Spoken and Written Language as Medium of Communication: A Self-Reflection

Abstract

Speaking and writing are the most important communicative tools among human beings. While speaking is considered to be older and more widely employed, spoken and written language have not been treated equally. Spoken language is seen as the natural productive tool among people that is more common and normal, whereas written language is seen as being intricate and complicated due to its extensive rules. Therefore, spoken language has attracted the attention of researchers to a greater extent compared to written language due to the belief that spoken language has primacy over written language. This paper is an attempt to shed some light on these two communicative elements and the differences between them. A self-reflection, based on Dewey’s (1997) ground-breaking work, is presented in terms of when/where spoken or written language is more appropriate as a medium of communication. It can be argued, therefore, that both speaking and writing are important means of communication without prioritising one over the other; yet, conventions are the real indicators as to which medium of communication is more appropriate.