The symbols you learned to see do not reflect exactly the symbols you learned to hear before and after you learned to read. Since these symbols have become the stuff of communication, then oral and written language is the stuff of life. Many people have developed listening skills that commit much of what they hear to memory: the oral', an older and more primitive tradition. Others, have highly refined visual skills and are visual learners, so reading and writing (seeing ) leads to better retention.
When we read to others we transport the visual symbols to the listeners ear. It will go from our imprinted symbols in our occipital cortex , to the spoken clusters ,to the listeners ear and their temporal lobe. The symbols will be filtered and compounded for the listener by integration neurons both of passion and association intellect. The intellectual read word becomes the affective heard word.
Whether oral tradition could ever translate in full measure to the written tradition ; whether the passion and richness of masterly writing is the same as the spoken word by a great actor ; all is a mystery to me. And what of the blind or deaf? Doea sign language penetrate to the core like the sounds in translation, made by orators? Does Braille duplicate the passion of great written poetry. If they do not, how can we know this without a viable basis for knowing? Are the blind or deaf limited largely to content and not privileged to the full measure of presentation providing a precious extenson beyond content?
One thing we do know now, is the capacity of the brain and the no longer available senses to develop new pathways. Perhaps a new pathway to passion. Brain remapping towards communication and its wholeness could be the stuff of life.
Excerpt from Jim Warren A Braided Cord