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Orality can be defined as thought and its verbal expression in societies where the technologies of literacy (especially writing and print) are unfamiliar to most of the population. Thought and thinking are mental forms and Processes respectively ("thought" is both traditional definition of literacy is considered to be the ability to read and write or the ability to use Language to read, write, listen, The study of orality is closely allied to the study of oral tradition. Oral tradition, oral culture and oral lore is a way for a society to transmit history, literature, law and other Knowledges However, it has broader implications, implicitly touching every aspect the economics, politics and institutional and human development of oral societies. Economics is the social science that studies the production distribution, and consumption of goods and services. Politics Politics is the process by which groups of people make decisions The study of orality has important implications for international development, especially as it relates to the goal of eradicating poverty, as well as to the process of globalization. This article is about international development See the closely related concept of development cooperation. Poverty (also called penury) is deprivation of common necessities that determine the quality of life including food clothing shelter and safe Drinking water, and Globalization (or globalisation) in its literal sense is the process of transformation of local or regional phenomena into global ones

An oral community in Takéo, Cambodia confronts writing. Modern scholarship has shown that orality is a complex and tenacious social phenomenon. Photo: Brett Matthews, 2006
An oral community in Takéo, Cambodia confronts writing. Takéo is a province of Cambodia. Its capital is Takéo. Takeo town is an easygoing place that possesses a fair amount of natural and manmade beauty The Kingdom of Cambodia ( formerly known as Kampuchea (, transliterated: Preăh Réachéanachâkr Kâmpŭchea) is a country in South East Modern scholarship has shown that orality is a complex and tenacious social phenomenon. Photo: Brett Matthews, 2006

Walter J. Ong, a key scholar in this field, distinguishes between two forms of orality: ‘primary orality’ and ‘residual orality’. Father Walter Jackson Ong, PhD ( November 30, 1912 &ndash August 12, 2003) was an American Jesuit Priest, [1]

Contents

The impact of literacy on culture

Ong draws on pioneering work by Milman Parry and Marshall McLuhan, among the first to fully appreciate the significance of the word as a technology. Milman Parry ( 1902 - December 3[[ 935]] was a scholar of Epic poetry and the founder of the discipline of Oral tradition. A word is a unit of Language that carries meaning and consists of one or more Morphemes which are linked more or less tightly together and has a Phonetic Technology is a broad concept that deals with a Species ' usage and knowledge of Tools and Crafts and how it affects a species' ability to control and adapt McLuhan, in his work The Gutenberg Galaxy[2] shows how each stage in the development of this technology throughout the history of communication – from the invention of speech (primary orality), to pictograms, to the phonetic alphabet, to typography, to the electronic communications of today – restructures human consciousness, profoundly changing not only the frontiers of human possibility, but even the frontiers it is possible for humans to imagine. The history of communication dates back to the earliest signs of Life. A pictogram ( also spelled pictogramme) or pictograph is a Symbol representing a Concept, object, activity place or event Typography is the art and techniques of arranging type, Type design, and modifying type Glyphs Type glyphs are created and modified using a variety

Primary orality

‘Primary orality’ refers to thought and its verbal expression within cultures “totally untouched by any knowledge of writing or print. Printing is a process for reproducing text and image typically with ink on Paper using a printing press ”[3]

All sound is inherently powerful. Sound' is Vibration transmitted through a Solid, Liquid, or Gas; particularly sound means those vibrations composed of Frequencies If a hunter kills a lion he can see it, touch it, feel it and smell it. But if he hears a lion he must act, fast. Speech is a form of sound that shares this common power. Speech refers to the processes associated with the production and perception of Sounds used in Spoken language. Like other sounds, it comes from within a living organism. A text can be ignored; it is just writing on paper. But to ignore speech can be unwise; our basic instincts compel us to pay attention. [4]

