Why speech and writing are so different
Speech and writing are so intertwined that you’d be forgiven for thinking they’re the same thing presented in different ways. Writing is just the visual form of speech, surely? But listen to your energy company or GP’s phone switchboard message and you’ll notice something strange about it. These messages often sound stilted, and that’s because most of them are written language said out loud.
The script might have looked perfectly fine (if not a bit soulless) on paper, but it simply isn’t how one human would talk to another. When spoken, things like overly formal vocabulary and a lack of contractions (e.g. “we are” instead of “we’re”) make the message sound as if it’s being delivered by a robot rather than a friendly employee.
This is just one example of how speech and writing work differently and serve separate purposes. Let’s take a look at why the two are poles apart.
The origins of language: speech versus writing
Humans have been chatting away for tens of thousands of years, long before anyone thought of picking up a pen — or, more accurately, a sharpened reed. While today, most of us take both speech and writing for granted, the truth is, they come from distinct evolutionary paths.
How spoken language evolved
Imagine a time before language. Humans grunted, gestured, and generally did their best to get the point across using a mishmash of noises and body language. Then, somewhere along the line, we began stringing together meaningful sounds. This shift wasn’t planned, of course, and it’s thought that speech evolved gradually as a survival mechanism. Need to warn your friend about a nearby predator? It’s much quicker to yell “Run!” than flap your arms like a maniac.
This real-time form of communication became essential for cooperation, whether it was for raising children, hunting and gathering, or telling stories around the fire. The human brain adapted to handle such a complex process because of its colossal evolutionary advantage.
Today, children start recognising the sounds of speech while they’re still in the womb. Their brains absorb spoken language like sponges during the early years, and most are speaking fluently before they’ve even learnt to write their name.
The advent of writing
Writing didn’t come about until much later. In fact, if human history were a 24-hour clock, writing only popped up around 11:59 pm. The earliest writing systems date back about 5,000 years, when ancient civilisations like the Sumerians started scratching symbols into clay tablets. Why? Well, mainly to keep track of things. They weren’t writing poetry, but recording grain supplies and tax records.
Unlike speech, which evolved naturally over millennia, writing was a deliberate invention. Societies needed a way to store information across time and space, something spoken language couldn’t do. So they developed writing systems to serve as a kind of long-term memory.
Speaking and writing in practice
When it comes to speaking and writing, your brain is doing some pretty impressive multitasking. While it might feel like both are just different ways of expressing the same thoughts, they actually involve very different cognitive processes and produce different outputs. Just as your body uses separate sets of muscles for running and swimming, your brain relies on distinct regions to handle spoken and written language.
Which parts of the brain power spoken and written language?
If you look at an MRI of someone’s brain while they’re talking and then when they’re writing, you’ll see quite a few different areas lighting up. For speech, much of the magic happens in two key areas: Broca’s area and Wernicke’s area.
Broca’s area, located in the frontal lobe, is like the command centre for producing speech. It helps you form words, string them together, and get them out of your mouth in the right order. Meanwhile, Wernicke’s area, tucked away in the temporal lobe, helps you make sense of the words you hear and formulate responses. Essentially, it’s the part of your brain that ensures you’re not just blurting out gibberish (at least most of the time).
Writing deploys different regions altogether. While Broca’s area still does some of the heavy lifting in constructing language, the brain also engages the occipital lobe to process visual information and the motor cortex to control your hand movements.
The process of speaking
Speaking is spontaneous; you don’t typically plan your sentences in advance unless you’re giving a speech, and instead, thoughts and words tumble out of your mouth in real time. Your brain has evolved to process speaking and listening quickly so you can respond instantly, and it’s constantly adjusting depending on who you’re talking to and what’s happening around you.
Because of this, spoken language is often messy, with a grammar and structure that’s quite different from what you’d see in writing. Most noticeably, it’s full of pauses, fillers like “um” and “you know,” and unfinished sentences. You might hear someone say, “Well, I was gonna… um, you know… go, but then I didn’t,” and be perfectly well understood, even though this would look sloppy in writing.
What makes spoken language work despite its lack of structure is the abundance of nonverbal cues. Body language, facial expressions, and tone of voice all help convey meaning, and we don’t need perfect grammar to get our point across when we can raise an eyebrow, smile, or change our tone to indicate a sentiment like sarcasm.
