Dictionary

phonocentrism en · NOUN

Etymology

From phono- + -centrism.

Meanings

1. (uncountable, usually) The idea that sounds and speech are inherently superior to (or more natural than) written language.
   • In other words, social Darwinism was inextricably connected to phoneticism or, more precisely, what would a century later be criticized as "phonocentrism" - an understanding of language that gives primacy to spoken language as a spontaneous expression of the human mind, thus reducing written language to the status of mere representation of spoken sounds. 2015, Minae Mizumura, translated by Mari Yoshihara and Juliet Winters Carpenter, The Fall of Language in the Age of English, Columbia University Press., page 124:

Forms

Relateds

logocentrism