The philosophers of ancient Greece made some of the first academic contributions to understanding written language, as they did for so many aspects of human culture and existence. The invention of the alphabet was a linguistic revolution that quickly began to be felt in Greek society. As a result Plato suggested that an oral state of mind was to be replaced by a literate state of mind. One aspect of the revolution was that the dominance that teachers exerted (through teaching that was part of an oral culture) was fundamentally challenged by the move towards writing. If people became able to access knowledge through written texts, there might be less need for oral transmission of knowledge by teachers.

In more recent times, two main academic loci for thinking about writing have emerged: psychological-neuroscientific, and socio-cultural. The ways in which the brain and mind are engaged, including as part of writing processes, is central to psychological and neuroscientific work. At the same time, the rapid rise of socio-cultural theory has contributed to the growing empirical evidence that the human mind and brain develop as a direct result of social and cultural factors. Although there are clear differences between psychological-neuroscientific and socio-culturally oriented ways of thinking about writing there are also some important overlaps, and it is perhaps in these overlaps where new knowledge about writing and its processes is increasingly to be found. Robust psychological-neuroscientific and socio-cultural theories can take us a long way towards better understanding of writing, but for many people their interest is also in the practice and craft of writing, and how people can be educated to write more effectively. The philosophy of pragmatism includes attention to educative processes as central to understandings of human culture and behaviour. And effectiveness of teaching and learning is the prime concern of the academic discipline and field of education.

Three overarching developments are addressed in this chapter and the one that follows: (1) Societal changes from oral language only, to oral and written language; (2) the idea of spoken language as the preeminent language form, with writing initially not deemed to be particularly important; (3) recognition of writing as a distinct symbolic form of language, and an essential element in metalinguistic thinking.