Writing is powerful in a different way: it permits people to generate ideas, store them, and retrieve them as needed across time in a highly efficient and accurate way. The absence of this technology in oral societies limits the development of complex ideas and the institutions that depend on them. Institutions are structures and mechanisms of Social order and Cooperation governing the Behavior of a Set of Individuals Instead, sustained thought in oral settings depends on interpersonal communication, and storing complex ideas over a long period of time requires packaging them in highly memorable ways, generally by using mnemonic tools. A mnemonic device (nəˈmɒnɪk is a Memory aid Commonly met mnemonics are often verbal something such as a very short poem or a special word used to help a person remember

In his studies of the Homeric Question, Milman Parry was able to show that the poetic metre found in the Iliad and the Odyssey had been ‘packaged’ by oral Greek society to meet its information management needs. The Homeric Question concerns the doubt and consequent debate over the identity of Homer Milman Parry ( 1902 - December 3[[ 935]] was a scholar of Epic poetry and the founder of the discipline of Oral tradition. The metre or meter is a unit of Length. It is the basic unit of Length in the Metric system and in the International The Iliad ( Greek: Ἰλιάς (Ancient Ιλιάδα (Modern is together with the Odyssey, one of two ancient The Odyssey ( Greek: Ὀδύσσεια or Odússeia) is one of two major ancient Greek epic poems attributed to Homer. Greece (Ελλάδα transliterated: Elláda, historically, Ellás,) officially the Hellenic Republic (Ελληνική Δημοκρατία These insights first opened the door to a wider appreciation of the sophistication of oral traditions, and their various methods of managing information. Oral tradition, oral culture and oral lore is a way for a society to transmit history, literature, law and other Knowledges [5] Later, ancient and medieval mnemonic tools were extensively documented by Frances Yates in her book The Art of Memory. Dame Frances Amelia Yates DBE ( November 28 1899 &ndash September 29 1981) was a noted British historian The Art of Memory is a 1966 Non-fiction book by British historian Frances A [6]

Residual orality

‘Residual orality’ refers to thought and its verbal expression in cultures that have been exposed to writing and print, but have not fully ‘interiorized’ (in McLuhan’s term) the use of these technologies in their daily lives. As a culture interiorizes the technologies of literacy, the ‘oral residue’ diminishes.

Socrates. Writing is 'inhuman'. Bust at the Louvre.
Socrates. Writing is 'inhuman'. Bust at the Louvre.

But the availability of a technology of literacy to a society is not enough to ensure its widespread diffusion and use. For example Eric Havelock observed in A Preface to Plato that after the ancient Greeks invented writing they adopted a scribal culture that lasted for generations. Eric Alfred Havelock (ˈhævlɒk (June 3 1903 &ndash April 4 1988 was a British classicist who spent most of his life in Canada and the United States The Greeks ( Greek: Έλληνες) are a Nation and Ethnic group native to Greece, Cyprus and neighbouring regions A scribe (or scrivener) is a person who writes books or documents by hand as a profession Few people, other than the scribes, considered it necessary to learn to read or write. [7] In other societies, such as ancient Egypt or medieval Europe, literacy has been a domain confined to political and religious elites. Ancient Egypt was an Ancient Civilization in eastern North Africa, concentrated along the lower reaches of the Nile River in what is now

Many cultures have experienced an equilibrium state in which writing and mass illiteracy have co-existed for hundreds or even thousands of years. [8]

Oral residue rarely disappears quickly and never vanishes completely. Speech is inherently an oral event, based on human relationships, unlike texts. Speech refers to the processes associated with the production and perception of Sounds used in Spoken language. TEXT is the band founded by Kristofer Steen David Sandström Fredrik Bäckström and Jon F Brännström Oral societies can mount strong resistance to literate technologies, as vividly shown in the arguments of Socrates against writing in Plato’s Phaedrus. SOCRATES is the European Community action programme in the field of Education. Biography Early life Birth and family Plato was born in Athens Greece The Phaedrus ( Greek: Φαίδρος written by Plato, is a dialogue between Plato's main Protagonist, Socrates, and Phaedrus an Writing, Socrates argues, is inhuman. It attempts to turn living thoughts dwelling in the human mind into mere objects in the physical world. The human brain controls the Central nervous system (CNS by way of the Cranial nerves and Spinal cord, the Peripheral nervous system (PNS By causing people to rely on what is written rather than what they are able to think, it weakens the powers of the mind and of memory. True knowledge can only emerge from a relationship between active human minds. And unlike a person, a text can’t respond to a question; it will just keep saying the same thing over and over again, no matter how often it is refuted. [9]

