Towards a psychology of literacy: on the relations between speech and writing
Abstract
A variety of graphic systems have been developed for preserving and communicating information, among them pictures, charts, graphs, flags, tartans and hallmarks. Writing systems which constitute a species of these graphic systems are distinctive in that they bear a direct relation to speech; in this paper it is argued that writing serves as a model for various properties of speech including sentences, words and for alphabets, phonemes. On this view, the history of writing and the acquisition of literacy are less matters of learning how to transcribe speech than a matter of learning to hear and think about one's own language in a new way. A number of lines of evidence are advanced to support the "model" view and the conclusion that literacy contributes to conceptual structure rather than merely reporting it.
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Abstract thought is closely tied to the cognitive capacities developed through the long-term evolution and use of writing systems and later by mass education.
“Abstract thought is closely tied to the cognitive capacities developed through the long-term evolution and use of writing systems and later by mass education (Cole, 2005;Olson, 1996).”
From Human Intelligence, Creativity, and Wisdom in the Age of Generative Artificial Intelligence (2025) · cites this paper as Olson, 1996
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References 97 · Cited by 107
- Authors
- Olson, D. R.
- Affiliations
- University of Toronto (CA)
- Corresponding author
- Olson, D.R.
- ORCID
- Olson, D.R.
- Venue
- Cognition
- Publisher
- Elsevier BV
- Published
- 1996-07
- Volume
- 60
- Issue
- 1
- Pages
- 83-104
- ISSN
- 0010-0277 (ISSN-L)
- OpenAlex
- W2066114033
- Cited by
- 107
- References
- 97
- Citations by year
- 2025: 2 · 2024: 2 · 2023: 1 · 2022: 5 · 2021: 2 · 2020: 5 · 2019: 5 · 2018: 3 · 2017: 3 · 2016: 3 · 2015: 3 · 2014: 5 · 2013: 8 · 2012: 6
- FWCI
- 0.89
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Locations
- Cognition (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Funders
- Spencer Foundation
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Developmental and Educational Psychology › Reading and Literacy Development
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Experimental and Cognitive Psychology › Categorization, perception, and language
- Social Sciences › Communication › Media, Communication, and Education
- Keywords
- literacy, writing systems, speech and writing, alphabet, phonemes, history of writing, literacy acquisition, conceptual structure, graphic systems
- MeSH terms
- Cognition, Humans, Language, Phonetics, Speech, Verbal Learning, Writing
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