Grammatology
Encyclopedia
Grammatology is a term coined by the linguist
Ignace Gelb
in 1952 to refer to the scientific study of writing systems or scripts. It includes the typology
of scripts, the analysis of the structural properties of scripts, and the relationship between written and spoken language
. In its broadest sense, some scholars also include the study of literacy
in grammatology and, indeed, the impact of writing on philosophy, religion, science, administration and other aspects of the organization of society.
(Orality and Literacy), Jack Goody
(Domestication of the Savage Mind), not to mention Marshall McLuhan
(The Gutenberg Galaxy
). Grammatology brings to any topic a consideration of the contribution of technology and the material and social apparatus of language. A more theoretical treatment of the approach may be seen in the works of Friedrich Kittler
(Discourse Networks: 1800/1900) and Avital Ronell
(The Telephone Book).
ist philosopher Jacques Derrida
borrowed the term, but put it to different use, in his book Of Grammatology
. Derrida aimed to show that writing is not simply a reproduction of speech, but that the way in which thoughts are recorded in writing, strongly affects the nature of knowledge. Deconstruction from a grammatological perspective places the history of philosophy in general, and metaphysics in particular, in the context of writing as such. In this perspective metaphysics is understood as a category or classification system relative to the invention of alphabetic writing and its institutionalization in School. Plato's Academy, and Aristotle's Lyceum, are as much a part of the invention of literacy as is the introduction of the vowel to create the Classical Greek alphabet. Gregory Ulmer
took up this trajectory, from historical to philosophical grammatology, to add applied grammatology (Applied Grammatology: Post(e)-Pedagogy from Jacques Derrida to Joseph Beuys
, Johns Hopkins, 1985). Ulmer coined the term "electracy
" to call attention to the fact that digital technologies and their elaboration in new media forms are part of an apparatus that is to these inventions what literacy is to alphabetic and print technologies. Grammatology studies the invention of an apparatus across the spectrum of its manifestations—technology, institutional practices, and identity behaviors. Marc Wilhelm Küster combines Derrida's approach with Gelbs's study of writing to build a more inclusive view of the interaction between writing and our ways of viewing the world.
and post-structuralism
. Swiss linguist Ferdinand de Saussure
was considered to be a key figure in structural approaches to language. Saussure writes, ‘Language and writing are two distinct systems of signs; the second exists for the sole purpose of representing the first.’ Peter Barry explains this well in his book, the Beginning Theory.
In the 1960s post-structuralism sprang into existence with Roland Barthes
and Jacques Derrida
, two of the major contributors to this movement. Barthes' writing has been described as interesting as one can see the transition of these two literary styles through comparing his earlier works with his later work. His early work is methodical and very structured in its delivery, Barthes' work then morphs into writing that has been described as random in sequence and unfocused, which is a key characteristics of post-structuralistic writing; Jacques Derrida published much work in the subject of literary theory but most were considered to be more philosophical then based on literary itself. However one of the most influential texts on post-structuralism is ‘Of Grammatology’, a book that Jacques Derrida wrote. This book had a famous slogan of ‘There is nothing outside the text’ and is today one of the most quoted lines when discussing Grammatology. This opinion of Derrida is quite different to that of Saussure who believes the meaning in words is outside the text.
Linguistics
Linguistics is the scientific study of human language. Linguistics can be broadly broken into three categories or subfields of study: language form, language meaning, and language in context....
Ignace Gelb
Ignace Gelb
Ignace Jay Gelb was a Polish-American ancient historian and Assyriologist who pioneered the scientific study of writing systems...
in 1952 to refer to the scientific study of writing systems or scripts. It includes the typology
Typology
Typology is the study of types. More specifically, it may refer to:*Typology , division of culture by races*Typology , classification of things according to their characteristics...
of scripts, the analysis of the structural properties of scripts, and the relationship between written and spoken language
Language
Language may refer either to the specifically human capacity for acquiring and using complex systems of communication, or to a specific instance of such a system of complex communication...
