Dyslexia first appeared in British medical journals around quarter of a century after the introduction of mass education. Political determinism ensured that reading and writing became compulsory modes of communication. Individual creativity fell by the wayside when faced with a standardised educational system. In this respect, the European introduction of compulsory education operated much like Michel Foucault’s Panopticon (1995, pp.195-228); it enabled the identification and examination of any disorders that arose within its structure. At that stage, speculations suggested dyslexia to be a congenial brain disease that was causing a reading/writing disorder – see Pringle-Morgan (1896), Hinshelwood (1900) and Orton (1937). However, the question that many have overlooked is; rather than being an innate disorder, is dyslexia discursively formed as a cultural phenomenon? Foucault (2002) argued that: “language is an analysis of thought: not a simple patterning, but a profound establishment of order in space”(p. 83). Sara Mills (1997) explains further: “(…) there is no intrinsic order to the world itself other than the ordering which we impose on it through our linguistic description of it” (p. 52). The word “Order” has several interrelating meanings. These meanings have authoritative, sequential, socio-cultural and linguistic connotations. Conversely, the word “Disorder” denotes everything that is opposed to Order. It signifies confusion, disruption, chaos and criminality. Therefore, it would make sense that a malfunctioning in the linguistic structure, would correlate with a breakdown in the cultural Order. Dyslexia should be conceived as a cultural and linguistic disorder. This is an area I that I have an empirical understanding of. I was diagnosed with dyslexia at the age of thirty. Prior to my assessment I found myself segregated from the conventional Order of society. My life was incredibly colourful, yet deeply troubled. This suggests that a linguistic disorder can manifest as a lived cultural experience. It would also suggest that – to use the words of Benjamin Lee Whorf: “all of us (…) are in conception of language” (1956, p. 251). However, I have now transgressed from being disordered and marginalised, into the Order of academia. I sit now with a government-funded laptop and write a dissertation – something I would have never imagined. These factors throw into the air several questions that relate to media and culture studies: does our language fully determine our social/cultural identity? What degree of agency do we have within our language/culture structure? Due to the fact that I am now able to write a dissertation with the aid of computer technology, what new meaning does this produce around the discourses of dyslexia? Following this, what does my personal shift into the world of academia signify about wider shifts in culture and society? I have chosen to base the topic of my dissertation on the subject of dyslexia. By structurally contextualising myself, I will be able to consider further the relationship between language, culture and new media. I will condense all my questions into one line of enquiry: how are the discourses on dyslexia and literacy changing in response to the new media and culture environment? This question will allow me to present my thesis that the technology of New Media, backed by the corporate and political ideology of pluralism, will inevitably bring dyslexic students from the back to the front of the post-modern classroom.
My dissertation will proceed in the following order. The first chapter will give a brief account of my personal experience of alienation prior to my dyslexia diagnosis. This will identify my individual motivation and outline any biasness. The second chapter will introduce my enquiry into the relationship between language/culture. Here, I will use Michel Foucault’s post-structural model of critical discourse analysis. This will allow me to pay particular attention to the role that written text plays in the discursive formation of “Order” and “Disorder”. However, semiotics and critical discourse analysis have both been amalgamated into a newer model for understanding new media: “Social Semiotics”. Therefore, my investigation will turn back into a critique of critique Foucault’s work, by reconsidering the structural model of Ferdinand de Saussure’s “Semiology”. After establishing the structural foundations of Order/disorder, I will turn my attention to the discourse of dyslexia. This will help identify how the language of new media is reformulating the discourse of dyslexia. To relate these arguments to cultural shifts in wider society; I will illustrate some of the sites where visual culture is dominating written text in mass-culture. Furthering this, I will demonstrate how computer technology is re-ordering society into a non-linear paradigm. By this stage, the reader will understand how the discourse of order and disordered have been produced; how visual lexis and hyper-links are reshaping society, and how this is represented in the changing discourse of dyslexia. Throughout my dissertation I will cross-align my findings with socialist feminist Donna Haraway. This will help demonstrate how technological changes are represented in other marginal discourses.
2) Dyslexia; My Faceless Enemy
My own empirical experience of language and culture will inevitably influence the discourse this dissertation will produce. In the next chapter, I will briefly describe my life before my dyslexia diagnosis. It is a short story, which will give some insight into the systematic process of “othering” that is apparently inherent in the ordering of society:
As an English, white, heterosexual, middle class, right-handed, son of a Duchy of Cornwall farmer, I had no apparent struggle. Set against ‘other’ marginalised groupings, my road to success by cultural definition was perhaps a clear one. However, for thirty years I was constantly at war with a faceless enemy.
Throughout my education, I returned home with reports that identified me as a bright and imaginative student but lethargic when it came to the discipline of reading and writing. My verbal comments in class were taken as bizarre, illogical and nonsensical utterances. Not understanding what was going on, I was happy to take onboard the position as the ‘clown of the class’. This led me into the bottom band of my school curriculum. After trying my uppermost, I left school with two high marks in art and design based subjects. However, my wasted efforts began to turn into bitter resentments.
This clash with the establishment changed me culturally. I moved into the ghettoised area of St Paul’s in Bristol. St Paul’s became my foster home where I remained culturally incognito. I associated with all socially outcast and criminal types. We could freely talk about the injustices of our shared enemy: the law, the authority, or “the system”. The reason why I could do this often baffled me, as it did my new social grouping.
I had a passion for black music, and I soon became a successful DJ on pirate radio. However, it was becoming clear in my work life that I was incapable of maintaining any position of employment to support my aspirations. No matter how hard I would try, I could not follow any form of written and verbal instruction. Feeling frustrated and with nowhere left to hide, I fled to Taiwan to visit a friend.
