Ideology

By reading these words on this very page we are making a point: that writing is not seen as “deferment, absence, death and difference;” as Barbara Johnson tells us that that is how writing is seen by Jacques Derrida. We are using writing as a form of communication rather than just using speech-just talking. Though Johnson goes on to explain that Derrida sees speech as primary and writing as secondary, with advancing technology, writing is coming back as a primary tool for communication. With things like email and Instant Messenger writing is becoming a more popular form of communication, the meaning of what one might be saying is lost to everything except for those words on the page because through writing, we sometimes lose our context.

When speaking to one another, face to face, not only can we read facial expressions, but also tone and mannerisms. We can ask a question if we don’t understand something and we can question what we think is wrong. Even praise when we think something is correct. Speech gives us the notion that we have a voice; it gives us the freedom to interrupt. Speech is primary because we have the context right in front of us. To speak all you have to do is open your mouth, whether you have thought it through or not. We speak years before we learn how to read and write. Writing takes time to master.

Speaking comes naturally to children. Someone says a word, they have the ability to repeat, no thinking necessarily involved. When we write, it’s a different thought process. Writing is more intimate because there are so many ways to interpret what you write on paper. Once the words are on the page, whether it be in writing or a computer screen, they are out for the word to see, thought was put into what was written. However, when we write, there are no facial expressions added, there are no questions to follow. The words are written and all the reader has to go off of is what they think, their assumptions.

For instance, Stanley Fish’s “Is there a text in this class?” is saying that the written word can have many meanings and that the precise meaning of the word comes from the context in which