On page 67, Lupton quotes Derrida: "That a speech supposedly alive can lend itself to spacing in its own writing is what relates to its own death."
I think this is a really fascinating quote- do you suppose he means that if spaces or pauses cannot be heard in speech, then it cannot be properly written? And if so, does writing speech down with proper spacing really signify the death of that speech? Or does it just signify the death of it in spoken form, while also immortalizing that speech, that would otherwise only be known by the few who spoke and heard it?
I understand that type makes speech concrete and fixes it forevermore, to the extent of the technology's ability, but I'm not sure that speech dies completely when typed.
1 comment:
Here is what I get from Derrida's quote- Typography can lessen the impact and quality of speech. As people use speech less and less, and use the written word more, the formal structure of language changes. People speak very differently today than they did fifty or a hundred years ago. I hate to say it but I think this is being expressed right now in our culture. Take text messaging, l33t speak, and instant messaging for example. Text messaging has changed the way people, especially young adults,communicate with each other. They use all sorts of abbreviations, misuse grammatical structure, and sometimes invent new words. Speech is dying, along with the printed word I think. Derrida was unfortunely very correct. Check out this link here. Its an article that discusses a novel that a Japanese woman wrote and distributed using her cell phone. By using technology, we have yet again taken sounds and abstracted them into electronic material. Speech is a natural part of human life and its changing rapidly, perhaps not for the best?
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