I discovered employment in Taiwan as an unqualified English teacher. I found it incredibly easy to pick up Chinese mandarin as a pictorial form of communication. I spent two years living in Taiwan on an overstayed visitors visa. Because of my bureaucratic state of non-citizenship, I had to live in accommodation where I could pay cash with no questions. That turned out to be a seedy mafia run brothel. In my lonesome and cockroach-infested room I would repeatedly asked myself: how on earth did I manage to get here?
Wanting for more, I returned to England and decided to pursue a legitimate career in ELF teaching. However, a tutor on the course pulled me aside one day and asked me; ‘Are you being lazy here, or do you have problems spelling?’ I was formally advised that in order to gain a teaching certificate, I would need to obtain a preliminary dyslexia diagnosis. I passed with flying colours. On this account, I obtained my certification. Next, came the challenge of studying for a degree.
Thankfully, a senior tutor allowed me to enrol onto a degree course at the University of the West of England. This was due to my lifetime achievements rather than my academic grades. Straight away I took a full dyslexia test at the Bristol Dyslexia Centre. The assessor and myself broke down into tears when she finally diagnosed me as being “dyslexic”. At the age of thirty, my faceless enemy had finally revealed itself - my enemy was dyslexia! Or, was it language?
As someone who has been ostracised from the dominant order of society, my awareness of linguistic boundaries is a lived experience. However, rather than being fully determined by language, my negotiation around, and away from, the obstacle of language denotes a certain amount of agency. Therefore, my biasness leans towards my subjective capability - my free will. However, my thesis is not based on these grounds. My laptop is a remediate, a cure that is allowing me back into the Order of society. My thesis suggests that computer based technology is highly influencing our culture - more so than written language. Therefore, following this notion, my first line of enquiry will consider the linguistic Order, which I have always felt “othered” from.
3)The Formulation of Order / Disorder; Dyslexia in-between, Structuralism and Post-Structuralism
For dyslexia to be classified as a language “disorder”, firstly there needs to be a dominant “Order”. In the field of culture and media studies, Foucault’s investigation into the relationship between discourse and culture, while criticised by many for its stringency, provides a well-considered framework for my cultural enquiry. By retracing these themes that develop throughout much of his writings, I can genealogically exhume the Foucauldian development of order/disorder. This will help me locate myself within a structural context.
In “The Order of Things”, Foucault theoretically pinpoints the origin of the spoken word: “The yell of the primitive man in a struggle becomes a true word only when it is no longer an expression of pain, and when it has validity as a judgment or as a statement”(2002, p. 92). Therefore, order is from the outset structured by spoken words, or verifiable truth statements. These utterances can be distinguished, understood and judged by way of social convention. In this genealogical sense, we can begin to discover the relationship between presence/absence and true/false. This binate relationship is intrinsically bound up in the workings of speech over vocal expression. In a contemporary sense, the development of a crying baby, into a ‘baby-talking’ toddler, into a young person, involves the internalisation and deployment of a lexicon, which is socially comprehensible. We can only accuse a child of lying when that child starts to communicate with true words that can be judged, rather than unintelligible noises that are vaguely understood.
For Foucault, the following transition from binary truth statements, into grammatical structures, marks the formulation of spoken language. The discourse of speech is constructed through general grammar, or: “(…) discourse, understood as a sequence of verbal signs” (2002, p. 83) Therefore, through the binary action of word signs, juxtaposed in a grammatical sequence, the great convoluted metanarrative of Western civilisation begins to unfold as a: “profound establishment of order in space”(2002, p. 83). The running theme throughout the Order of Things is the relationship between power and language. Foucault uses the Classical Era (pp. 70 / 74), Christianity and the Renaissance (pp. 33 / 38) to demonstrate how the order of knowledge is discursively regulated by the powers of the Order. Indeed, if we think of English language in its spoken form, we still traditionally perceive the summit to be ‘the Queens English”. In the same sense, another form of verbal cultural capital is demonstrated in the deployment of ‘Business English’. At a spoken level, it would logically follow that any breakdowns in a verbal system would be stigmatised and disassociated from the dominant Order.
The next stage of evolution is when grammatically structured sentences evolve into alphabetical texts.For Foucault, much like Nietzsche (1873), written texts emboss themselves upon “word-truths”. Therefore, a triadic relationship forms between objects, and two sets of linguistic signs; spoken and written. Eventually, the latter would take priority over the former, when: “an interweaving of language and things, in a space common to both, presupposes an absolute privilege on the part of writing” (2002, p. 37). Writing can extend itself further than vocal sound, in a proximal and archaeological sense. Thus, the value of the written word has become predominant over the vocal word. It has become the supplier of documentation, evidence or indeed knowledge. Subsequently, the medium of the book: “forces language to reside in the world” (Foucault, 2002, p. 33). While doing so, books also convey the working of power which govern the knowledge they produce. Much like batteries, books retain and recharge the discourses they represent and thus regenerate. Knowledge, as the saying suggests, is tied to power. Therefore, we ‘act in accordance with the written-law’, base our assumptions on ‘scientific fact’, or take heed to the Biblical ‘Word of God’. Libraries, encyclopaedias, educational literature and dictionaries, legitimise and govern the langue of our text community. A sequential archive of knowledge therefore begins to establish itself as part of an onward marching linear Order.