. In its broadest sense, some scholars also include the study of literacy
Literacy
Literacy has traditionally been described as the ability to read for knowledge, write coherently and think critically about printed material.Literacy represents the lifelong, intellectual process of gaining meaning from print...
in grammatology and, indeed, the impact of writing on philosophy, religion, science, administration and other aspects of the organization of society.
Toronto school etc.
The scholars most immediately associated with grammatology, understood as the history and theory of writing, include Eric Havelock (The Muse Learns to Write), Walter J. OngWalter J. Ong
Father Walter Jackson Ong, Ph.D. , was an American Jesuit priest, professor of English literature, cultural and religious historian and philosopher. His major interest was in exploring how the transition from orality to literacy influenced culture and changed human consciousness...
(Orality and Literacy), Jack Goody
Jack Goody
Sir John Rankine Goody is a British social anthropologist. He has been a prominent teacher at Cambridge University, he was elected Fellow of the British Academy in 1976, and he is an associate of the US National Academy of Sciences...
(Domestication of the Savage Mind), not to mention Marshall McLuhan
Marshall McLuhan
Herbert Marshall McLuhan, CC was a Canadian educator, philosopher, and scholar—a professor of English literature, a literary critic, a rhetorician, and a communication theorist...
(The Gutenberg Galaxy
The Gutenberg Galaxy
The Gutenberg Galaxy: The Making of Typographic Man is a book by Marshall McLuhan, in which he analyzes the effects of mass media, especially the printing press, on European culture and human consciousness...
). Grammatology brings to any topic a consideration of the contribution of technology and the material and social apparatus of language. A more theoretical treatment of the approach may be seen in the works of Friedrich Kittler
Friedrich Kittler
Friedrich A. Kittler was a literary scholar and a media theorist. His works relate to media, technology, and the military.-Biography:Friedrich Adolf Kittler was born in 1943 in Rochlitz in Saxony...
(Discourse Networks: 1800/1900) and Avital Ronell
Avital Ronell
Avital Ronell is a Professor of Philosophy at the European Graduate School in Saas-Fee and a Professor of German, comparative literature, and English at New York University, where she co-directs the Research in Trauma and Violence project...
(The Telephone Book).
Denconstructivism
In 1967 the deconstructionDeconstruction
Deconstruction is a term introduced by French philosopher Jacques Derrida in his 1967 book Of Grammatology. Although he carefully avoided defining the term directly, he sought to apply Martin Heidegger's concept of Destruktion or Abbau, to textual reading...
ist philosopher Jacques Derrida
Jacques Derrida
Jacques Derrida was a French philosopher, born in French Algeria. He developed the critical theory known as deconstruction and his work has been labeled as post-structuralism and associated with postmodern philosophy...
borrowed the term, but put it to different use, in his book Of Grammatology
Of Grammatology
De la grammatologie is a book by French philosopher Jacques Derrida, first published in 1967 by Les Éditions de Minuit. Of Grammatology, the English translation by Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, was first published in 1976 by Johns Hopkins University Press...
. Derrida aimed to show that writing is not simply a reproduction of speech, but that the way in which thoughts are recorded in writing, strongly affects the nature of knowledge. Deconstruction from a grammatological perspective places the history of philosophy in general, and metaphysics in particular, in the context of writing as such. In this perspective metaphysics is understood as a category or classification system relative to the invention of alphabetic writing and its institutionalization in School. Plato's Academy, and Aristotle's Lyceum, are as much a part of the invention of literacy as is the introduction of the vowel to create the Classical Greek alphabet. Gregory Ulmer
Gregory Ulmer
Gregory Leland Ulmer is a professor in the Department of English at the University of Florida and a professor of Electronic Languages and Cybermedia at the European Graduate School in Saas-Fee, Switzerland.- Career :...
took up this trajectory, from historical to philosophical grammatology, to add applied grammatology (Applied Grammatology: Post(e)-Pedagogy from Jacques Derrida to Joseph Beuys
Joseph Beuys
Joseph Beuys was a German performance artist, sculptor, installation artist, graphic artist, art theorist and pedagogue of art.His extensive work is grounded in concepts of humanism, social philosophy and anthroposophy; it culminates in his "extended definition of art" and the idea of social...