On top of this, we normally share a context with someone when we’re having a conversation, such as sitting in the same café or working in the same office. This cuts out the need for some of the background information found in writing.
The writing process
Writing is a slower and more reflective process. It’s not simply a case of scribbling down words as they come into your head; instead, you think carefully about how to organise your ideas, choose the right words, and make your sentences clear. You can also go back and revise what you’ve written until you’re happy with it. This means writing is generally more polished than speech, and it’s more likely to feature complete sentences and grammar that meets conventional rules.
It also means it takes a heck of a lot of brainpower to write anything more complex than a shopping list. Your brain is focusing on spelling, grammar, punctuation, and typing or handwriting, all while trying to communicate a clear meaning. Quite the mental juggling act!
But why do we spend so much extra time and effort on writing? One reason is that writing doesn’t have the luxury of nonverbal cues. Without gestures and variations in rhythm and pitch, we rely on structure, punctuation, and word choice to make ourselves understood. Commas and full stops become crucial in guiding the reader, and vocabulary must be more precise as we can’t clarify what we mean using tools like vocal emphasis.
The social aspect of speech and writing
Language is never used in a vacuum; it’s shaped by the people we’re speaking or writing to, the situation we’re in, and even the culture we belong to. Whether we’re chatting with friends or writing a formal email, we constantly adapt our language to fit the social context.
How social dynamics shape spoken language
Spoken language is heavily influenced by social dynamics. When you’re talking to close friends or family, you’re likely to use colloquial language — slang, contractions, even unfinished sentences. At a formal dinner, on the other hand, you might think more carefully about what you say and edit your sentences before they come out of your mouth. Changing our language depending on who we’re talking to is called code-switching, and we all do it, often without realising.
Cultural factors play a big role too, with dialects shaping speech in a way that often doesn’t translate to writing. Take regional dialects, for example. A Liverpudlian might say “sound” to mean “good” in conversation, while someone from the East Midlands might say “Ay up” — but you wouldn’t find these in an essay or, indeed, in most types of writing.
With writing, we also don’t get a sense of the huge variety of accents on offer, and a single written word might have many different pronunciations. “Dart”, for instance, is said quite differently in Northern England, the South West, and London. Similarly, Londoners might drop the “g” at the end of a word like “going”, but this isn’t usually reflected in writing. Writing is only really an approximation of speech, not a literal representation.
The rules of written language
Writing tends to be much more formal and structured than speech, with stricter rules governing what’s acceptable. Of course, we code-switch with writing as well, and a quick text might be full of emojis and abbreviations that you’d avoid in an email to a client. But even when messaging a friend, we’re more careful with grammar, sentence structure, and word choice because of the lack of nonverbal cues we looked at earlier.
Things get turned up a notch when it comes to more formal kinds of writing. When drafting a work report or a university essay, we’re expected to be precise and eliminate mistakes in a way that would sound unnatural in speech. While no one bats an eye lid at the odd wrong word or grammatically incomplete sentence in a spoken presentation, exam grades and business opportunities depend on accuracy in writing.
This is probably because we know that writing can reach different standards to speech. We accept that no one can be perfect while deciding what to say on the fly. But the extra time writing affords us means that if we really care, we can create something impressive. It’s our chance to demonstrate our genius ideas, methodical thought processes, and flair with words.
The permanent nature of writing adds yet another pressure. Whether we’re texting our partner or penning a novel, the sense that we might never be able to erase our words makes us that little bit more careful about what we say.
How has technology changed the way we write?
Digital communication has dramatically blurred the lines between how we speak and how we write. Texting, social media, and messaging apps have created a new hybrid form of communication that captures speech’s laidback, candid spontaneity in writing.
When we tap out a message on our phone, our language mirrors casual conversation far more than a letter or even an email would. Slang, incomplete sentences, emojis, and other features mimic the immediate and informal nature of speech, and even some of the facial expressions that come with it. This shift has made written communication faster, more flexible, and some would say more fun.
At the same time, digital spaces have given rise to a new kind of informal written language that are arguably more creative and playful than conventional writing. Memes, GIFs, and hashtags are now integral to how we communicate online, adding layers of meaning in much the same way as tone and body language do in spoken interactions.
So there you have it. Originating millennia apart, speech and writing still have distinct purposes today, although there is more crossover than ever before. Next time you write a speech or dictate a piece of writing to your phone, perhaps you’ll ponder how well one form of writing translates to the other, and how this could affect the outcome.
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