RE: Common Errors in English - pattern recognition

[Sean Hower <hokumhome -at- freehomepage -dot- com>]

Gee, I step away for a couple of days and there's this really cool thread that I've totally missed. :-(

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Richard G. Combs wrote:
I don't think you can draw comparisons between reading text and creating it.

to which Bruce Byfield responded:
Again, why not? Please understand that I'm not being argumentive here; I
 simply would like to know what people think might be different.
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From what I remember from neurolinguistics, and in particular studies of aphasia and other linguistic disabilities, reading, writing, and speaking all involve different parts of the brain to varying degrees (in what combinations I don't remember). Which is why you could have someone who can read the word "orange" and know what it is, but not be able to write the word "orange" or even say the word "orange" when they see the real-world referent (ie an actual orange).




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Richard G. Combs wrote:
But again, there _are_ rules -- they're just different. If phonetic shorthand is superior for both writing and reading, it's not because 
the spelling isn't standardized -- it is. It merely uses a different 
standard.

to which Bruce Byfield responded:
That's only partly true. In phonetic shorthand, you aren't spelling 
words - you're reproducing sounds. 
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If by phonetic shorthand, you mean something like the IPA, then yeah. It does focus on sounds and not words. But you can bet that at some point, those spellings would become some form of a standard; humans being what we are, creatures of habit. :-)

I think one thing that needs to be remembered (and it seems to be confused quite a bit) is that writing and speaking are two separate activities. A person can speak without knowing how to write. A person can write without knowing how to speak (or maybe I should say without the ability to speak). Speaking represents our thoughts to others. Writing represents the words we use to express our thoughts to others.

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someone wrote this:
Also, if reading is difficult with non-standardized spelling, wouldn't 
writing be as well? Yet Shakespeare, Jonson, and dozens of other 
writers were prolific by any standards.
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Well, this wouldn't follow because the person writing with the non-standard spelling would internalize what they're doing and so become a master at writing in that style.

When I was in college I used a shorthand that included a mix of english and Japanese kanji mostly because I could write some words faster in Kanji than with an alphabet. I got pretty fast with it because I internalized what I was doing. Now, if I were to hand over my notes to someone else, they would have a devil of a time with it. Why? Because the reader has to decipher the patterns that I'm using before they can construct those patterns in their own heads. That's why Bruce, after reading a few pages of his Belize writers, can sail on through. His brain has learned the patterns (even the various dialects) and so processing what he is reading becomes easier. It's still simple pattern recognition rather than deciphering. That's why it takes a couple of pages to get used to Shakespeare, or A Clockwork Orange for that matter. Your brain is looking for patterns and once it finds them, it's a happy camper. :-)

I think you can draw a parallel between non-standard spelling and writing in secret code (did anyone used to do that in school?) If you create your own secret code, you need your key for a while until you get used to writing it. After a while, you can use your code as easily as standard spelling. Readers, however and hopefully, won't have such an easy time. If a person happens to decipher your code, they would be able to read it as easily as you can write it (though they are different cognitive activities). That's all pattern recognition. In the case of a secret code, I would wager that what happens is that first the reader learns to match a letter in the secret code to a letter in the alphabet, and then continues this sort of match until he/she starts to recognize whole words, at which point they switch from codeletter--letter matching to word--thought matching because the brain starts to recognize those patterns. Chances are the reader would be doing both of these at the same time, in much the same way a reader of a standardized spelling may pause or stumble over a word they hadn't encountered before.


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Bruce Byfield wrote:
But, in others, several different accents are being reproduced in dialogue, so the spelling isn't consistent. Instead, what happens is a mental switch in gears: I stop paying attention to the shape of words, and start responding to the sound. It helps that I have an extremely good inner ear, so that, when I read non-standard spelling, I mentally hear what is said.
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I don't think this is what's going on. If you're reading, then you're processing visual information, and unless you're sounding out each phoneme one-by-one without attaching any meaning to them, and then saying the word outloud, and then after that understanding what the word means, (which I doubt you are because it's a lot more work), you're still doing visual pattern recognition. By the time you say it (even if you "say it" in your head) your brain already knows what the word is because it has processed the visual info that represents that word on the page.

As for using something like an IPA as a standardized way to write the spoken word on a widespread basis, that would be very interesting. There would be some shift in teaching writing, I'm sure. When I was learning to read and write, I was taught to sound out words based on what was written, which is onviously very difficult given some of our spelling conventions. So, at least that aspect of using the IPA as a widespread standard would be much the same. But what would happen, probably, is that we would have to start emphasizing paying closer attention to each sound a speaker is making, which might actually have the effect of standardizing speach patterns, which in turn would standardize writing. (That said, the mass media does a better job at this.)

Tech writer tie-in?
It's all about internal consistency while maintaining a standard that everyone can recognize easily. (Why make a reader work harder than they have to?) Minor variations across documents are acceptable because readers would quickly learn those differences and adjust to them.


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Sean Hower - tech writer
http://hokum.freehomepage.com


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