Summarizes some of the major pieces of evidence concerning the archeological clay tokens, specifically the technique for their manufacture, their geographic distribution, chronology, and the context in which they are found. Discusses the interpretation of tokens as the first example of visible language, particularly as an antecedent of Sumerian…

The relationships between literacy, intellect, and university disciplines are explored through examples attempting to distinguish intellect from intelligence and the high-grade literacy of university disciplines from its commonplace counterpart. (MT)

This article explores issues to be addressed in testing the validity of proposed correlations between the rise of a certain class of words and the development of literacy. Possible correlations point not to writing but to the language of law courts, feudal practices, and rhetorical debate in the Middle Ages. (Author/MT)

The problems created by the competing claims of various schools of criticism for a unified view of meaning are examined in this book. Chapters deal with the following topics: the problem of the plurality of modes, Ronald Crane and the pluralism of discrete modes, Kenneth Burke's multiplication of perspectives, history as criticism and the…

The process of projecting textual models onto the phenomenal world began with the invention of writing and accelerated through the manuscript culture of classical antiquity and the Middle Ages into the age of print. In Francis Bacon's work, the book (a metaphor for the phenomenal world) adapted to the demands of the printed text and reflects the…

Writing appears to have originated from a modest system of counters or tokens used to keep track of economic goods and transactions. This system of recording appeared in 8000 B. C. in Mesopotamia, or what is now Iraq. The tokens' consistency in shape and size during the next 4,000 years attests to the stability of the agricultural economy and way…

The change of emphasis from the written product to writing as a process manifests another important change--one from logical to phenomenological consciousness. Phenomenologically speaking, writing is both "immanent" in the writer and "transcendent" outside the writer. It is thinking of general concepts that actually occurred…

Summarizes changes in the Japanese script from 1900 onwards, emphasizing those made after World War II in an effort to simplify the script. (FL)

The evolution of lay literacy, the pervasive set of assumptions taken for granted by those who participate in a literate society, is traced from the 12th century. Research on the forms and assumptions of lay literacy over the change from an oral to a written to a computer society is urged. (MT)

Examines how, under Western influence, punctuation was adopted in Japanese texts in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. (FL)

Examines the slow growth of a body of knowledge about how information can best be communicated without necessary reference to overt persuasion, from Henry Day's "Art of Rhetoric" through contemporary explanatory rhetoric. (FL)

Traces the history of the alphabet; cites recent developments in the field of neurophysiology that tend to support the hypothesis that the alphabet produced a situation favorable for the development of logic, rational thought, and science. Also comments on the reemergence of the oral tradition. (GT)

Presents an overview of Michel Foucault's approach to the study of historical systems of thought, arguing that Foucault's view of historical criticism and language-in-use have much to offer rhetorical theory and criticism. Discusses the nature of discourse for Foucault and examines the characteristics of the fundamental discursive datum, the…