Graphemics or graphematics is the linguistic study of

writing system A writing system is a method of visually representing verbal communication, based on a script and a set of rules regulating its use. While both writing and speech are useful in conveying messages, writing differs in also being a reliable fo ...

s and their basic components, i.e.

grapheme In linguistics, a grapheme is the smallest functional unit of a writing system. The word ''grapheme'' is derived and the suffix ''-eme'' by analogy with ''phoneme'' and other names of emic units. The study of graphemes is called '' graphemi ...

s. At the beginning of the development of this area of linguistics,

Ignace Gelb Ignace Jay Gelb (October 14, 1907, Tarnau, Austria-Hungary (now Tarnów, Poland) - December 22, 1985, Chicago, Illinois) was a Polish-American ancient historian and Assyriologist who pioneered the scientific study of writing systems. Early li ...

coined the term '' grammatology'' for this discipline; later some scholars suggested calling it ''

graphology Graphology is the analysis of handwriting with attempt to determine someone's personality traits. No scientific evidence exists to support graphology, and it is generally considered a pseudoscience or scientifically questionable practice. How ...

'' to match ''

phonology Phonology is the branch of linguistics that studies how languages or dialects systematically organize their sounds or, for sign languages, their constituent parts of signs. The term can also refer specifically to the sound or sign system of a ...

'', but that name is traditionally used for a pseudo-science. Others therefore suggested renaming the study of language-dependent pronunciation '' phonemics'' or '' phonematics'' instead, but this did not gain widespread acceptance either, so the terms ''graphemics'' and ''graphematics'' became more frequent. Graphemics examines the specifics of written texts in a certain language and their correspondence to the spoken language. One major task is the descriptive analysis of implicit regularities in written words and texts (''graphotactics'') to formulate explicit rules (''

orthography An orthography is a set of conventions for writing a language, including norms of spelling, hyphenation, capitalization, word breaks, emphasis, and punctuation. Most transnational languages in the modern period have a writing system, and ...

'') for the writing system that can be used in prescriptive education or in computer linguistics, e.g. for

speech synthesis Speech synthesis is the artificial production of human speech. A computer system used for this purpose is called a speech synthesizer, and can be implemented in software or hardware products. A text-to-speech (TTS) system converts normal langua ...

. In analogy to

phoneme In phonology and linguistics, a phoneme () is a unit of sound that can distinguish one word from another in a particular language. For example, in most dialects of English, with the notable exception of the West Midlands and the north-wes ...

and ( allo)

phone A telephone is a telecommunications device that permits two or more users to conduct a conversation when they are too far apart to be easily heard directly. A telephone converts sound, typically and most efficiently the human voice, into ele ...

, the graphic units of language are graphemes, i.e. language-specific

character Character or Characters may refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media Literature * ''Character'' (novel), a 1936 Dutch novel by Ferdinand Bordewijk * ''Characters'' (Theophrastus), a classical Greek set of character sketches attributed to The ...

s, and graphs, i.e. language-specific

glyph A glyph () is any kind of purposeful mark. In typography, a glyph is "the specific shape, design, or representation of a character". It is a particular graphical representation, in a particular typeface, of an element of written language. A g ...

s. Different schools of thought consider different entities to be graphemes; major points of divergence are the handling of

punctuation Punctuation (or sometimes interpunction) is the use of spacing, conventional signs (called punctuation marks), and certain typographical devices as aids to the understanding and correct reading of written text, whether read silently or aloud. A ...

diacritic mark A diacritic (also diacritical mark, diacritical point, diacritical sign, or accent) is a glyph added to a letter or to a basic glyph. The term derives from the Ancient Greek (, "distinguishing"), from (, "to distinguish"). The word ''diacriti ...

s, digraphs or other multigraphs and non-

alphabet An alphabet is a standardized set of basic written graphemes (called letters) that represent the phonemes of certain spoken languages. Not all writing systems represent language in this way; in a syllabary, each character represents a syllab ...

scripts Script may refer to: Writing systems * Script, a distinctive writing system, based on a repertoire of specific elements or symbols, or that repertoire * Script (styles of handwriting) ** Script typeface, a typeface with characteristics of handw ...

. Analogous to

phonetics Phonetics is a branch of linguistics that studies how humans produce and perceive sounds, or in the case of sign languages, the equivalent aspects of sign. Linguists who specialize in studying the physical properties of speech are phoneticians. ...

, the " etic" counterpart of graphemics is called

graphetics Graphetics is a branch of linguistics concerned with the analysis of the physical properties of shapes used in writing. It is an etic study, meaning that it has an outsider's perspective and is not concerned with any particular writing system ...

and deals with the material side only (including

paleography Palaeography ( UK) or paleography ( US; ultimately from grc-gre, , ''palaiós'', "old", and , ''gráphein'', "to write") is the study of historic writing systems and the deciphering and dating of historical manuscripts, including the analysi ...

typography Typography is the art and technique of arranging type to make written language legible, readable and appealing when displayed. The arrangement of type involves selecting typefaces, point sizes, line lengths, line-spacing ( leading), an ...

and

Graphotactics

Graphotactics refers to rules which restrict the allowable sequences of letters in alphabetic languages. A common example is the partially correct " I before E except after C". However, there are exceptions, for example Edward Carney in his book, ''A Survey of English Spelling'', refers to the "I before E except after C” rule instead as an example of a “phonotactic rule”. Graphotactical rules are useful in error detection by

optical character recognition Optical character recognition or optical character reader (OCR) is the electronic or mechanical conversion of images of typed, handwritten or printed text into machine-encoded text, whether from a scanned document, a photo of a document, a sc ...

systems. In studies of

Old English Old English (, ), or Anglo-Saxon, is the earliest recorded form of the English language, spoken in England and southern and eastern Scotland in the early Middle Ages. It was brought to Great Britain by Anglo-Saxon settlers in the mid-5th ...

, "graphotactics" is also used to refer to the variable-length spacing between words.

References

{{Authority control Grammatology

Graphotactics

See also

References