「#2339. 書き言葉の自立性に関する Vachek の議論 (1)」 ([2015-09-22-1]) とそこに張ったリンク先の記事や「#2340. 書き言葉の自立性に関する Vachek の議論 (2)」 ([2015-09-23-1])，「#2431. 書き言葉の自立性に関する Bolinger の議論」 ([2015-12-23-1]) で扱ってきた話題である．Samuels も書き言葉の自立性という考え方を重要視しており，言語変化に関する古典的な著書で次のように述べている．

The substance of language, from a descriptive point of view, exists in two equally valid and autonomous shapes --- spoken and written. As a code, each exists in its own right, and there has been justifiable insistence, in recent decades, that graphetics and graphemics must in the first instance be studied separately before their relationship with phonetics and phonemics can be considered. This according of equal status to the written language is not to deny that it is ultimately derived from, and dependent on, the spoken language; but it is necessary, if only to disprove the naive speaker's notion that the written language is a mirror-image of what he speaks (or vice versa), or that it is based on contemporary spoken language, and not the spoken language of various periods in the past. (Samuels 4)

　Samuels (5) は書き言葉と話し言葉の相互関係について，次のようにも述べている．

Though there are many differences of convention, the two media both expound what is essentially 'the same language'; and although, for the purpose of describing them at a given point of time they must be kept separate, it may be that for studying their development over a period of time, the interactions between the two media are just as important as their developments as entities.

　書き言葉の自立性という問題については，私も最近の論文のなかで一部論じているので，堀田 (188--92) を参照されたい．

　・ Samuels, M. L. Linguistic Evolution with Special Reference to English. London: CUP, 1972.
　・ 堀田 隆一　「英語書記体系の非表音性――理論および歴史的発達――」『文法記述の諸相?』中央大学人文科学研究所（編），2016年．183--216頁．

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