New Digital Media for a Greater Balance

The previous chapters have deepened the characteristics of the two modalities of language, as well as how their relationship has been stud­

ied and perceived so far. I now proceed to discuss the main effects of new digital media on language. In recent years, the relationship be­

tween speech and writing has changed considerably due to the use of technological tools. They have revitalized the reliability of spoken lan­

guage and they improve some shortcomings of writing such as the ex­

cessive distance with the interlocutor and the lack of simultaneity in a dialogue. Additionally, they allow for a new balance to be found in their relationship. Distinctly, there are at least three substantial changes that new digital media is bringing to the continuum between speech and writing (reported in Fig. 2). The first one is the possibility to record an event as it occurs. This authorises the viewer to repeat an accurately reproduced scene as many times as desired. In this way, it is possible to avoid all imperfections and uncertainties that can often characterize the verbal communication. A second change is the dramatic increase in the number of active readers and writers. This is because new tech­

nologies are increasingly more user­friendly and affordable. As a result, they entice people to learn not just to write but also to become writ­

ers themselves. A third change is the possibility to talk to multitudes of people with perfect acoustic conditions. In the past, communication was limited to smaller audiences and delivered in spaces such as squares or enclosed theatres. Conversely, today individuals can talk, be heard,

9. For further details, see Koch and Oesterreicher (2012).

and be watched by anyone they are connected with on the World Wide Web. Moreover, new technology vastly improves the quality of sound through the use of microphones, speakers or loudspeakers, which gives the human voice the possibility to avoid the uncertainty of weather con­

ditions.

Speech Writing

Recording the Worldwide diffusion More active readers

present event of the event and writers

Fıgure 2. Three changes brought by new digital media today

I herein return to the language features collected by Clark and Bren­

nan (cf. section 2.2). By virtue of new technologies, a more balanced set of characteristics can be found in both modalities of language, which reduces the gap between them when only using traditional face­to­face oral conversation or traditional writing on paper (cf. Table 2).

Now, a verbal communication can be reviewed and revised in recorded audio and corrected by artificial intelligence. In addition, writing tools gain copresence, visibility, audibility, cotemporality, and quasi­simultaneity when used in video chat platforms such as Skype or Zoom, or with virtual assistants such as voice­guided navigation, and voice translation as with Google Translate.

Table 2. Main features of speech and writing with traditional communication and new digital media (NDMedia)

Speech Writing

Face­to­face NDMedia Traditional NDMedia

Copresence + – +

Visibility + – +

Audibility + – +

Cotemporality + – +

Simultaneity + – +

Sequentiality + – +

Reviewability – + +

Revisability – + +

I present three examples in which an original interdependence be­

tween speech and writing is evident as a result of new technologies in the digital arena.

The first multimodal example concerns instant messaging (IM) in apps like WhatsApp or Viber. With these software, it is possible to

use quasi­synchronous typed written messages as well as recorded voice messages. Thus, in chat conversations of everyday life, speech and writ­

ing are strongly intertwined. In fact, users can participate in a dia­

logue comprised of spoken communication only, written communica­

tion only, or both (cf. Fig. 3).

Fıgure 3. Speech and writing on IM

The second example concerns videoconference communication in platforms like Skype, Google Meet, or Zoom (cf. Fig. 4). During a video call, users can talk or write something on paper or on a whiteboard, akin to a physical meeting or class lesson. In addition, they can simultane­

ously download and upload spoken and written messages in the video chat. Thus, in this rather commonplace digital media, the space in which it is possible to communicate has been doubled to comprise a three­

dimensional space, where two or more interlocutors exist, and a web chat space.

Fıgure 4. Speech and writing on video chat

The third and final example details the interdependence in pre­

recorded videos. The multimodality of using subtitles during a pre­

recorded video, such as a movie, highlights the immense and positive change currently underway by virtue of new media. This example was already present in the past decades, before the digital era. However, today as never before, subtitles are used in pre­recorded videos down­

loaded and watched daily by millions of web­users on platforms like YouTube.

The interdependence between speech and writing is involved in the entire process of publishing a pre­recorded video. As shown in Fig. 5, this intertwined relationship is exhibited, for example, during the writ­

ing process of a screenplay (a), during the actors’ rehearsals (b), and also during the video projection with the addition of subtitles (c).

(a) (b) (c)

Fıgure 5. Speech and writing on pre­recorded video

To summarise, these three examples showcase how the multimodal­

ity of new digital media thoroughly blends the positive aspects of speech, such as the reality and truthfulness of the event, and the pos­

itive aspects of writing, such as the reliability and stability of a visual communication.

6. Conclusion

This paper has presented some insights into the relationship between speech and writing over time in Western societies and its perception in Western thinking. This study has shown how complex this relationship is, and yet how much it deserves our full attention at the same time.

Because the relationship has changed in the contemporary moment, so too has the way of studying it. Moreover, the digital arena of a global­

ized world is creating new dynamics, further emphasizing their interde­

pendence. For this reason, new digital media could be useful supports

to help reach a greater awareness of the complex relationship between them. Despite the perceived conflicts between speech and writing in previous periods of time, today these two modalities of language can be considered both autonomous and simultaneously strongly intertwined, as two sides of the same coin.

This paper focused solely on the Western World. It would be bene­

ficial to continue this research by deepening the relationship between speech and writing in non­Western societies, particularly in language communities that use writing systems different from the alphabetical one. Additionally, future studies could contribute to the creation of learning paths used in educational programs in order to bring students toward a greater awareness of the interdependence between speech and writing. To this end, the world’s youngest citizens, most involved in the digital revolution, could learn how to manage the complex relationship between these two modalities of human language more effectively. In doing so, they could develop an elevated degree of linguistic flexibility as suitable as possible for the most diverse solutions in the contempo­

rary world.

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