双语 | The uncertain future of handwriting数字时代手写文字面临的挑战

We're told that writing is dying. Typing on keyboards and screens dominates written communication today. Even scribbling a signature has become rarer due to the prevalence of chip-and-pin credit cards.

人们都说书写正在消亡。在键盘与屏幕上打字已经是今日书面沟通的主要形式。拜日益普及的芯片密码信用卡所赐，我们连亲笔签名的机会都越来越少了。

In an age where our children swipe, pinch and tap on smartphones and tablets from birth, is the “hand” in “handwriting” about to be removed forever? And are there any benefits to good old-fashioned pen and paper: artistic posterity, cognitive benefits, or something else?

在这个孩子们从出生起就在手机与平板电脑上点击触碰的年代，是不是"书写"中的"写"这个部分可以被永远删去了？对于老式的纸笔而言，除了艺术上的价值和认知上的便利，它们还有什么优势吗？

Pen decline 

笔的衰落

Learning cursive, joined-up handwriting was once compulsory in schools. But now, not so much.

以前，学校里每个孩子都要学习把英文字母连在一起写字（连笔字），但如今，情况已经不是这样了。

Countries such as Finland have dropped joined-up handwriting lessons in schools in favour of typing courses. And in the US, the requirement to learn cursive has been left out of core standards since 2013. A few US states still place value on formative cursive education, such as Arizona, but they're not the majority.

在包括芬兰的一些国家的学校里，打字课已经取代了连笔字母的写字课。而在美国从2013年起，连笔字母书写已经被调出核心课纲。虽然包括亚利桑那州在内的几个州仍然重视标准化的连笔书写教育，但他们已经不是主流。

Some experts point out that writing lessons can have indirect benefits. Anne Trubek, author of The History and Uncertain Future of Handwriting, argues that such lessons can reinforce a skill called automaticity. That’s when you’ve perfected a task, and can do it almost without thinking, granting you extra mental bandwidth to think about or do other things while you’re doing the task. In this sense, Trubek likens handwriting to driving.

有一些专家指出写字课可能有一些间接的益处。《书写的历史及其未知未来》（The History and Uncertain Future of Handwriting）一书的作者安妮·特鲁贝克（Anne Trubek）就认为这样的训练能够强化一种被称为"自动性"的技能。就是说当人们高度熟悉某类工作之后，就能够不假思索地执行，从而能够在做此类工作的时候仍然有余力思考或执行其他事务。在这点上，特鲁贝克将书写类比为驾驶。

“Once you have driven for a while, you don't consciously think ‘Step on gas now’ [or] ‘Turn the steering wheel a bit’,” she explains. “You just do it. That's what we want children to acquire when learning to write. You and I don't think ‘now make a loop going up for the 'l'’ – or "now look for the letter ‘r’ on the keyboard’. Therefore, our brains are freed to think about higher order concerns – our destination in the car, the trees on the side of the road, or the ideas we are writing about.”

"当你开车开了一段时间后，你不会有意识地去想'现在踩油门'或'转一点方向盘'"，她这么解释，"你就这么做了。而这也是我们想让孩子们在学写字的时候实现的目标。你我都不会想'现在转个圈去写字母i'——或者'现在在键盘上去找r键'。因此，我们的大脑能有余力去思考更为重要的问题——我们开车的目的地，路边的行道树，或者我们正在写的文字所表达的意义。"

Trubek has written many essays and books on handwriting, and she doesn’t believe it will die out for a very long time, “if ever”. But she believes students are learning automaticity faster with keyboards than with handwriting: students are learning how to type without looking at the keys at earlier ages, and to type faster than they could write, granting them extra time to think about word choice or sentence structure.

特鲁贝克就书写这个课题发表了许多文章，也出版了若干书籍，她不相信在很长的一段时间内书写将要消亡，"如果它真的会消亡"。但她相信学生学习键盘打字比学习手写更快：学生能够在更早的年纪就学会盲打，打字的速度也比手写更快，从而让他们能够有更多时间选词造句。

In a piece penned (if you’ll pardon the expression) for the New York Times last year, Trubek argued that due to the improved automaticity of keyboards, today’s children may well become better communicators in text as handwriting takes up less of their education. This is a view that has attracted both criticism and support.

在一篇去年为《纽约时报》"撰写"的（如果你认可这种表达）文章里，特鲁贝克提出由于键盘打字带来的更好的自动性，同时书写课程在今天的孩子们教育中时间比重下降，他们的书面表达能力可能会更强。人们对这样的观点意见两极分化，有人反对也有人支持。

She explains that two of the most common arguments she hears from detractors regarding the decline of handwriting is that not protecting it will result in a “loss of history” and a “loss of personal touch”.

