Signs of Writing - Hardcover

Harris, Professor Roy; Harris, Roy

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0415100887 ISBN 13: 9780415100885

Publisher: Routledge, 1995

Synopsis

In Signs of Writing Roy Harris re-examines basic questions about writing that have long been obscured by the traditional assumption that writing is merely a visual substitute for speech.
By treating writing as an independent mode of communication, based on the use of spatial relations to connect events separated in time, the author shows how musical, mathematical and other forms of writing obey the same principles as verbal writing. These principles, he argues, apply to texts of all kinds: a sonnet, a symphonic score, a signature on a cheque and a supermarket label. Moreover, they apply throughout the history of writing, from hieroglyphics to hypertext.
This is the first book to provide a new general theory of writing in over forty years. Signs of Writing will be essential reading for anyone interested in language and communication.

About this title

Review:

"A major theoretical statement by one of the best known theorists of language in the English-speaking world. This book will immediately become "the authoritative text on the theory of writing." -Talbot Taylor, College of William and Mary

About this edition

• Publisher: Routledge
• Publication date: 1995
• ISBN 10: 0415100887
• ISBN 13: 9780415100885
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 208