Speech

Speech, or spoken language, is the most important mode of human communication. While many people consider writing more correct and more stable than speech, which they believe to be careless, corrupted and susceptible to change, modern linguistics regards speech and not writing as the most immediate manifestation of language.

Writing

Writing as a mode of communication involves the structured representation of language through symbols or text. It allows for permanent record, asynchronous interaction, and broad dissemination of ideas, enabling complex expression and extensive reach across time and space.

Modern linguistics generally assumes that the written form of language is secondary in relation to its spoken form, for the following reasons:

  1. Humans used spoken language long before the first writing system was developed.
  2. Many languages do not have a writing system.
  3. Children acquire spoken language automatically, but they must be taught how to write.
  4. Neurolinguistic evidence suggests that writing uses the same brain areas as spoken language (and others as well).

An important mode of visual communication uses gestures in order to underline what is being said.  Gestures and bodily movements are often subsumed under the heading of paralinguistic features.