- Joined
- Oct 11, 2005
- Messages
- 6,696
- Reaction score
- 1,534
- Location
- The City Different
- Website
- www.chrisjohnsonmd.com
Do you talk to yourself out loud? As I get older I find I do this more and more. An intriguing question is if such language -- spoken, but in private -- occupies a middle ground between the words you think and the words you speak to others. Is it a different kind of language? Is it used differently? Another aspect of the notion is what we do when we read. Silent reading is a relatively recent phenomenon; medieval monasteries reverberated with the sound of monks reading to themselves, only out loud.
For writers, this question has practical implications. Should we write a scene in which a character speaks out loud to himself differently from one in which he is speaking to others or using unspoken, interior thought-speech. As I thought about it, it occurred to me that good writers intuitively recognize these distinctions and write much more convincingly than writers who don't.
For writers, this question has practical implications. Should we write a scene in which a character speaks out loud to himself differently from one in which he is speaking to others or using unspoken, interior thought-speech. As I thought about it, it occurred to me that good writers intuitively recognize these distinctions and write much more convincingly than writers who don't.
Last edited: