In modern usage, the term grammatology refers to the scientific study of

writing systems A writing system is a method of visually representing verbal communication, based on a script and a set of rules regulating its use. While both writing and speech are useful in conveying messages, writing differs in also being a reliable form ...

or scripts.Gelb, Ignace. 1952. ''A Study of Writing''. Chicago: University of Chicago Press This usage was first elucidated in English by

linguist Linguistics is the scientific study of human language. It is called a scientific study because it entails a comprehensive, systematic, objective, and precise analysis of all aspects of language, particularly its nature and structure. Linguis ...

Ignace Gelb Ignace Jay Gelb (October 14, 1907, Tarnau, Austria-Hungary (now Tarnów, Poland) - December 22, 1985, Chicago, Illinois) was a Polish-American ancient historian and Assyriologist who pioneered the scientific study of writing systems. Early life ...

in his 1952 book ''A Study of Writing''. The equivalent word is recorded in German and French use long before then. Grammatology can examine the

typology Typology is the study of types or the systematic classification of the types of something according to their common characteristics. Typology is the act of finding, counting and classification facts with the help of eyes, other senses and logic. Ty ...

of scripts, the analysis of the structural properties of scripts, and the relationship between written and spoken

language Language is a structured system of communication. The structure of a language is its grammar and the free components are its vocabulary. Languages are the primary means by which humans communicate, and may be conveyed through a variety of met ...

. In its broadest sense, some scholars also include the study of

literacy Literacy in its broadest sense describes "particular ways of thinking about and doing reading and writing" with the purpose of understanding or expressing thoughts or ideas in written form in some specific context of use. In other words, huma ...

in grammatology and, indeed, the impact of writing on philosophy, religion, science, administration and other aspects of the organization of society. Historian

Bruce Trigger Bruce Graham Trigger (June 18, 1937 – December 1, 2006) was a Canadian archaeologist, anthropologist, and ethnohistorian. He was appointed the James McGill Professor at McGill University in 2001. Life Born in Preston, Ontario (now part of Cam ...

associates grammatology with

cultural evolution Cultural evolution is an evolutionary theory of social change. It follows from the definition of culture as "information capable of affecting individuals' behavior that they acquire from other members of their species through teaching, imitation a ...

Toronto School of communication theory

The scholars most immediately associated with grammatology, understood as the history and theory of writing, include

Eric Havelock Eric Alfred Havelock (; 3 June 1903 – 4 April 1988) was a British classicist who spent most of his life in Canada and the United States. He was a professor at the University of Toronto and was active in the Canadian socialist movement du ...

(''The Muse Learns to Write''),

Walter J. Ong Walter Jackson Ong (November 30, 1912 – August 12, 2003) was an American Jesuit priest, professor of English literature, cultural and religious historian, and philosopher. His major interest was in exploring how the transition from orality ...

(''Orality and Literacy''),

Jack Goody Sir John Rankine Goody (1919–2015) was an English social anthropologist. He was a prominent lecturer at Cambridge University, and was William Wyse Professor of Social Anthropology from 1973 to 1984. Among his main publications were ''Death, ...

(''Domestication of the Savage Mind''), and

Marshall McLuhan Herbert Marshall McLuhan (July 21, 1911 – December 31, 1980) was a Canadian philosopher whose work is among the cornerstones of the study of media theory. He studied at the University of Manitoba and the University of Cambridge. He began his ...

(''

The Gutenberg Galaxy ''The Gutenberg Galaxy: The Making of Typographic Man'' is a 1962 book by Marshall McLuhan, in which the author analyzes the effects of mass media, especially the printing press, on European culture and human consciousness. It popularized the te ...

''). Grammatology brings to any topic a consideration of the contribution of technology and the material and social apparatus of language. A more theoretical treatment of the approach may be seen in the works of

Friedrich Kittler Friedrich A. Kittler (June 12, 1943 – October 18, 2011) was a literary scholar and a media theorist. His works relate to media, technology, and the military. Biography Friedrich Adolf Kittler was born in 1943 in Rochlitz in Saxony. His fami ...