她提到了批评者们关于书写的衰落最常提出的两个意见：如果不保护手写，会带来"历史的损失"和"人与人之间的亲切感不再"。

On the former she counters that 95% of handwritten manuscripts can’t be read by the average person anyway – “that’s why we have paleographers,” she explains, paleography being the study of ancient styles of writing – while the latter refers to the warm associations we give to handwritten personal notes, such as thank-you cards.

关于前者，她的反对意见是，现在平常人已经无法读懂95%的手写文稿了——"所以我们才会有笔迹学家，"她如此解释，笔迹学就是专门研究古代手写字体的科学。

“What it signals is that someone took time; that is was a more labour-intensive, and therefore meaningful, communication,” says Trubek. “I counter that there are lots of ways to show we care and take time to do so – send a batch of cookies, say, if your cursive isn't good."

而针对后者所提到的，人们以手写文字例如感谢卡来表达温情，她说到："这其实表示的是人们为此花了时间，这样的交流方式的意义源自人们为此投入的精力，"特鲁贝克说，"我对此的反对意见是，我们有很多其它方式来表示我们的关爱以及我们为此投入的精力，比方说如果你的字不好看，你可以送一包小饼干。"

Some educators seem to agree, at least to an extent.

有一些教育者看来能够至少在某种程度上同意这种观点。

Finland, for example, currently leads the way in Europe in a number of progressive school education methods, and a series of curriculum revisions in 2014 has led to revised guidelines for handwriting education, prioritising print and digital communication methods instead.

一个案例就是芬兰，这个国家如今在欧洲的先进学校教育方法中多方面领先，他们在2014年的一系列课程改革中修改了书写课程的指导要求，将以印刷与数码方式进行的书面交流放在更重要的地位。

Minna Harmanen of Finland’s National Agency of Education cites the response to the changes as generally positive. “There have been no complaints by teachers, children or parents to the Finnish National Agency of Education,” she says.

芬兰国家教育局的敏娜·哈曼能（Minna Harmanen）表示这样的改革带来的反馈基本是正面的。"芬兰国家教育局并没有收到来自教师、儿童或者家长的抱怨。"她这么说。

Harmanen says that the most important reason for the change is that cursive handwriting is not used much anymore.

哈曼能提到，进行这样的改革，最重要的原因是连笔字母书写已经不再那么常用。

“Later, in working life you have to make almost all texts by computer and therefore fluent typing skills are important,” she says. “Old handwriting is always hard to read afterwards, and historic documents can be learned to be read if necessary.”

"近来在工作中，你基本上必须用电脑来处理所有的文字，因此流畅的打字技能非常重要，"她说，"传统的手写文字在事后总是难以阅读，而历史文献在必要的时候总是能被研究解读的。"

Writing upsides

书写带来的好处

There is research to support the notion that handwriting can provide several cognitive benefits, however.

尽管如此，也有研究表明书写能够提供某种认知上的益处。

Handwriting may boost fine motor skills in your hands and fingers, for example. A study by the University of Washington found that while writing by hand and by keyboard had some overlap, they utilised different brain functions. This sentiment was echoed by William Klemm in an article written for Psychology Today in 2013.

例如，手写可以提高手和手指的精细动作技能。华盛顿大学的一项研究发现，虽然有一些重叠，但手写和键盘输入利用了不同的大脑功能。威廉·克莱姆（William Klemm）在2013年为《今日心理学》（Psychology Today）撰写的一篇文章也认同了这种说法。

“There is a spillover benefit for thinking skills used in reading and writing,” he writes. “To write legible cursive, fine motor control is needed over the fingers. You have to pay attention and think about what and how you are doing it. You have to practise. Brain imaging studies show that cursive activates areas of the brain that do not participate in keyboarding.”

"阅读和写作中使用的思维技能会带来溢出效应。"他写道， "要写易读的连笔字母，手指需要精细的控制动作。你必须注意并考虑你在做什么、如何做。你必须练习。大脑成像研究表明，连笔书写能激活大脑中不参与键盘输入的区域。"

Further academic study suggests that handwriting can stimulate visual recognition and memory retention.

进一步的学术研究表明，书写可以刺激视觉识别和记忆保留。

In a 2012 article published in the journal Trends in Neuroscience and Education, authors Karin James and Laura Engelhardt found that handwriting could be crucial for helping children learn the alphabet.

