From Utterance to Text: The Bias of Language in Speech and Writing

In this far-ranging essay David Olson attempts to reframe current controversies over several aspects of language, including meaning, comprehension, acquisition,reading, and reasoning. Olson argues that in all these cases the conflicts are rooted in differing assumptions about the relation of meaning to language: whether meaning is extrinsic to language—a relation Olson designates as "utterance"—or intrinsic—a relation he calls "text." On both the individual and cultural levels there has been development, Olson suggests, from language as utterance to language as text. He traces the history and impact of conventionalized, explicit language from the invention of the Greek alphabet through the rise of the British essayist technique. Olson concludes with a discussion of the resulting conception of language and the implications for the linguistic, psychological, and logical issues raised initially.