Foucault’s writing on Madness and Civilisation (1961) demonstrates how society had previously segregated itself through the binary divide inherent in the dualism: Reason/unreasoned. During the Enlightenment, the faith invested in “Reason” provided an ideological “Will to Truth”. This dominant cultural moment wished to escape from the dark chaos of the cosmos. However, for this reasoned Order to assert itself, it needed to offset itself against an opposite. Therefore, the voice of the madman added a: “muffled accompaniment of unreason to the reason of the philosophers” (2001, p. 191). Consequently the: “rationality of the Enlightenment found in them a sort of darkened mirror” (2001, p. 191). The discourse provided through Reason, became secured and enforced through the institutions, which were central to the bourgeois Order: the Church, the Monarchy and the Hospital (2001, p. 39). However, to reach a point of conclusion – ultimate Truth - the Enlightenment’s thesis logically required an antithesis. Reason was unsuccessful in extinguishing unreason, for the very fact that this shadow of this disorder complimented the logical process of the Order. In a similar respect, the dominant discourse of writing can only be regarded as orderly and correct, by offsetting itself against that which is disorderly and incorrect. Hence, linguistic disorders are discursively formulated into being as a subsidiary, a by-product of the dominant discourse – writing.
In a multimedia world, the dichotic divisions of the past are becoming further fragmented as technology networks society into one. Following Foucault, Haraway states that: “certain dualisms have been persistent in Western traditions; they have all been systemic to the logics and practices of domination” (1991, p. 177). Some of the examples she gives of these linguistic dualisms are: “self/other, mind/body, culture/nature, male/female, civilised/primitive, reality/appearance, whole/part, agent/resource, maker/made, active/passive, right/wrong, truth/illusion, total/partial, God/man” (1991, p. 177). However, power seeks to become more inclusive. According to Foucault, increasing political influence of utilitarianism and liberalism would produce needs for a newer type of political governance - see Howarth (2000, p. 75). This was initially noticeable in Foucault’s work on the Panopticon (1995). This documented how the process of “binary division and branding” – I.E: “mad/sane; dangerous/harmless; normal/abnormal” (1995, abbreviation, para 8) - is an integral part of authoritarian surveillance. A continuation of this process would lead to what Foucault refers to as “bio-power”. Haraway sates that: “Foucault’s bio-politics in a flaccid premonition of cyber politics” (1991, p.150). The aim of bio-power is increased efficiency through:“numerous and diverse techniques for achieving the subjugation of bodies and the control of populations” (1979, p.140). This process of surveillance and categorisation has continued on into information society. Dyslexia can now be understood through an intensified process of categorisation rather than simply being labelled and disregarded as being “disordered”. I will continue to explore the workings of bio-power in the latter parts of my dissertation.
Until this point, Foucault’s analysis has been incredibly text-based. However, dyslexia and new media both challenge this framework. In a society where visual culture is becoming prominent over written text, it follows that semiotics should re-emerge over textural modes of communication - and therefore critical analysis. Ferdinand de Saussure’s Semiology was a preconception of: “a science that studies the life of signs within society” (1983, p.16). It provided an academically recognised method of decoding visual culture beyond the boundaries of written text. Unlike Foucault, Saussure considered that written text had an entirely “arbitrary” relationship with the world: “The signs used in writing are arbitrary. The letter t, for instance, has no connection with the sound it denotes.” (1990, p. 117). Saussure argued that in linguistic studies there should be a primary focus upon the auditory signifier over writing: “People attach even more importance to the written image of a vocal sign than to the sign itself’” (1983, p. 24). Like Foucault, Saussure claimed that verbal communication is a construction of differentiated presence/absence signs. However, these were composed through: “individual combinations of words, depending on the will of speakers and (…) acts of phonation” (Italics added, 1990, p. 19).Therefore, a code enables the subject’s communication (parole) to be distinguished through the structure of a language community (langue) (p.19). However, Foucault’s form of post-structuralism worked to reject this proposition on the basis of allowing too much subjectivity (2002, p. 320). Much like Foucault, post-structuralist Jacques Derrida argues that: “phonetic writing is massive; it commands our entire culture and our entire science” (1997, p. 31). In Foucault’s model, discourse defines the acceptable/unacceptable speech acts of an individual against their will, as an act of: “self-analysing representation” (2002, p. 320). Structuralism had failed to recognise the power/knowledge relations at work in the discursive formation of written text. Here lies the debate between agency and linguistic/discursive determinism. The illogical use of written and spoken lexicon naturally inherent in dyslexics, favours Saussure subjective model. Whereas the branding and social division caused by the discourse of ‘disorder’, favours the formality of Foucault’s model. Dyslexia finds itself stuck in-between structuralism and post-structuralism.
It should be noted, that Saussure’s discourse on Semiology was delivered in 1906 - 1911, only twenty years after the 1880 introduction of the Republican School in France. In a critique of Saussure’s structuralism, Derrida points out: “Saussure is faithful to the tradition that has always associated writing with the fatal violence of the political institution” (1967, p.36). Saussure’s focus on the auditory sign is indicative of the social stigmas attached to, and disassociated from, the elitist activity of reading and writing. There is also an element of irony here in the fact that Saussure’s ‘Course in General Linguistics’ were notes taken by students who attended his lectures and not published as a result of his own writings. Furthering this, Foucault and Derrida’s writings were highly influential during an epoch where all eyes were hinged upon written language. When writing about the fragmentation of linear metanarratives, Fredric Jameson (1991) notes: “the great semiotic opposition between signifier and signified, (was) rapidly unraveled and deconstructed during its brief heyday in the 1960s and 1970s” (p. 12). Consequently; “What replaces these various depth models is for the most part a conception of practices, discourses, and textual play” (p. 12). As I will discuss later, the introduction of new media will demand a further reconsideration of Order, authority and subjectivity.
To briefly summarise; Saussure’s Semiology has a paradoxical relationship to dyslexia; on one hand it favours the subjective use of verbal sound over writing and reading. It also identifies a cross-cultural code for decoding visual culture. The flexibility of Semiotics extends beyond a written code in its consideration. On the other hand, the lack of emphasis structuralism gives to the authority of written language; allows linguistic and structural determinism to be easily overlooked. Dyslexics would probably not receive government funding if the cultural emphasis did not take into consideration the lifelong determining factor of written discourse – especially in bureaucratic forms such as legal documentation and educational assessment.
