La naturaleza dual de la escritura

Abstract

An attempt is made in this paper to widen linguistic theory to encompass the written language. The graphemes are defined as the units of a written second articulation. The characters are not accepted as signs of phonemes; but as meaningless fragments of larger minimal signs. In any kind of writing the written words are first considered as iconic signs of the spoken words. Subsequently when reading and writing are practiced in an intensive and extensive manner; the written language works as a dual patterned language with an historical tendency of its own; in which the written signs do not depend any more on the spoken words for the achievement of communication and; therefore; their iconic origin plays a secondary role.