Assumptions are a component of the functioning of sign systems. A
mark left can make sense if it is noticed. The assumption of
perception is the minimum at which expression is acknowledged.
Assumptions of writing are different from those of orality. They
entail the structural characteristics of the practical
experiences in which the people writing constitute their
identity. Literate assumptions, unlike any other assumptions in
language, are extensions of linear, sequential experience in all
its constitutive parts. They are evinced in vocabulary, but even
more strongly in grammar. In many ways, the final test of any
sign system is that of its built-in assumptions. Illiteracy is
an experience outside the realm defined by the means and methods
of literacy. The civilization of illiteracy challenges the need
and justification of literate assumptions, especially in view of
the way these affect human effectiveness.
The very fine qualifiers of time and space that we take for
granted today were acknowledged only slowly, and initially at a
rather coarse level of distinction. Despite the tremendous
progress made, even today our experience with time and space
requires some of the repertory of the primitive human.
Movements of hands, head, other body parts (body language),
changes in facial expression and skin color (e.g., blushing),
breathing rhythm, and voice variations (e.g., intonation, pause,
lilt)-all account for the resurrection in dialogue of an
experience much richer than language alone can convey. Such
para-linguistic elements are no less meaningful in new practical
experiences, such as interaction with and inside virtual
environments.
Para-linguistic elements consciously used in primitive
communities, or unconsciously present, still escape our
scrutiny. Their presence in communication among members of
communities sharing a certain genetic endowment takes different
forms. They are not reducible to language, although they are
connected to its experience. Examples of this are the strong
sense of rhythm among Blacks in America and Africa, the sense of
holistic perception among Chinese and Japanese. We can only
conjecture, from words reconstituted in the main language strand
(proto-languages), or in the mother tongue of humankind
(proto-world), that words were used in conjunction with
non-linguistic entities. Whether a mother-tongue or a pre-Babel
language existed is a different issue. The hypothesis mimics the
notion of a common ancestor of the species and obviously looks
for the language of this possible ancestor. More important,
however, is the observation that the practical experience of
language constitution does not eliminate everything that is not
linguistic in nature. Moreover, the para-linguistic, even when
language becomes as dominant as it does under the reign of
literacy, remains significant for the effectiveness of human
activity. The civilization of illiteracy does not necessarily
dig for para-linguistic remnants of previous practical endeavors.
It rather constitutes a framework for their participation in a
more effective pragmatics, in the process involving
technological means capable of processing all kinds of cues.
In a given frame of time and space, para-linguistic signs acquire
a strong conventional nature. The way the word for I evolved
(quite differently than equivalents in different languages of
the world: ich, je, yo, eu, én, ani, etc.), and the way words
relating to two evolved (hands, legs, eyes, ears, parents), and
so forth, gives useful leads. It seems, for instance, that the
pair entered language as a modifier (i.e., a grammatical
category), marked by non-linguistic signs (clasp, repetition,
pointing). Some of the signs are still in use. The grammatical
category and the distinction between one and two are related.
The Aranda population (in Australia) combine the words for one
and two in order to handle their arithmetic. Also, the
distinction singular- plural begins with two. We take this for
granted, but in some languages (e.g., Japanese), there is no
distinction between singular and plural. In addition, it should
be pointed out here that the same signs (e.g., use of a finger
to point, hand signals) can be understood in different ways in
different cultures. Bulgarians shake their head up and down to
signal no, and side to side to signal yes.
Within a given culture, each sign eventually becomes a very
strong background component because it embodies the shared
experience through which it was constituted. In direct speech,
we either know each other, or shall know each other to a certain
extent, represented by the cumulative degrees of "I know that you
know that I know that you know," defining a vague notion of
knowledge within a multivalued logic. This makes speaking and
listening an experience in reciprocal understanding, if indeed
the conversation takes place in a non-linear, vague context
impossible to emulate in writing. Dialogues in the wired world,
as well as in transactional situations of extreme speed (stock
market transactions, space research, military actions), belong to
such experiences, impossible to pursue within the limitations of
literacy.
Orality can be assertive (declarative), interrogative, and
imperative (a great deal more so than writing). In the course of
time, and due to very extended experience with language and its
assumptions in oral form, humans acquired an intrinsic
interactive quality. This resulted from a change in their
condition: on the natural level there was the limited
interactivity of action-reaction. In the human realm, the nucleus
action-reaction led to subsequent sequences through which areas
of common interest were defined. The progressive cognitive
realization that speaking to someone involves their
understanding of what we say, as well as the acknowledged
responsibility to explain, whenever this understanding is
incomplete or partial, is also a source of our interactive bent.
Questions take over part of the role played by the more direct
para-linguistic signs and add to the interactive quality of
dialogue, so long as there is a common ground. This common
ground is assumed by everyone who maintains the idea of
literacy-how else to establish it?-as a necessity, but
understood in many different ways: the common ground as embodied
in vocabulary and grammar, in logic, spelling, phonetics,
cultural heritage. Granted that a common language is a necessary
condition for communication, such a common language is not
simultaneously a sufficient condition, or at least not one of
most efficient, for communication. Interactivity, as it evolved
beyond the literate model, is based on the probability, and
indeed necessity, to transcend the common language expectation
and replace it with variable common codes, such as those we
establish in the experience of multimedia or in networked
interactions. Even the ability to interact with our own
representation as an avatar in the Internet world becomes
plausible beyond the constraining borders of literate identity.