POWER AND SPELLING

This paper discusses certain phenomena, features, and signs of power or hierarchical roles in writing, writing habits, and especially in spelling (including the regulation of orthography and its everyday practice in offices as well as in popular contexts). The overall framework is anthropo- and socio-semantic, and the material investigated is based on concrete observations, especially data drawn from Hungarian sources. The major manifestations, mechanisms, and signs of power discussed here include the following: belief in the magic power of writing, choice of type of writing, regulation of orthography (spelling reform, language reform), nostalgic romanticism, degradation, ways of catching readers' attention, discrimination, and counter-cultural forms of expression.