Since the 1990’s, Gunther Kress and Theo van Leeuwen of the New London Group have argued that ‘multiliteracy’ should be encouraged at school, as a requirement for existing in an increasingly multi-mediated global culture. Their theory of ‘Social Semiotics’ is founded upon Saussure’s Semiology. Although, they borrow visual aspects provided by Critical Discourse Analysis, they make the claim that: “critical discourse analysis has tended to concentrate of ‘informative’ texts” (1996, p. 13). Furthermore: “The incursion of the visual into many domains of public communication where formerly language was the sole and dominant mode, is, in our view, an equally significant theme for critical discourse analysis” (1996, p.13). Thus, they have formulated their model of ‘visual grammatology’ as a union of semiotics and discourse theory. Part of their overall argument asserts that visual grammatology should be educated at early stages of child development – as it always has been – but with the intention of continuing on into later adulthood (1996, p. 18). The New London Group assert that their views are not as much proactive as they are responsive. Their proposition comes in response to the “dominant visual language”,which they claim is:“now controlled by the global cultural/technology empires of the mass media” (1996, p. 4). In relation to the post-modern “Semiotic Landscape”, they argue that:
“Newspapers, magazines, public relations materials, advertisements and many kinds of books today involve a complex interplay of written text, images and other graphic elements, and what is more, these elements combine together in visual design (…) In terms of this new visual literacy, education produces illiterates.”
(Kress, van Leeuwen, 1996, p. 15)
It is clear to see in their proposition that visual culture, and its relationship to mass media, demand for a response at an educational level. This call for literacy in visual grammatology has the potential to open up avenues of power for dyslexics. This will become apparent when considering some of the dyslexia discourse I will discuss further on. More importantly, their argument is informed by, and influential too, the linguistic themes apparent in media and culture studies.
However, the New London Group’s idea of teaching students multimodal forms of communication is not an unchallenging concept. In the earlier part of this dissertation, Foucault allowed us to understand how reading and writing skills have become entwined in a hierarchical Order. This Order is therefore shrouded in cultural capital. Kress and van Leeuwen are fully aware of this state of affairs. Their writings acknowledge the troubling political implications that their proposition presents. In cultural terms they state that: “the move towards a new literacy, based on images and visual design, can come to be seen as a threat, a sign of the decline of culture” (1996, p. 16). More specifically, in political terms, they identify that:“an opposition to the visual media in situations where they form an alternative to writing (…) can therefore be seen as a potential threat to the present dominance of verbal literacy among elite groups”(1996, p. 16). Much like Foucault, their papers recognize how writing and verbal eloquence have taken place at the paramount of Ordered society. It is not the aim of this dissertation to discuss the leveling down of elitist values, however, it can be seen how these debates are interconnected. Nevertheless, this shift into multimodal education that Kress and van Leeuwen suggest would effectively open up a multitude of avenues for visual communication, literacy and assessment. Although such a move would enable dyslexics to overcome the binary divide that exists between ordered/disordered, correct/incorrect and able/disabled, it would threaten the fabric of ordered society. In political terms, their argument represents the voice of liberalism in the face of conservatism. Liberalism is therefore the voice that supports a dyslexic’s political and economic prosperity.
Here, I would like to clarify the relevant points of this chapter, before carrying them over into the next chapter. Firstly, Foucault has enabled us to understand how the binary actions of spoken words have influenced the dualistic structure of dichotic discourses. Secondly, the Order under which dyslexics have been branded “disordered”; is a powerful and hegemonic discursive formation. Thirdly, written texts are powerful tools for reinforcing the structure of this power/knowledge hierarchy. Fourthly, binary categorisations are becoming multiplicit in the pluralistic model of a surveillance society. However, a discrepancy lies in the amount of authoritarian power Foucault prescribes over agency. Furthermore, the ridged focus on written text is becoming an outdated model for understanding today’s new media culture.
4) Dyslexia; Critical Archive Analysis
The development of dyslexia discourses came to the foreground following a massive paradigm shift; the introduction of state funded mainstream education. In her article entitled ‘The History of Dyslexia’, Javier Gayán Guardiola notes that:
“(…)in Great Britain (GB) in 1870, the Forster Education Act guaranteed a basic level of education to all children. This event meant that from then on, educators could observe a large number of children at school, allowing them to identify those with reading problems (i.e., developmental dyslexics).”
(Guardiola, 2001, p. 4).
Around the same time, coinciding with the rise of the modern political state, the formation of the German Empire in 1871 implemented a centralised schooling system. In 1880, France introduced the free and secular ‘l'école républicaine’. Political determinism ensured that writing and reading became involuntary social disciplines. This shift was centred on the economic growth of the state in an industrialised Europe. This wider distribution of knowledge ensured that literacy would assist in the governing of the individual’s prosperity. The resulting discourse on dyslexia developed in Europe followed this shift into mass education. Therefore, dyslexia discourses are either significant of an innate brain deficit, or the difficulties inherent the normalisation of a state educated written language – or, a blend of both.
The original diagnosis of dyslexia was generally associated with the eyes and mind. It was originally referred to as “word-blindness” - see Adolph Kussmaul (1877), Oswald Berkhan (1881) and Rudolf Berlin (1887). In 1896 – twenty-six years after the Foster Education Act - ‘word-blindness’ appeared for the first time in the British Medical Journal. When writing about a ‘bright and intelligent boy’ named Percy, W Pringle-Morgan states that:
“Cases of word blindness are always interesting (…) It is unique, so far as I know, in that it follows upon no injury or illness, but is evidently congenital, and due most probably to defective development of that region of the brain, (a) disease of which in adults produces practically the same symptoms- that is, the left angular gyrus.”
