The volume brings together papers on new developments in the theory of writing systems, above all from the perspectives of linguistics, philosophy, media theory and language education. Firstly there is the question of the methods and categories used for analysing writing, and how written language as a medium is different from spoken language. Secondly, the influences of alphabetic scripts on the historical development of these disciplines are traced, and various types of writing system are described in relation to each other. The starting point for the contributors was Christian Stetter’s work on the theory of written language, especially his theses that alphabetic script is not to be seen as a kind of phonetic script and that the specific characteristics of this writing system have had a decisive influence on the genesis of formal language reflection in linguistics and philosophy. The papers in the volume reflect on the difficulties of spelling reform and on didactic controversies around the acquisition of written language, on the pragmatics of writing and on the aesthetics of various types of script.