, Johns Hopkins, 1985). Ulmer coined the term "electracy
Electracy
Electracy describes the kind of “literacy” or skill and facility necessary to exploit the full communicative potential of new electronic media such as multimedia, hypermedia, social software, and virtual worlds...
" to call attention to the fact that digital technologies and their elaboration in new media forms are part of an apparatus that is to these inventions what literacy is to alphabetic and print technologies. Grammatology studies the invention of an apparatus across the spectrum of its manifestations—technology, institutional practices, and identity behaviors. Marc Wilhelm Küster combines Derrida's approach with Gelbs's study of writing to build a more inclusive view of the interaction between writing and our ways of viewing the world.
Structuralism and post-structuralism
Most common forms of literary writing is structuralismStructuralism
Structuralism originated in the structural linguistics of Ferdinand de Saussure and the subsequent Prague and Moscow schools of linguistics. Just as structural linguistics was facing serious challenges from the likes of Noam Chomsky and thus fading in importance in linguistics, structuralism...
and post-structuralism
Post-structuralism
Post-structuralism is a label formulated by American academics to denote the heterogeneous works of a series of French intellectuals who came to international prominence in the 1960s and '70s...
. Swiss linguist Ferdinand de Saussure
Ferdinand de Saussure
Ferdinand de Saussure was a Swiss linguist whose ideas laid a foundation for many significant developments in linguistics in the 20th century. He is widely considered one of the fathers of 20th-century linguistics...
was considered to be a key figure in structural approaches to language. Saussure writes, ‘Language and writing are two distinct systems of signs; the second exists for the sole purpose of representing the first.’ Peter Barry explains this well in his book, the Beginning Theory.
In the 1960s post-structuralism sprang into existence with Roland Barthes
Roland Barthes
Roland Gérard Barthes was a French literary theorist, philosopher, critic, and semiotician. Barthes' ideas explored a diverse range of fields and he influenced the development of schools of theory including structuralism, semiotics, existentialism, social theory, Marxism, anthropology and...
and Jacques Derrida
Jacques Derrida
Jacques Derrida was a French philosopher, born in French Algeria. He developed the critical theory known as deconstruction and his work has been labeled as post-structuralism and associated with postmodern philosophy...
, two of the major contributors to this movement. Barthes' writing has been described as interesting as one can see the transition of these two literary styles through comparing his earlier works with his later work. His early work is methodical and very structured in its delivery, Barthes' work then morphs into writing that has been described as random in sequence and unfocused, which is a key characteristics of post-structuralistic writing; Jacques Derrida published much work in the subject of literary theory but most were considered to be more philosophical then based on literary itself. However one of the most influential texts on post-structuralism is ‘Of Grammatology’, a book that Jacques Derrida wrote. This book had a famous slogan of ‘There is nothing outside the text’ and is today one of the most quoted lines when discussing Grammatology. This opinion of Derrida is quite different to that of Saussure who believes the meaning in words is outside the text.
See also
- Graphem(at)icsGraphemicsGraphemics or graphematics is the linguistic study of writing systems and their basic components, i.e. graphemes.At the beginning of the development of this area of linguistics, Ignace Gelb coined the term grammatology for this discipline; later some scholars suggested to call it graphology to...
- Writing systems
- Written languageWritten languageA written language is the representation of a language by means of a writing system. Written language is an invention in that it must be taught to children, who will instinctively learn or create spoken or gestural languages....
- List of writing systems
- StructuralismStructuralismStructuralism originated in the structural linguistics of Ferdinand de Saussure and the subsequent Prague and Moscow schools of linguistics. Just as structural linguistics was facing serious challenges from the likes of Noam Chomsky and thus fading in importance in linguistics, structuralism...
- Post-structuralismPost-structuralismPost-structuralism is a label formulated by American academics to denote the heterogeneous works of a series of French intellectuals who came to international prominence in the 1960s and '70s...
- DeconstructionDeconstructionDeconstruction is a term introduced by French philosopher Jacques Derrida in his 1967 book Of Grammatology. Although he carefully avoided defining the term directly, he sought to apply Martin Heidegger's concept of Destruktion or Abbau, to textual reading...