在《神经科学与教育趋势》（Trends in Neuroscience and Education）杂志于2012年发表的一篇文章中，作者卡林·詹姆斯（Karin James）和劳拉·恩格哈特（Laura Engelhardt）发现，书写对帮助孩子学习字母表可能有着至关重要的作用。

In the study, a group of pre-school children practised learning letters by various means, including writing them out by hand and by typing them on a keyboard. Afterwards, the children were shown various letters while lying in an MRI scanner. The scans revealed that when the kids viewed the letters that were practised by hand, it activated parts of the brain that viewing letters practised on a keyboard didn’t. It suggests that handwriting might aid in mastering reading and writing in children.

在这项研究中，一群学前儿童练习通过各种方式学习字母，包括用手写出来与在键盘上打字。之后再向孩子们进行核磁共振扫描，当孩子们躺在扫描仪器中的时候向他们展示各种字母。这些扫描显示，当孩子们看到了手写练习的字母时，大脑中的特定部分被激活，而他们看到打字练习的字母时并不会激活这些部分。这表明书写可能有助于孩子掌握阅读和写作。

So, handwriting could have cognitive benefits, artistic merit, and a personal touch – and could help students learn faster.

所以，书写可以带来认知上的益处，创造艺术价值，传达个人情感——也可以帮助学生更快地学习。

***

Still, there are technologies vying to replace even the typed word. Take voice recognition software (VRS), such as Apple’s Siri, Amazon’s Alexa and Microsoft’s Cortana.

尽管如此，甚至还有技术试图取代打字输入，比方说语音识别软件，例如苹果的Siri、亚马逊的Alexa和微软的Cortana。

A century ago, a writer like me would have used pen and paper, but could I soon be writing with my voice instead? Last year, Google Docs introduced new voice typing features allowing not just speech-to-text dictation, but voice-activated editing through its Chrome browser. For example, I've typed the [sic] sentence using this feature and as you can see it works quite well and it seems to understand my Scottish accent but it's not quite perfect.

一个世纪前，像我这样的写作者会用笔和纸，但不久之后我是不是就能用我的声音来写作呢？去年，Google Docs推出了新的语音输入功能，不仅支持语音到文本的口述，还可以通过Chrome浏览器进行以语音激活的编辑。例如，我已经使用这个功能打出了这个句子（误），正如你所看到的那样，它的效果非常好，它似乎能够听懂我的苏格兰口音，虽然还不完美。

Harmanen believes VRS means people may have to learn to talk as if they are writing. “It is an interesting issue to think how much the programmes which are writing your dictation or speech into print will also be used in schools,” she says. “What kind of benefit they will serve, we shall see.”

哈曼能相信语音识别软件可能会使人们必须学习用书面语气来说话。"设想那种将你的口述或者讲演记录成文的程序会在学校中得到何等程度的应用，这会很有趣，"她说，"而它们又将带来什么样的裨益，我们拭目以待。"

However, even those building voice recognition software doubt that their technology will do away with handwriting completely.

然而，即使是那些开发语音识别软件的人也不确定他们的技术是否能够完全取代书写。

“Handwriting will still have a place for those times when people want to interact with a pen and paper for a more sensual experience, using age-old handwriting skills to carefully craft and express more meaningful sentiments,” says Nils Lenke of Nuance, which designs speech recognition software. “It is still convenient for times when speaking is not appropriate or a keyboard is not to hand.” For example, the voice recognition tools that Nuance makes for cars allows drivers to switch to writing if they choose.

"当人们想用笔和纸张互动以获得更多的感官体验，需要使用古老的手写技巧来精心制作和表达更有意义的情感，书写就仍然占有它的一席之地，"。语音识别软件公司Nuance的尼尔斯·棱克（Nils Lenke）表示。"如果当面说话不合适，或者打字输入不方便的话，这样做还是很方便的。"例如，Nuance为汽车设计的语音识别工具可以让驾驶者选择切换为手写输入。

Cursive handwriting may be declining, such is the march of progress, but its value cannot be understated. The invention of the phone, typewriter, computer keyboard and email have all failed to extinguish penship from daily life, and handwriting itself is a fluid and adaptable practice. And it's entirely possible that cursive could live on as the preserve of design enthusiasts, aesthetes and hobbyists.

作为某种进步的过程，书写可能正在衰落，但其价值不可低估。手机，打字机，电脑键盘和电子邮件的发明都没有消灭日常生活中的笔墨，而书写本身更是一种充满流动性和适应性的实践。而书写完全可能在热情的设计师、美学家和业余爱好者的人群里继续存在。

Even if it fades in time as an educational stalwart, and day-to-day notation becomes increasingly hand-free, the loops and lines of a studied hand may have some life left yet.

即使随着时代变迁，它不再是教育的中坚内容，日常的交流也变得越来越不需用手，但亲手亲笔写下的那些字仍然可能还没走到尽头。

News from BBC NEWS

UPDATED 9th November 2017

By Ewen Hosie