The Tyranny of Writing: Ideologies of the Written Word (Advances in Sociolinguistics)

This book is an attempt to make sense of the written word and its powerful role in society. By using the word 'tyranny' we take an explicitly critical stance towards writing, but we also join our voices to numerous essays, books and other texts inspired by this metaphor. This book is inspired above all by Saussure's argument against writing as an object of linguistic research and what he called la tyrannie de la lettre. He denounced writing as an imperfect, distorted image of speech that obscures our view of language and its structure. In this introduction to The Tyranny of Writing: Ideologies of the Written Word, we discuss the 'tyranny of writing' as a critical metaphor for sociolinguistics. The idea of the 'tyranny of writing' serves as a heuristic for exploring ideologies of language and literacy in culture and society as well as the tensions and contradictions between the written and the spoken word, linguistic normativity, creativity and authenticity, and centres and peripheries in language practices.--Publisher website.

• | Author: Constanze Weth, Tommaso M. Milani, Kasper Juffermans
• | Publisher: Bloomsbury Academic
• | Publication Date: Jul 25, 2019
• | Number of Pages: 240 pages
• | Language: English
• | Binding: Paperback/Language Arts & Disciplines
• | ISBN-10: 1350123110
• | ISBN-13: 9781350123113