The Canadian communications scholar, Harold Innis argued that a balance between the spoken word and writing contributed to the cultural and intellectual vitality of ancient Greece in Plato's time. Harold Adams Innis (November 5 1894 &ndash November 8 1952 was a Canadian professor of Political economy at the University of Toronto and the author Plato conveyed his ideas by writing down the conversations of Socrates thus "preserving the power of the spoken word on the written page. " Aristotle, Innis wrote, regarded Plato's style as "halfway between poetry and prose. Aristotle (Greek Aristotélēs) (384 BC – 322 BC was a Greek philosopher a student of Plato and teacher of Alexander the Great. " Plato was able to arrive at new philosophical positions "through the use of dialogues, allegories and illustrations. "[10]

Both McLuhan and Ong also document the re-emergence, in the electronic age, of a kind of ‘secondary orality’ that displaces written words with audio/visual technologies like radio, TV and telephones. Walter J Ong presented the dichotomy between oral and literate cultures in his book Orality and Literacy The Technologizing of the Word, published in 1982 Radio is the transmission of signals by Modulation of electromagnetic waves with frequencies below those of visible Light. Television ( TV) is a widely used Telecommunication medium for sending ( Broadcasting) and receiving moving Images, either monochromatic Basic principle A traditional landline telephone system also known as "plain old telephone service" (POTS, commonly handles both signaling and audio information Unlike primary oral modes of communication, these technologies depend on print for their existence. Mass internet collaborations like Wikipedia rely primarily on writing, but re-introduce relationships and responsiveness into the text.

Importance of the concept

It has been a habit of literate cultures to view oral cultures simply in terms of their lack of the technologies of writing. This habit, argues Ong, is dangerously misled. Oral cultures are living cultures in their own right. A 1971 study found that of 3,000 extant languages, only 78 had a written literature. Literature is the Art of written works Literally translated the word means "acquaintance with letters" (from Latin littera letter [11] While literacy extends human possibilities in both thought and action, all literate technologies ultimately depend on the ability of humans to learn oral languages.

Understanding between nations may depend to some degree on understanding oral culture. Ong argues that “many of the contrasts often made between ‘western’ and other views seem reducible to contrasts between deeply interiorized literacy and more or less residually oral states of consciousness. ”[12]

In a benchmark study on rural poverty the World Bank estimated that about 1. The World Bank is an internationally supported Bank that provides financial and technical assistance to developing countries for development programs (e 2 billion people earn less than US $1 a day (adjusted for Purchasing Power Parity), and that about 70% of them live in rural areas.

“More than half a century of persistent efforts … has not altered the stubborn reality of rural poverty, and the gap between rich and poor is widening. The likelihood of achieving the Millennium Development Goals without a focus on improving the livelihoods and service accessibility of rural dwellers is low. ”[13]

Illiteracy is both an important cause, and an important effect, of chronic global poverty. traditional definition of literacy is considered to be the ability to read and write or the ability to use Language to read, write, listen, Poverty (also called penury) is deprivation of common necessities that determine the quality of life including food clothing shelter and safe Drinking water, and Improvements in livelihoods and access to services in rural communities depends on their ability to manage local organizations, or hold external ones accountable. An organization (or organisation &mdash see spelling differences) is a social arrangement which pursues collective goals which controls its own performance and The processes of development can also be undermined by educated agents of development whose ‘deeply interiorized literacy’ informs their decisions. In recent years this has begun to change, with methods of engagement with oral communities that have emphasized participation, voice, and other development methods like participatory rural appraisal, participatory action research and Farmer Field Schools. Participatory rural appraisal (PRA is an approach used by Non-governmental organizations (NGOs and other agencies involved in International development. Action Research or Participatory action research has emerged in recent years as a significant methodology for intervention development and change within communities and groups