(Morgan, 1896, p. 1378).
The ‘angular gyrus’ is the left area of the left side of the brain that is commonly understood to be the place where linguistic, linear and analytic though is processed. Pringle-Morgan works on the assumption that this area of the brain was in some way ‘diseased’ and that this ‘congenital’ impairment manifests itself as a reading and writing deficit. Without considering that the mass education of written language could in itself be problematic, the dysfunction is estimated to be biologically inherent within the subject. Therefore, by the use of discourse, both Percy and Pringle-Morgan are systematically retained into the social positions provided to them. Pringle-Morgan’s writings represent a common medical diagnosis of the time. In 1900, Glasgow eye surgeon James Hinshelwood writes:
“It has been the endeavour of the author to show that letter- word- and mind-blindness in all the varieties met with in a clinical experience can be intelligibly explained by regarding them as disorders of the visual memory, produced by lesions affecting more or less completely a definite area of the cerebral cortex, in which are preserved these past visual impressions arranged in definite and ordered groupings.”
(Hinshelwood, 1900, p. 10).
It is evident that Hinshelwood’s logic presupposes that written-signs should be stored in the disease-free mind as ‘definite’ and ‘ordered groupings’. This would take place within what he calls the: “visual word-centre” (Hinshelwood cited in Miles & Miles, 1999, p. 5). This concept suggests that there should naturally be an orderly compartment of the mind, which is much like an internal version of Johannes Gutenberg’s 1493 printing press. This stockpile of signifiers should be perfectly moulded around the shape of the external written language. The basis of his logic presupposes that there is a universal capability inherent in the written sign. Therefore, in light of this logic, ‘congenial word-blindness’ is nobody’s fault, other than an innate disease that can be detected through pathology. Without questioning the basis of his own judgements, Hinshelwood did consider that the ‘congenial word-blind’: “may be harshly treated as imbeciles, and either neglected or punished for a defect for which they are no way responsible” (Miles & Miles, 1999, p. 5). In this respect, the dyslexic student becomes subjugated under the dominant discourse of language. If it exists, the imperfection of a system, which normalises written language through compulsory education, eludes examination.
In 1937, American physician Samuel Orton argued that the unspecific nature of the term word-blindness should be replaced by the ‘strephosymbolia’ - meaning ‘twisting of symbols’. For Orton, this was caused by mental reversals, which could take place in reading, writing and speaking. In the written form, a child could confuse ‘p’ with ‘q’ and verbally pronounce ‘enemy’ as ‘emeny’ (Miles & Miles, 1999, p. 8). In his opinion, this was caused by a mirroring effect in the mind. This would confuse the copy of a dextral letter (the rightward direction) with its sinistral (the leftward) opposite. His proposition also suggests that written text in the mind should influence the output of verbal speech. The right side of the brain - or the ‘non-dominant hemisphere’ - which controls the left hand side of the body, was causing a mischievous act of trickery in the correct translation of text. A consequence this mental mirroring would: “correlate with the amount of (…) retardation in reading” (cited in Miles & Miles, 1999, p. 8). Orton’s propositions exert the fact that left-to-right dextral reading is the dominant norm for the English reader/writer. A natural process linked to the ‘dominant’ hemisphere of the mind. However, such an assertion becomes problematic when we start to think of right-to-left sinistral languages such as Arabic and Hebrew, or top-down / left-to-right language paradigms such as traditional Chinese.
Orton also investigated the link between left-handedness and dyslexia, he reveals that: “The family history in by far the great majority of cases shows the presence of left-handedness in the stock” (cited in Miles & Miles, 1999, p. 8) Indeed, my own grandfather was left-handed. He used to tell me how his teachers smacked him on the hand with a ruler, until he eventually managed to write with the right hand. The undertone implicit in Orton’s research represents a similar school of thought. Right-mindedness and its polar opposite backwardness are terms with associative meanings that have developed from the linguistic dualism right/left. The very fact that “Right” can be used as another word for correct, and the words sinistral and sinister derive from the Latin word for “Left”, would make this right-hand (left-hemisphere) biasness easy to understand. Taking this dualism to the absolute extreme, Robert Efron (1990) argued that: “teaching the young to read and write (…) is in blatant violation of the constitutional rights of the right hemisphere to an equal education” (cited in Miles & Miles, 1999, p. 80). This “Left” verses “Right” argument is often discredited because of its tendency to make broad generalizations. It would become unstuck when we consider that in England we actually drive on the left-hand-side, and we walk to the left as a priority on Metro-subway escalators. Furthermore, we should remind ourselves at this point, in regard to Foucault’s argument; that it is only in the act of using language that left and right definite-ly become distinguished from nature as two separate hemispheres. “Left” and “Right” are objects that language discursively formulates into being. Within the dualisms of language, it is inconceivable to consider the human mind and body as a whole.
In 1968 the Research Group of Developmental Dyslexia of the World Federation of Neurology, defined dyslexia as:
"A disorder manifested by a difficulty in learning to read despite conventional instruction, adequate intelligence and socio-cultural opportunity. It is dependent upon fundamental cognitive difficulties which are frequently of a constitutional character."
(cited in Snowling, 2001, p. 15).
Professor of Psychology Margaret Snowling (2001) refers to this as a: “definition by exclusion” (p. 15). ‘Convention’ is the site where dominant power lies. Therefore, the ‘manifested disorder’ is being formulated through the discourse used. The power retained in this discourse therefore belongs to the structure of the Order. In light of Foucault’s argument, the foundation for these statements rests upon an unquestionable, and ideological, form of common sense. They operate by asserting that; it is natural for all humans to read and write. However, as Kress and van Leeuwen have identified, other modes of communication also exist. One example would be drawing. It would be foolish to believe that everyone can draw. The fact that some can and some cannot draw, is socially acceptable - by commonsense. It would seem strange to refer to someone who cannot draw as being ‘disordered’. Because, there are no immediate power relationships at work in the activity of drawing. We all accept that drawing is subjective, as is our interpretation of art. There are power relationships inherent in reading and writing. This single mode of communication is promoted by the authoritarian Order, which re-establishes itself through this necessity. However, communication and culture are rapidly changing.
