Theories of Writing and Discourse and Production of Written Text - Essay Example

Although significant and extensive theories have been developed so far (e.g., Beal, 1990; Bereiter & Scardamalia, 1987; Molitor, 1987), psychology lacks a comprehensive and integrated theory of written text production in all its aspects. Furthermore, written text production is always part of the general dynamics of human behavior. People write (or speak) because they want to achieve particular goals in particular situations in a particular way, or because they cannot achieve them in nonlinguistic ways. Consequently, written text production should not (only) be reconstructed as the outcome of separate subsystems, but its theoretical reconstruction must show the greatest possible compatibility with the relevant processes investigated in general psychology (i.e., with perceptive, cognitive, motivational, and emotional processes). 

            Basically, Writing is a demanding cognitive activity, yet some people appear to write without great effort. Writing involves both engagement (the direct recording of conceptual associations) and reflection (the deliberate and cognitively demanding process of re-representing embedded processes and exploring cognitive structures). An engaged writer who has created an appropriate context and constraints can be carried along by the flow of mental association, without deliberative effort. Most writing involves deliberate planning but also makes use of chance discovery. The products of engaged writing become source material to inspire and constrain deliberate planning. Writing is analytic, requiring evaluation and problem solving, yet it is also a synthetic, productive process. Analysis and synthesis are not in opposition but form part of the productive cycle. A writer needs to accept the constraint of goals, plans, and schemas, but creative writing requires the breaking of constraint. Constraints serve a dual purpose: They act as a tacit generative framework, but an experienced writer is also able to represent constraints as explicit structures and can apply general-purpose procedures to explore and transform them. This transformation breaks out of the original framework, and in so doing creates a different conceptual space and set of constraints.

2. Spelling patterns and syllabification in English.

Spelling is not, as we have seen, ‘caught’ just through reading. It is certainly not through listening, since the English spelling system can have more than one spelling for any one sound, e.g. cup, done, does, blood, tough, and more than one sound for anyone spelling, e.g. does, goes, canoe. It is almost certainly ‘caught’ in the early years through looking, but, as we have seen, through looking in an especially intent way.

Bradley (1981) showed the actual writing of the spelling patterns establishes them within even difficult and irregular words (83-91).

Syllabification is structure-building throughout the lexical derivation; and syllabicity alternations such as rhythm — rhythmic, metre — metric — metering are once again the automatic effect of base-driven stratification.

3. Contribution of punctuation to meaning in written texts.

Punctuation is the canary. Punctuation tools such as commas, semicolons, and capitalization are obviously devices for adding clarity to writing. Yet punctuation as well divulges how writers view the balance between spoken and written language. To oversimplify, in England, punctuation marks initially indicated pauses in Latin texts meant to be read aloud, following earlier Roman rhetorical usage. By the mid-eighteenth century, this role had partly shifted, with punctuation also indicating grammatical relationships expressed in writing. However, during the twentieth century, the predominant uses of punctuation once again changed. Punctuation has become increasingly rhetorical in character, though the nature of this rhetorical function differs sharply from its earlier role in orally re-presenting written texts.