The Linguistics of Literacy.

level of morphophonology where morphemes have a constant shape, rather than to a level nearer the surface, such as the phonemic level of structuralist phonology. English orthography is thus deep, that of Hebrew even deeper, but that of Serbo-Croatian is shallow. Certain experimental tasks, for example, naming, are performed faster and more accurately for shallow than for deep orthographies (Frost, Katz, and Bentin, 1987), and it is clear that the dimension of orthographic depth has some psychological reality. Frost is careful, however, not to claim mgre for orthographic depth than is warranted. It is not to be concluded that deep orthographies are processed in some radically different, possibly more “visual“ way than shallow ones. In perhaps the only paper in this collection that has something positive to say about orthographies, Cowan offers evidence that American students make good use of the orthography of the second language they are learning. This is reflected both in the errors they make and in their greater ability to retain vocabulary words if the orthographic form of the word is presented along with spoken form. Moreover (though Cowan does not employ this terminology), shallow orthographies are more helpful than deep ones. But is this state of affairs really desirable? Apparently, these language learners, rather than confronting a new and strange phonology, are attempting to assimilate it as far as possible to their native phonology, and the orthography helps them to do this. Should they be allowed this crutch, if they are really to learn a foreign language? In Part IV, Ong charges that writing has cut us off from the world of “primary oral culture”. Writing separates the known from the knower, interpretation from data, word from sound, source from recipient, language from the plenum of existence, past from present, and so on. Before the advent of writing, each of these oppositions was a unity. Literacy has, indeed, some compensations: We can be objective and consciously aware of things in a way that was not possible before writing. Ong even grants, as Aronoff would not, that “writing can distance us from writing itself. Writing has the power to liberate us more and more from the chirographic bias and confusion it creates, though complete liberation is impossible” (p. 316). But surely Ong unduly idealizes and oversimplifies oral cultures. Can we really be sure that they all are “basically conservative” (p. 295), “incapable of linear analysis”( p. 298), “mobile, warm, personally interactive” (p. 299), and that they all ‘‘view everything in terms of interpersonal struggle” (p. 298) and “use words less for information and more for optional, interpersonal purposes” (p. 306)? Ong’s oral culture is unreal, a lost Eden to be nostalgically recalled: “Of course, the original innocence of the pristine empathetic identification can never be repossessed directly” (p. 317). Orthography, particularly alphabetic orthography, it seems, has much to answer for. It is less natural than conversational speech (Chafe, Berry), it misleads linguists (Aronoff, Faber, Derwing), it relies on an unnatural unit (Daniels), it corrupts one’s phonology (Derwing), and it has cut us off forever from primary oral culture (Ong). But it is hard to imagine giving it up. We are all hooked at an early ? ge, and while our heads tell us that orthographies are merely secondary systems, our hearts say that Baton Massias was right. (Received December I , 1993) I . G . Mattirigly 93