In contemporary terms, the continuation of Foucault’s bio-power is clearly present in my dyslexia assessment. As part of my acceptance into the Order of society, I had to undergo a dyslexia test. To ascertain my social positioning in relation to written texts, many examinations were carried out. This was done using a Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Adults. I was cognitively monitored in the areas of:
These individual sub-tests produced results, which were measured against a ‘centile’ statistical average. Against this benchmark, I fell under the ‘inferior range’ on the writing and reading based tests. However, I was placed in the ‘superior range’ on the visual/spatial tests. The final result qualified me as having a SpLD – a ‘specific learning difficulty’. The word ‘disorder’ was mentioned nowhere. As a requisite of bio-power, the word ‘disorder’ has been effaced from the discourse of dyslexia. There is no longer a clear-cut divide between ordered/disordered. ‘Specific difficulty’ evokes my subjectivity as a more unifying form of categorisation. The acceptance of diversity is a fundamental part of pluralism. As a remedy for my difficulty, I was given a government-funded laptop and welcomed back into the Order of a networked society. I now sit as a computerised cyborg and type these words.
Modern technology and computer-mediation is driving the shift towards visual culture; this is causing a new formulation in dyslexia discourse. Dyslexic individuals are increasingly referred to as potentially ‘gifted’, rather than lazy, retarded, disordered or latently diseased. Dyslexic specialist Thomas West argues that: “The old world of the book and writing required one set of talents and skills, while the expanding world of moving images and visualized information seems to require quite a different set” (2000, p. 10). West claims that in such an environment dyslexic students should be able to swim rather than sink (2000, p. 13). As an example, West recalls a documentary about French dyslexic Valerie Delahaye, whose dyslexic capabilities landed her a job as a Hollywood visual-effects production manager. Ironically, in her fist job as head of effects for the movie “Titanic”, she found herself supervising a team of designers who all turned out to be dyslexic (see West, 1999, pp. 9-10). West is not alone in asserting this visually talented hypothesis. In a book entitled ‘The Gift of Dyslexia’, dyslexic Ronald Davis claims that:
“The primary thought process of the dyslexic is a non-verbal picture thinking mode which occurs at 32 pictures per second. In a second, a verbal thinker could have between two and five thoughts (individual words conceptualised) while a picture thinker would have thirty-two (individual pictures conceptualised). Mathematically, this works out at between six and ten times as many thoughts.”
(Davis, 1995, p. 100).
Click to watch video clip of Ronald Davis
Davis’ discourse works on the basis of the ordered/disordered divide; his book is aimed at inspiring dyslexics who have previously felt socially segregated and therefore demoralised. Like West, his research into dyslexia suggests that dyslexics are cognitively adept for thinking in a graphic/design environment. Much like Kress and van Leeuwen, West and Davis are writing in response to a shift into a technology based visual culture. In today’s new media society the quickest way to process information could be through a visual/image process. The fact that dyslexics might be better suited for such an environment may seem like a crazy claim. However, if we refer back to my dyslexia assessment, the Wechsler ‘Scale Block Design’ test classified me as being in the ‘superior range’. Block design tests attempt to be culturally non-bias and they are given to evaluate the following cognitive strengths:
A) Analysis of whole into its parts.
B) Spatial visualization;
C) Nonverbal Concept Formation;
D) Visual-motor coordination and perceptual organization;
E) Ability to concentrate and perceptual speed.
(WAIS III Interpretation, University of Western Australia., n.d.)
The discourse produced through the results of my assessment –in response to problems with my reading and writing – reinforce West and Davis’ claims that dyslexics might have special visual abilities. Such a prognosis would reinforce the Kress and van Leeuwen’s promotion of visual grammatology in education as being advantageous for dyslexics - or ‘visual-thinkers’ as a whole. This would help break the divide able/disable. The next section of my dissertation will consider some of the cultural sites where imagery is beginning to dominate written text in the current post-modern epoch. By considering these cultural sites, I can relate the discursive changes in dyslexia discourse as responsive to shifts in a new media culture.
5) Postmodernism; Seeing Signs of the Times in A Non-linear Word Order
West, Davis, Kress and van Leeuwen’s arguments have all indicated how visual culture is dominating written text. However, to reinforce these arguments with my own, I will consider some sites where visual culture is dominating written text in mass culture. A term often heard in the discussion of post-modernism is ‘seeing is believing’. A saying that discredits the faith that many had previously put into the written word. However, in an essay format, it is not adequate enough to simply say: ‘take a look around you’. Therefore, in an unorthodox scholarly fashion, I have produced a new media CD ROM. This will support my argument in a new media format. It has been produced following the ‘visual grammar’ techniques discussed by Kress and van Leeuwen. Nevertheless, the following section of my dissertation will endeavour to illustrate this shift into visual lexis over the written word:
Photography, the printing press, and the motion picture ended the era of modernity. These technologies enabled the mass production and distribution of image based media. The speed of this process has since been propelled forwards with the introduction of digital technology. Suddenly, techno-visual imagery surrounds us all in a new media society. The field of Media and Culture finds itself struggling to develop terms that can describe this phenomenon. Marshal McLuhan (2001) refers to this postmodern era as a:“collide-oscope of interfaced situations” (p. 10). As Anne Friedberg explains:
“GUIs, (Graphic User Interface) have become the “meta-interface” found on almost any screenic device – VCRs, cell phones, car navigational systems, gaming consoles, and my favourite screen-enables appliance, the Samsung “Internet refrigerator.”
