[M.M.X.I.V. 48] Connecting writing and speaking

In August of 2011, shortly after I began writing my blog, and sharing it with colleagues, family, and Facebook friends, one of my colleagues said, “You write just like how you talk.”  That really intrigued me, and in some sense I feel that it is true.  I didn’t write a blog post about it then, but reflecting on it now, I felt obligated to do that.

Writing and speaking are both forms of communication, and both are a mechanism of transferring words and ideas from the mind of the writer/speaker to the reader/listener.  Although I do not know the biology of thought formation and communication, it would not surprise me to see them using the same or similar processes.

I think that it may be more pronounced for me, due to my Asperger syndrome making both my speech and my writing quite analytical, precise, and as Cindy Lange-Kubick said in both articles about me, “perfectly articulated monotone.”  However, I feel that my tone varies over conversation–perhaps I have a different perception than others!

A couple of weeks ago, I wrote on the idea of voices evoking different implications, and this may be especially true when the speaker’s words are not his or her own.  One of my favorite assignments in sixth grade was the oral interpretation, where we had to read a passage from a book in our own emotions, based on our interpretation of the passage.  (I don’t remember which passage or book it was, but I do remember my wild personality engaging my classmates).

For some people, I would say that voice and words are not as well-connected, however.  Although I feel that some people that I know can hold a conversation very well, their writing tends to be harder to follow than their voice (and I’m not just talking about chicken-scratch handwriting!), and this is especially true on the Internet.  I would hope that people don’t speak regularly in shorthand, hash-tags, and other conveniences afforded to them by writing on the Internet or using text messages.

Because doing Zero to Hero has encouraged me to try some posts that I don’t usually do, in the next day or two, I will do an “oral interpretation” of a previous post (maybe one of the Israel posts since that was the inspiration!)  The goal: if you see my writing and hear my voice and interpretation of the writing, will it either confirm, deny, or do nothing to this idea?

>TO BE CONTINUED…

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Today is the forty-eighth day of M.M.X.I.V.  That makes six weeks and six days.