Towards a Complex Theory of Writing: The Case of Aztec and Mixtec Codices
The aim of this paper is to propose the elements of a new theory of writing and writing systems. It concentrates on the decades-long controversy about whether to consider the highly pictorial communication system present in Aztec, Mixtec and other non-Maya Mesoamerican pictorial codices as writing....
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
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Université de liège
2022-06-01
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| Series: | Signata |
| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | http://journals.openedition.org/signata/3866 |
| _version_ | 1811249136245145600 |
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| author | Alonso Rodrigo Zamora Corona |
| author_facet | Alonso Rodrigo Zamora Corona |
| author_sort | Alonso Rodrigo Zamora Corona |
| collection | DOAJ |
| description | The aim of this paper is to propose the elements of a new theory of writing and writing systems. It concentrates on the decades-long controversy about whether to consider the highly pictorial communication system present in Aztec, Mixtec and other non-Maya Mesoamerican pictorial codices as writing. After exposing the history of this controversy and the problematic elements in contemporary grammatological and semasiographic visions, I propose to treat Aztec and Mixtec writing as complex systems which depict language through bottom-up strategies (logograms and/or syllabograms, which are signs that try to represent the morphological and phonological levels of language), and top-down strategies (pictography, which is a semantic depiction aided by contextual inferences grounded in pragmatics), strategies that roughly correspond to the bottom-up and top-down language processing operations. Based on this idea, I propose that semiotic writing strategies are possible, and that writing should not be seen as a mere surrogate of phonetics: this vision could solve the long-standing question of why writing systems that developed phoneticism seem to start in a non-phonetic stage that is still treated, in an unclear way, as ‘proto-writing’. |
| first_indexed | 2024-04-12T15:41:13Z |
| format | Article |
| id | doaj.art-89260d89800c49e19565d0b4d8d7570b |
| institution | Directory Open Access Journal |
| issn | 2032-9806 2565-7097 |
| language | English |
| last_indexed | 2024-04-12T15:41:13Z |
| publishDate | 2022-06-01 |
| publisher | Université de liège |
| record_format | Article |
| series | Signata |
| spelling | doaj.art-89260d89800c49e19565d0b4d8d7570b2022-12-22T03:26:47ZengUniversité de liègeSignata2032-98062565-70972022-06-011310.4000/signata.3866Towards a Complex Theory of Writing: The Case of Aztec and Mixtec CodicesAlonso Rodrigo Zamora CoronaThe aim of this paper is to propose the elements of a new theory of writing and writing systems. It concentrates on the decades-long controversy about whether to consider the highly pictorial communication system present in Aztec, Mixtec and other non-Maya Mesoamerican pictorial codices as writing. After exposing the history of this controversy and the problematic elements in contemporary grammatological and semasiographic visions, I propose to treat Aztec and Mixtec writing as complex systems which depict language through bottom-up strategies (logograms and/or syllabograms, which are signs that try to represent the morphological and phonological levels of language), and top-down strategies (pictography, which is a semantic depiction aided by contextual inferences grounded in pragmatics), strategies that roughly correspond to the bottom-up and top-down language processing operations. Based on this idea, I propose that semiotic writing strategies are possible, and that writing should not be seen as a mere surrogate of phonetics: this vision could solve the long-standing question of why writing systems that developed phoneticism seem to start in a non-phonetic stage that is still treated, in an unclear way, as ‘proto-writing’.http://journals.openedition.org/signata/3866Aztec writingcomplexitygrammatologyMixtec writingpictographywriting |
| spellingShingle | Alonso Rodrigo Zamora Corona Towards a Complex Theory of Writing: The Case of Aztec and Mixtec Codices Signata Aztec writing complexity grammatology Mixtec writing pictography writing |
| title | Towards a Complex Theory of Writing: The Case of Aztec and Mixtec Codices |
| title_full | Towards a Complex Theory of Writing: The Case of Aztec and Mixtec Codices |
| title_fullStr | Towards a Complex Theory of Writing: The Case of Aztec and Mixtec Codices |
| title_full_unstemmed | Towards a Complex Theory of Writing: The Case of Aztec and Mixtec Codices |
| title_short | Towards a Complex Theory of Writing: The Case of Aztec and Mixtec Codices |
| title_sort | towards a complex theory of writing the case of aztec and mixtec codices |
| topic | Aztec writing complexity grammatology Mixtec writing pictography writing |
| url | http://journals.openedition.org/signata/3866 |
| work_keys_str_mv | AT alonsorodrigozamoracorona towardsacomplextheoryofwritingthecaseofaztecandmixteccodices |