(Friedberg, 2006, p. 231).
Lev Manovich (2001) refers to these New Media phenomena as: “Info-Aesthetics”. For Manovich these information-based visualisations provide a code that is identifiable in a range of cultural sites. The info-aesthetic code can be seen as: “new aesthetics of information culture”, which: “manifests itself most clearly in computer software” (2001c, abbreviation, para 3). When speaking about the Internet in particular, he mentions that: “On the level of aesthetics, the Web has established a multimedia document (…) as a new communication standard” (2001b, abbreviation, para 7). This multiplicit ‘communication standard’ is the newer benchmark. Therefore, the discourses of dyslexia and literacy are being produced in response to this technology. This is a new calibre, which Kress and van Leeuwen claim is being overlooked by education industries. Therefore, we can ascertain that written text – though not totally abolished - has become immersed in a swamp of visual lexis. The arrangement of this lexicon is non-linear rather than sequential. The next part of this chapter will consider the spatial arrangement of this new media lexis:
Since the 1870 introduction of mass education, a massive global paradigm shift has been provided through hyperlinked WebPages. Although linear texts can be downloaded and consumed in the traditional linear method, the option of ‘surfing’ has become available due to the nonlinear structure of the Internet. We can now navigate through a multitude of interrelating media, rather than being sequentially dragged into a dominant dextral direction. This overall restructure of information will inevitably have an impact on the order of society.
In 1967 Marshal McLuhan controversially argued that: “societies have always been shaped by the nature of the media by which men communicate” (2001, p. 8). Like Foucault and Saussure, he had no doubt also that Western rationality and logic: “came to depend on the presentation of connected and sequential facts of concepts”(2001, p. 45). Consequently: “The hand that filled the parchment page built a city” (2001, p. 48). Therefore, the structural Order of the West had taken shape through a: “the step-by-step linear departmentalizing process inherent in the technology of the alphabet” (2001, p. 45).However, this backlog of linearly archived information was to eventually become augmented to the point of becoming overwhelming. Therefore, a new system needed to be devised, a system that could handle this backlogging of paperwork.
The present nonlinear structure of the Internet was originally conceptualised as a response to the pileup of linear documentation. During World War II, Norbert Wiener discovered the theory of cybernetics at MIT. At the same time, his MIT companion Vannevar Bush set about researching information retrieval. Both Wiener and Bush’s inventions underpin our current relationship with new media and culture. In 1945 Bush published his article ‘As We May Think’. Bush (1945) considered that the conventional means of accessing information in the alphabetic and linear form was causing unnecessary complications: “Our ineptitude in getting at the record is largely caused by the artificiality of systems of indexing” (abbreviation, section 6, para 1).He insisted that: “The human mind does not work that way” (abbreviation, section 6, para 2).Rather, Bush considered that the human minds store and retrieve information through a nonlinear process. Bush’s concept of the mind was that it: “operates by association. With one item in its grasp, it snaps instantly to the next that is suggested by the association of thoughts, in accordance with some intricate web of trails carried by the cells of the brain” (abbreviation, section 6, para 2). Here the use of the word ‘may’ is momentous. Bush was suggesting an alternative to the dominant understanding of the mind as a linear word-processor. This was a challenging concept at the time. This is exemplified when we think back to Samuel Orton’s presupposition about the linear logic of the dextral/sinistral mind. Nevertheless, Bush drew up a design for ‘the Memex’ based upon this nonlinear logic. The Memex was an associative information retrieval device that was never built. However, his writings were later to become of great influence to Ted Nelson and Douglas Engelbart - see Engelbart 2008. Nelson and Engelbart are greatly credited for developing networked computers, the GUI, and what we now know as “hyper-text”. As Engelbart explains: “I visualized people collaborating interactively on visual displays connected to a computer complex” (2008, p. 3). Much like the linking of the associative mind, and the code of Manovich’s Info-aesthetics, hypertexts allow us to navigate through a nonlinear matrix of multimedia.
Bush argued that nonlinearity could be the way we ‘may’ think. However, as McLuhan’s (1964) “The Medium is the Message” hypothesis suggests: nonlinearity has become the way we do think. For dyslexics the medium has been more problematic than the message. Therefore, this change is certainly welcomed. This is a shift that has been influenced by Bushes initial concept of the mind. The discourse of dyslexia suggests that dyslexics are perfectly adept to such a nonlinear process. Dyslexic author Ronald Davis claims that in the visual mind of the dyslexic, that;
“Verbal thought is linear in time, performed by making sentences one word at a time, whereas picture thinking is evolutionary. The picture grows as the mental process adds more sub-concepts to the overall concept.”
(Davis, 1997, pp. 100-101)
Beyond the discourse of dyslexia, the hyper-linked structure of the Internet is also promoting nonlinear and associative visual thinking. In 2005 the The Opte Project – an organisation pioneered by Barrett Lyon, set about the aim of visually mapping the Internet. The visual outcome is quite staggering (Fig Ref 1). Their diagrammatic representation of the World Wide Web’s infrastructure draws many similarities with Bush’s idea of the brain. Bush described the mind as an: ‘intricate web of trails’, and indeed the Opte Projects partial delineation looks much like a giant associative mind-map:
(The Opte Project, A Partial Map of the Internet, Fig Ref 1).