(''Discourse Networks: 1800/1900'') and

Avital Ronell Avital Ronell ( ; born 15 April 1952) is an American academic who writes about continental philosophy, literary studies, psychoanalysis, political philosophy, and ethics. She is a professor in the humanities and in the departments of Germanic l ...

(''The Telephone Book'').

Structuralism and Deconstruction

Swiss linguist

Ferdinand de Saussure Ferdinand de Saussure (; ; 26 November 1857 – 22 February 1913) was a Swiss linguist, semiotician and philosopher. His ideas laid a foundation for many significant developments in both linguistics and semiotics in the 20th century. He is widel ...

, who is considered to be a key figure in structural approaches to language, saw speech and writing as 'two distinct systems of signs' with the second having 'the sole purpose of representing the first.',Derrida, J., 1976, ''Of Grammatology'', The Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore a view further explained in Peter Barry's the ''Beginning Theory''. In the 1960s, with the writings

Roland Barthes Roland Gérard Barthes (; ; 12 November 1915 – 26 March 1980) was a French literary theorist, essayist, philosopher, critic, and semiotician. His work engaged in the analysis of a variety of sign systems, mainly derived from Western popular ...

and

Jacques Derrida Jacques Derrida (; ; born Jackie Élie Derrida; See also . 15 July 1930 – 9 October 2004) was an Algerian-born French philosopher. He developed the philosophy of deconstruction, which he utilized in numerous texts, and which was developed t ...

, critiques have been put forth to this proposed relation. Barthes' writing has been described as interesting as one can see the transition of these two literary styles through comparing his earlier works with his later work. His early work is methodical and very structured in its delivery, with his later works becoming random in sequence and unfocused. Meanwhile, Jacques Derrida published many works on the subject of literary theory but most are considered to be more philosophical than based on literature itself. In 1967,

borrowed the term, but put it to different use, in his book ''

Of Grammatology ''Of Grammatology'' (french: links=no, De la grammatologie) is a 1967 book by the French philosopher Jacques Derrida. The book, originating the idea of deconstruction, proposes that throughout continental philosophy, especially as philosophers en ...

''. Derrida aimed to show that writing is not simply a reproduction of speech, but that the way in which thoughts are recorded in writing strongly affects the nature of knowledge. Deconstruction from a grammatological perspective places the history of philosophy in general, and metaphysics in particular, in the context of writing as such. In this perspective metaphysics is understood as a category or classification system relative to the invention of alphabetic writing and its institutionalization in School. Plato's Academy, and Aristotle's Lyceum, are as much a part of the invention of literacy as is the introduction of the vowel to create the Classical Greek alphabet.

Gregory Ulmer Gregory Leland Ulmer (born December 23, 1944) is a professor in the Department of English at the University of Florida ( Gainesville) and a professor of Electronic Languages and Cybermedia at the European Graduate School in Saas-Fee, Switzerland. ...

took up this trajectory, from historical to philosophical grammatology, to add applied grammatology (''Applied Grammatology: Post(e)-Pedagogy from Jacques Derrida to

Joseph Beuys Joseph Heinrich Beuys ( , ; 12 May 1921 – 23 January 1986) was a German artist, teacher, performance artist, and art theorist whose work reflected concepts of humanism, sociology, and anthroposophy. He was a founder of a provocative art mov ...

'', Johns Hopkins, 1985). Ulmer coined the term "

electracy Electracy is a theory by Gregory Ulmer that describes the skills necessary to exploit the full communicative potential of a new electronic media such as multimedia, hypermedia, social software, and virtual worlds. According to Ulmer, electracy "i ...

" to call attention to the fact that digital technologies and their elaboration in new media forms are part of an apparatus that is to these inventions what literacy is to alphabetic and print technologies. Grammatology studies the invention of an apparatus across the spectrum of its manifestations—technology, institutional practices, and identity behaviors.

Notes

References

{{Reflist Semiotics Post-structuralism Postmodernism Jacques Derrida