rejected because of purpose
reading served during this time. According to Manguel, “written words, from the
days of the first Sumerian tablets, were meant to be pronounced out loud, since
the signs carried implicit, as if it were their soul, a particular sound” (45).
In other words, the goal of written text was seen as a way to represent oral
language until a reader could “re-present” the words orally once again. In
fact, scholars believe readers in antiquity did not value or acknowledge writing
as a separate linguistic mode, to the point where there were no words to
differentiate the concept of “sound” and “letter” (Baron 28). This lack of
distinction between oral speech and written text was perpetuated by the reading
habits of the ancients. Reading was a group activity and rarely a solitary one
unless the reader, during praelectio (the
reader’s preparation time before actual oral performance for a group), mumbled
to herself in preparation. In the ancient world, reading material was “focused
on a limited and intensely scrutinized canon of literature” (Saenger 12). This
implies that the readers of the time were more concerned with the oral
recitation of the pieces rather than quickly skimming or retrieving
information. In addition to the social role written text had in
Ancient Greece and Ancient Rome, the oral reading tradition was supported the physical forms
print took. While not exclusive to either separated or unseparated words, the
physical forms of the texts in antiquity were indicative of purpose. Scrolls
lent themselves to the continuous writing form of scriptura continua, while codices lent themselves to the easy
perusal and fast information retrieval of silent reading.
As we’ve seen, the text of the
ancient world—the one that found scriptura
continua the optimal form of delivery—was primarily a text for which the
purpose was to re-present in oral form at a later date. This is important to
consider when looking at the visual markers and punctuation used during this
time period. Because orality was the eventual goal of the text, any visual
marker needed to serve the purpose of marking elements that would affect an
oral performance of the text, such as short or long breaks. For example, Manguel
writes that “monks in the scriptorium made use of a writing method known as per cola et commata, in
which the text was divided into lines of sense—a primitive form of
punctuation that helped the unsteady reader lower or raise the voice at the end
of block of thought” (49). Because of the very nature of scriptura continua, the readers of ancient texts were not provided
word spacing to indicate the shift from one word to another. However, there
were other visual cues such as per cola
et commata that scribes occasionally used to help with the oral performance
and comprehension, and ancient punctuation marks were also used as rhetorical
tools to help in the reading of an oral delivery. In her article, “Commas and
Canaries: the Role of Punctuation in Speech and Writing,” Naomi S. Baron writes
that while there were punctuation marks in existence—as evidenced by the 1st
century rhetorician Quintilian’s text on the differences between a comma, a
colon, and a periodus—the punctuation
was meant only to indicate the recommended length of breaths to deliver lines,
and that “placement of punctuation was largely left to the reader” (24).
The re-introduction of word
separation is credited to Irish scribes during the 7th century. At
the time, the Irish monastic scribes were transcribing Greek and Latin texts
and the difficulty in comprehending both Latin syntax and scriptura continua
prompted them to begin adding spaces between parts of texts to help facilitate
understanding. The transcribed Book of
Mulling, dated to 690 A.D, marks the beginning of the move toward word
separation in Ireland. Although it would take some time for the Irish to begin
applying the practice of word separation to their own written language, the
practice of word separation slowly began to spread out from Ireland, to
Renaissance Italy and France before it became common practice in Byzantium in
the latter part of the 16th century (Saenger 13).
The shift toward word separation, as
mentioned before, was not a smooth one, and the manuscripts produced in the
midst of the transition showed evidence of the warring practices of scriptura continua and word separation
in the form of aerated script. These scripts represent the fledging move toward
word separation and, according to Saenger, were largely produced in the late 7th
century. They employed space, but spaces were not consistent between words, and
as Saenger writes, “the common characteristic of all aerated Latin manuscripts
is that inserted space delimits units that do not necessarily correspond to
either units of meaning or rhetorical pauses” (32) While some scholars see the
seemingly nonsensical, irregular separation of Latin text during this age of
aerated script as evidence of ignorance on the part of Middle Age-scribes, Saenger
believes that aerated script is an important tool in making the leap from scriptura continua. The separations made
seemed to fall into two categories: aerated script written in letter blocks—where
texts were spaced with little to no regard for words or syllables—or aerated
script in syllable blocks—where texts were spaced according to syllables (Saenger
34-35). This suggests that the scribes were not simply adding spaces because
they lacked knowledge of Latin syntax, but that the spaces were deliberate
reading aids.
Once word separation was embraced
and standardized, silent reading quickly followed.
While reading
silently, the human brain must process information while the eyes move across
the page. Although it may seem as though reading occurs in a straightforward,
word by word progression, our eyes actually jump between chunks of text in
movements called saccades. In order to facilitate saccades and silent reading,
we need predictable organization of text to process (Saenger 6-7). According to
Saenger, “spatial organization is a determinative element in the effect of
different transcriptions systems on the cognitive processes required for lexical
access and hence on the propensity to read orally or silently” (5). Word
separation and punctuation fill serve the function of breaking down texts into
digestible chunks through spatial organization. Therefore, when scribes began
adding in spaces between words, they began to encourage the practice of silent
reading. After the monastic scribes spear-headed the adoption of word
separation, two other factors also helped cement the normalization of spaces
between words: changed practices in scholarship and a shift in attitudes toward
the written word. With the adoption of silent reading, students—by the
fourteenth and fifteenth centuries—were already in the practice of silent
reading, even as their lecturers read to them. Although the goal of education
was still to memorize as much as one could, the memorization became a silent
and solitary practice (Saenger 258-259).
The transition from oral reading to
silent reading had many significant effects on society and individuals. On a
societal level, the addition of spaces between words allowed for a broader
number of possible readers because reading suddenly became a bit easier. One no
longer had to train in the formal, oratory arts in order to decode the text,
and the addition of punctuation and other visual signposts allowed for clarity
of meaning. This widened access to text led to other uses of print that the scriptura continua form could not easily
lend itself to: skimming and quickly retrieving information. Reading became a
solitary endeavor rather than a group activity (Saenger 265).
There
was a strong resistance against silent reading. Many argued that the ease of
silent reading could not compete with the strenuous mental labor of
memorization and could lead to lack of focus and daydreaming (Manguel 51). The
new modality of silent reading also posed a threat to the authority of the
clergy. In the oral tradition, the
reading and interpretation of scripture was controlled by the Roman Catholic
Church, and members of the Church had no choice but to rely on the expertise of
those decoding the text. Even members of the clergy who had the skills to
decode on their own could not do so because reading was public. However, once
silent reading came into common practice, those who could read were able to
silently, private interpret gospel on their own. Once individuals could
silently read religious texts and other texts, there was suddenly room for
dissent and individual interpretation, and this led to a spike in heresy charges
in the late Middle Ages (Saenger 264). This was a large motivating force for
the Protestant Reformation (Manguel 51).
The
evolution of silent reading marks one of the most important changes in Western
culture. We continue to feel the impact of silent reading, even though it is so
ubiquitous that we rarely think about its origins. This investigation into the
history of silent reading is an important one as it prompts literacy educators
and literacy future educators to delve deeper into the underlying constructs of
established literacy practices today.
Works Cited
Baron, Naomi S. “Commas
and Canaries: the Role of Punctuation in Speech and Writing.”
Language
Sciences. 23 (2001: 15-67). Print.
Manguel, Alberto. A
History of Reading. New York: Penguin Group, 1996. Print.
Saenger, Paul. Space Between Words: The Origin of Silent
Reading. Stanford: Stanford
University
Press, 1997. Print.
No comments:
Post a Comment