In a global embrace, our minds have branched out into a technological matrix grid - we are interlinked. Haraway (1995, ed. Hables, p. 4) uses James Lovelock’s Gaia hypothesis to illustrate this phenomenon. McLuhan claimed that: “The instantaneous world of electric informational media involves all of us, all at once” (2001, p. 53). This heavily suggests that technological determinism is replacing the dichotic nature of linguistic determinism. As McLuhan stated: “The alphabet and print technology fostered and encouraged a fragmenting process (…) Electronic technology fosters and encourages unification and involvement” (2001, p. 8). The inclusion of those with learning differences into the Order of society is a requirement of this technological unification.
The development of the Info-aesthetic code coincides with a global restructure provided through hyper-links. Written text has become engulfed in this overall constellation of information aesthetics. The wider shift towards an info-aesthetic and networked culture is reshaping the discourse of dyslexia. Therefore, the non-text based abilities associated with ‘dyslexics’ are being identified as the cognitive credentials for new media communication. In the post-modern semiotic landscape, we will all need to become associative visual-thinkers rather than word-readers. Indeed, if we are to define dyslexia by its associated strengths – we all need to become dyslexic in this new media milieu.
6;Neo-Liberalism and Globalisation, Biopower and Pluralism
To conclude; dyslexia has been developed as a discourse, which has been formulated through written text - writing allows dyslexia to exist and breath. My dissertation has outlined how dyslexia has undergone several discursive reformations; from ‘diseased/disordered’ to ‘deficit/differentiated’ to a new potential of: ‘gifted/talented’. The changes in these discourses have been caused in response to new sets of political and economic goals of the dominant Order of society. However, new media is challenging the relationship between Order/disorder. The source of hegemony in contemporary society is rooted within computer technology. Info-aesthetics, and a nonlinear ordering, are allowing an access to power, for those previously ostracised through written words. This current paradigm shift therefore re-contextualises dyslexics into a better-enabled context.
With regard to the linguistic determinism; Nietzsche (1873) asked the important question: “Is language the adequate expression of all realities?” (Abbreviation, para 4). If words were an adequate technology for fully expressing every level of reality, then the discourse of dyslexia should not have developed. Beyond the limits of ordered language – a place that Ludwig Wittgenstein (1922) claimed: “we must pass over in silence” (p. 74) – there exist levels of reality which language has overlooked. It is in this realm of disorder that I gained my empirical experience. That knowledge has shaped the discourse this dissertation produces. After posing his question, Nietzsche proceeded to argue that: “The various languages placed side by side show that with words it is never a question of truth, never a question of adequate expression; otherwise, there would not be so many languages” (Abbreviation, para 4). In this sense the newer language of new media – the remedy of written text - compensates for the inadequacies of writing. Would we need new media if writing had been an adequate expression of all realities? As a “dyslexic” who is experiencing the benefits of new media, I would have to answer ‘no’. Writing has been an inadequate medium. Therefore, I can only conclude that our culture is only marginally defined by written discourse. Nevertheless, dyslexic students are welcomed into the Order of society through this technological process of remediation. My discourse on dyslexia can now be submitted into the world of academia because of the artificial ability given to me through computer technology. Therefore, new media ontologically identifies the fractures that have existed within the former language systems. However, the introduction of new media opens up a variety of new debates. These are rooted in Neo-Liberalism and Globalisation, Biopower and Pluralism. I will address these debates below:
Neo-liberalism and multi-national capitalism are blurring the binary divides in our current global Order. The codes identified through social semiotics and info-aesthetics are enabling this integration beyond the cultural biasness of written text. We are ideologically merging together as one through technology. This process is forming a new phase of intersubjective pluralism. This is exemplified in the general use of ‘multi’ in various developing postmodern discourses - multiliteracy, multimodality, multinational, multicultural and multimedia. However, the autonomous diversity associated with pluralism is lost with the overall hegemony of computerisation. In uniform, we stare into our computer interfaces. Consequently, the dyslexic’s relationship with a computer-mediated society depends largely upon the cultural activity of computer usage. This cultural shift induced by and profiteering the multinational software and hardware companies. Heterogeneity is therefore reduced to homogeneity in light of this monolithic paradigm. We find ourselves held in the grasp of computerised capitalism.
The keywords ‘difference’ and ‘homogeneity’ mark the continuation of Foucault’s bio-power. In a post-Fordist society there is the potential for information technology to provide an increasingly deterministic existence for civilians. Foucault realised bio-power as being an: “indispensable element in the development of capitalism” (1998, pp.104/141). The central mechanism of bio-power would secure the: “insertion of bodies into the machinery of production” and adjust the: “phenomena of population to economic process” (1998, p.141). Therefore, neuro-cognitive assessment could pinpoint and determine the work-life of the citizen at an early age. As a contemporary example, dyslexic students with visual abilities associated with good computer workmanship, could be neuro-cognitively profiled for job roles in visual design from an early age. The minds neurons would therefore be cultivated and transposed into electrons, cultural data and capital. Although bio-power would limit the amount of marginalisation that is inherent in the dualisms of the written word, such a pre-diagnosed existence offers little chance for empirical diversity. Such a totalising form of technologic determinism would take precedence over the former concept of linguistic determinism. Following this last statement, it should also be acknowledged that my findings relate only towards members of a global society who have access to computers. The benefits that I have outlined in my dissertation are applicable only to those who exist on multi-literate side of the global “digital divide”. Therefore, much thought needs to be given to the concepts of ‘diversity’, ‘individuality’ and ‘subjectivity’, within a society, which is increasingly being to become dependant upon computer mediation as the basis of pluralism.
The square shape of the computer screen, as the remediation / remedy of the book, has perhaps given us a new box to try and think outside of.
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A special thank you to:
John Hodgeson & Estella Tinknell (University of the West of England)
Elizabeth Middleton (Bristol Dyslexia Center)
Sarah Cooke (Bath Dyslexia Clinic)
Agatha Knowles (Bath Spa University)
Alison Eastwood (Bristol Institute of Technology)
