What is graphemics?

Graphemics or graphematics is a branch of linguistics that studies the writing of a language, as well as its components, rules and characteristics.

graphemic definition

Throughout history, from the philosopher Plato to the linguist Ferdinand de Saussure, spoken language has been more important as an object of scientific study than writing.

With disciplines like phonology, which is the study of phonemes, that is, the sounds of a language, the main focus has always been on speech and oral tradition. Since it was considered that writing was simply a way of capturing what was spoken, writing was somehow relegated to a secondary role.

However, in the middle of the 20th century, different academics expressed the need for a deeper study of written language at a scientific level.

This is how graphemics arose, also called graphematics, which is a discipline that studies the graphic system and the rules of a language. It is also in charge of studying the identification and interaction of graphemes, as well as their correlation with phonemes. All this taking into account its intrinsic relationship with oral language.

As graphemics is a relatively new science, it is still in its infancy. For this reason, orthographers continue to be the ones who study most of the topics related to the spelling or writing of linguistic signs.

Objects of study of graphemics

The field of study of graphemics covers different elements. These include mainly:

• Graphemes: are the smallest units of writing, which cannot be divided into smaller ones. A grapheme can be a letter with or without a diacritical mark (such as a tilde, diaeresis or tilde), as well as groups of letters or auxiliary signs that have a phonetic reference.
• Writing systems: they are the way of expressing what is spoken through written symbols. Some of the writing systems are alphabetic, syllabic, logophraphic, and alphasyllabary, among others.

In addition, graphemics studies punctuation marks and accents or tildes. It even covers many more aspects of writing, because it includes the study of its origin and its evolution over time. Because of this, it is common to associate graphemics with other disciplines such as anthropology and etymology.

graphemes

Within the theory of writing, a grapheme is considered as a minimal, indivisible and distinctive unit of the writing of a language. In the Latin alphabet that we use in Spanish, the graphemes coincide with the letters and diacritical marks (the accents á, è, ô, dieresis, the virgulilla of the ñ, and others). However, there are also other types of writing, such as Chinese, where many graphemes cannot be interpreted as sounds.

Another way of calling graphemes is as the minimum element by which two words of a language can be differentiated in their written form. This is achieved by comparing the written words until finding the minimal differences that cause a change in meaning. For example: «cara» is distinguished from «cana» and «casa», and this indicates that <r>, <s> and <n> are graphemes.

Graphemes are represented between angle brackets, such as ⟨a⟩ , or failing that, the major and minor signs, <a> . Phonemes are written between slashes, /a/ .

writing systems

Most writing systems can be classified into logographic, alphabetic, and syllabic. Each of them has different characteristics.

• The logographic system: this type of system is one of the oldest in the world. It is made up of logograms, which are graphemes that represent a complete word. The most common example is Mandarin Chinese, which is made up of a huge number of logograms.
• The syllabic system: also known as a syllabary, is a set of symbols that represent syllables. Generally, these symbols or characters represent a consonantal and a vowel sound. Therefore, there will be different symbols for different syllables. Some examples of syllabic systems are the Japanese language and Cherokee.
• Alpha-syllabic alphabet: also called abúgida, it is a writing system that combines the characteristics of the alphabetic and syllabic systems. It is based on syllables and consonant letters that sound like syllables. One of the best known is Devanagari, which is used to write Sanskrit and Nepali, among others.
• The alphabetic system: this writing system is made up of an alphabet, that is, a set of ordered letters, which usually coincide with the sounds of the phonemes of the spoken language. For example, in the case of Spanish, we use the Latin alphabet, which in turn derives from the Greek alphabet and this from the Phoenician alphabet. It consists of 27 letters that each represent a phoneme of Spanish, including ñ.
• Abjad: This type of alphabetic system has one symbol per consonant. The most common example is Arabic.
• Other writing systems: in addition to those mentioned, there are characteristic systems such as Korean, as well as pictographic systems such as Aztec or Egyptian, as well as ideographic systems such as Maya and some Chinese characters.

Difference Between Immanent Graphemics and Transcendent Graphemics

Graphemics can also be divided into two types: immanent graphemics and transcendental graphemics.

Immanent graphemics studies graphemes, taking into account that they are minimal graphic units that can be distinguished by themselves even if they do not correspond to a phonetic sign. Within immanent graphemics, three graphic systems are analyzed: the literal, the punctual and the accentual (letters, punctuation marks and tildes).

On the other hand, transcendental graphemics is in charge of the analysis of the graphic units that are connected with the phonemes, which are the sounds or units of oral expression. Transcendent graphemics includes the study of all graphemes that represent, in some way, phonetic writing.

Bibliography

• Quintanilla, A. Introduction to the linguistic varieties of Spanish. (2021). USA. Peter Lang Inc.
• Ridruejo, E. Manual of Spanish Linguistics . (2019). Spain. DeGruyter.
• Peyró, M. The writings of the world. (2019). Spain. Miguel Peyro.
• Contreras, L. Spelling and graphemics. (1994). Chili. Viewer Books.
• Contreras, L. (2017). Graphematic description of Spanish: Its importance for a rational teaching of spelling . Philology Bulletin, 30, 29-50 Pages. Consulted at https://boletinfilologia.uchile.cl/index.php/BDF/article/view/46663/48665
• Oyosa Romero, AE (2013). Considerations on graphematics in the Hispanic sphere: around the graphic uses in the medieval documentation of the peninsular Romance languages. Faculty of Philosophy and Letters, National Autonomous University of Mexico. Available at: https://www.elsevier.es/es-revista-anuario-letras-linguistica-filologia-73-articulo-consideraciones-sobre-grafematica-el-ambito-S0185137313710334