Venezky 1970

Venezky, Richard L. 1970. "Principles for the design of practical writing systems." Anthropological Linguistics. (Reprint in Fishman 1977.) Interest level: academic.

Gives a psycholinguistic perspective. Argues against the one-symbol-per-phoneme theory that was commonly accepted at that time. Makes the following assumptions:

• Reading process is producing sounds from symbols
• Language processing is the same as linguistic descriptions going from one level to another
• There is psychological reality to phonemic system
• Primary motivation for writing system is obtaining literacy
• Ornamental, academic, or religious uses are unimportant
• New systems are phonologically based and reading is more important than spelling

Experiments to help in alphabet design are biased if subjects are already literate in another language and are difficult if preliterate. Should show reading rather than spelling performance. Prepare paragraphs of varying semantic complexity in alternate systems and obtain readability preferences. Could also use for testing speed or comprehension difficulties over time with separate groups.

• Bibliography module: Venezky 1970
• In overview module: Bibliography (Literacy): V
• In modular book: Bibliography (Literacy), by Doris Gallemore, Trudi C. Hunt, Jeanne Swanson, and Stephen L. Walter
• In document collection: Reference materials
• In bookshelf: Literacy

This page is an extract from the LinguaLinks Library, Version 4.0, published on CD-ROM by SIL International, 1999. [Ordering information.]

Page content last modified: 28 June 1999

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