Punctuation, Separation, and Silent Reading
Silent reading is “[e]yes scanning the page, tongue held still: that is exactly how I would describe a reader today, sitting with a book in a cafe across from the Church of St. Ambrose in Milan, reading, perhaps, Saint Augustine’s Confessions” (Manguel 42). The emergence of silent reading in the history of reading practice is still in dispute. Scholars are still struggling to construct a coherent history of silent reading. In relevance to constructing a history of silent reading, many scholars have made attempts to give an explanation to the origin of silent reading. One of the existing approaches is that punctuation has enabled private reading, which has in turn encouraged silent reading. Meanwhile, some scholars suggest that writing changes reading models, from speaking to hearing, which favoured the practice of silent reading.
Scholars, like Paul Saenger, suggest that punctuation definitely has made reading easier for readers who are unfamiliar with the text. It indicates where a sentence starts or ends, which allows clear communication of ideas in text. “[I]t freed the intellectual faculties of the reader, permitting all texts to be read silently, that is, with eyes alone” (Saenger 13). Before silent reading flourished, the prevalence of public reading made it unnecessary for ancient manuscripts to be written with punctuation because the reader would be someone who was familiar with the text. Reading aloud enabled easier understanding of the text with no punctuation. Many factors could have given rise to the popularity of the use of punctuation, for example, the increase in supply of prints and adding punctuations and spaces make reading easier for the general population . As Saenger suggests, “the ability to read silently and rapidly is a result of the historical evolution of word separation that, beginning in the seventh century, changed the format of the written page, which had to be read orally and slowly in order to be comprehended” (6). Additionally, punctuation has “aided the reader in the task of grasping letters for syllable recognition” (Saenger 8) by allowing “more space between letters than is customary for medieval or modern handwritten and printed text” (Saenger 8).
Meanwhile, some scholars stress on the change in reading models. In her book, Jajdelska makes a clear distinction: “The structure and style of earlier prose imply a reader who read aloud to an audience, and whose physical presence acted as an orientation point for time and space in the text. The structure and style of later prose imply a silent reader who conceives of himself or herself as the hearer of an internal voice, that of the notional writer” (3). McLuhan also acknowledges that writing, as an extension of men, enables “[s]eparateness of the individiual, continuity of space and of time, and uniformity of codes [which] are the prime marks of literate and civilized societies” (83). As Ong writes, “written discourse is detached from the writer” (78). Hence, the text becomes a separate entity from its writer or readers, within which contains a unique voice – the “Narrator”. Readers become listeners to this voice. When “[writing] moves speech from the oral-aural to a new sensory world, that of vision” (Ong 84), orality diminishes. Simultaneously, Jajdelska suggests that the ‘“Narrator” comes to be through the reader-as-hearer model, and this voice can “orient a silent reader as hearer in time and space in a way different from that relied on by the reader as a speaker addressing a live audience” (167). Readers no longer consider themselves as “storytellers”. Rather, they are the hearers who listen to the voice in their head in the practice of silent reading. As the self-perception of readers changes, it becomes unnecessary for readers to read out texts aloud as listeners to the voice in their head.
Although a coherent history of silent reading is still difficult to construct, a fact that should be kept in mind is that whether reading out loud or reading silently, “before these abilities can be acquired, a reader needs to learn the basic craft of recognizing the common signs by which a society has chosen to communicate: in other words, a reader must learn to read” (Manguel 67). Self-perception of readers, writing and reading styles are three fundamental elements in interrelationship, and are altogether influencing readership.
Work Cited List
Burnyeat, M. F. “Postscript on Silent Reading.” The Classical Quarterly 47.1 (1997): 74-76.
DeBenedictis, Deb and Douglas Fisher. “Sustained Silent Reading: Making Adaptations.” Voices From the Middle 14.3 (2007): 29-37.
Gavrilov, A. K. “Techniques of Reading in Classical Antiquity.” The Classical Quarterly 47.1 (1997): 56-73.
Jajdelska, Elspeth. Silent Reading and the Birth of the Narrator. University of Toronto Press, 2007.
Jordan, Sarah. “Review of: Elspeth Jajdelska, Silent Reading and the Birth of the Narrator.” Eighteenth-Century Fiction 22.2 (2010): 387-391.
Knox, Bernard M. W. “Silent Reading in Antiquity.” Greek, Roman and Byzantine Studies 9.4 (1968): 421-435.
Manguel, Alberto. A History of Reading. Toronto: Vintage Canada, 1998.
McLuhan, Marshall. Understanding Media: The Extension of Man. First MIT Press edition. Cambridge: The MIT Press, 1994.
Moser, Anne Marie. “Sustained Silent Reading.” School Library Media Activities Monthly 2006 йил October: 43-45.
Ong, Walter J. Orality and Literacy. New York: Routledge, 2002.
Saenger, Paul. Space Between Words: The Origins of Silent Reading. Standford: Standford University Press, 1997.