Reading is impression. Reading is personal. Reading is a faculty. While writing freezes the moment, reading is forever Though reading and writing go hand in hand, reading is actually writing’s antithesis — indeed, even activating separate regions of the brain. Writing is a skill, reading is a faculty. Writing was originally elaborated and thereafter deliberately adapted; reading has evolved in tandem with humanity’s deeper understanding of the written word’s latent capabilities. Writing’s history has followed series of borrowings and refinements, reading’s history has involved successive stages of social maturation. Writing is expression, reading impression. Writing is public, reading personal. Writing is limited, reading open-ended. Writing freezes the moment. Reading is forever. […] Reading has always been different from writing. Writing prioritizes sound, as the spoken word must be transformed or deconstructed into representative sign(s). Reading, however, prioritizes meaning. The faculty of reading has, in fact, very little to do with the skill of writing. […] Reading is not merely the attaching of sound to grapheme, which occurs only at an elementary level. Meaning is involved, and in a fundamental way. At a higher level of perception reading can even convey meaning alone, without any recourse to sound. Therein lies reading’s sense-like magic. - Steven R. Fischer in A History of Reading, Reaktion Books, 2004
Posted on: Fri, 14 Mar 2014 10:30:01 +0000
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