Theory of the characteristics of oral culture

Drawing on hundreds of studies from anthropology, linguistics and the study of oral tradition, Ong summarizes ten key aspects of the ‘psychodynamics of orality’. Anthropology (/ˌænθɹəˈpɒlədʒi/ from Greek grc ἄνθρωπος anthrōpos, "human" -λογία -logia) is the study of Linguistics is the scientific study of Language, encompassing a number of sub-fields Oral tradition, oral culture and oral lore is a way for a society to transmit history, literature, law and other Knowledges Psychodynamics, is the systematized study and theory of the psychological forces that underlie human behavior emphasizing the interplay between unconscious and conscious motivation and While these are subject to continuing debate, his list remains an important milestone. Ong draws his examples from both primary oral societies, and societies with a very high ‘oral residue’.

1. Formulaic Styling

To retain complex ideas requires that they be packaged memorably for easy recall.

To solve effectively the problem of retaining and retrieving carefully articulated thought, you have to do your thinking in mnemonic patterns, shaped for ready oral recurrence. Your thoughts must come into being in heavily rhythmic, balanced patterns, in repetitions or antithesis, in alliterations or assonances, in epithetic and other formulary expressions… Serious thought is intertwined with memory systems. [14]

Jousse identifies a close linkage between rhythm and breathing patterns, gestures and the bilateral symmetry of the human body in several ancient verse traditions. Rhythm (from Greek ῥυθμός - rhythmos, "any measured flow or movement symmetry" is the variation of the length and accentuation of [15] This synergy between the body and the construction of oral thought further fuels memory.

2. Additive rather than subordinative

Oral cultures avoid complex ‘subordinative’ clauses. Ong cites an example from the Douay-Rheims version of Genesis (1609-10), noting that this basic additive pattern (in italics) has been identified in many oral contexts around the world: [16]

In the beginning God created heaven and earth. The Douay-Rheims Bible, also known as the Rheims-Douai Bible or Douai Bible and abbreviated as D-R, is a translation of the Bible from the And the earth was void and empty, and darkness was on the face of the deep; and the spirit of God moved over the waters. And God said …

Demonstrating how oral modes of communication tend to evolve into literate ones, Ong additionally cites the New American Bible (1970), which offers a translation that is grammatically far more complex:

In the beginning, when God created the heavens and the earth, the earth was a formless wasteland, and darkness covered the abyss, while a mighty wind swept over the waters. In 1970, the New American Bible ( NAB) was first published It is an English Bible translation that was produced by members of the Then God said …

3. Aggregative rather than analytic

Oral expression brings words together in pithy phrases that are the product of generations of evolution: the ‘sturdy oak tree’, the ‘beautiful princess’ or ‘clever Odysseus’. This does not apply specifically to poetry or song; rather the words are brought together out of habit during general communication. A song is a Musical composition. Songs contain vocal parts that are performed 'sung' and generally feature Words ( Lyrics) commonly followed ‘Analyzing’ or breaking apart such expressions adds complexity to communications, and questions received wisdom.

Ong cites an American example, noting that in some parts of the United States with heavy oral residue, it is still considered normal or even obligatory to use the adjective ‘glorious’ when referring to the ‘fourth of July’. The United States of America —commonly referred to as the In the United States, Independence Day, commonly known as the Fourth of July (or the Fourth) is a Federal holiday commemorating the adoption [17]

4. Redundant or ‘copious’

Speech that repeats earlier thoughts or thought-pictures, or shines a different light on them somehow, helps to keep both the speaker and the listener focused on the topic, and makes it easier for all to recall the key points later. "Oral cultures encourage fluency, fulsomeness, volubility. Rhetoricians were to call this copia". Copia Foundations of the Abundant Style ( Latin: De Utraque Verborum ac Rerum Copia) is a Rhetorical guide written by Dutch humanist [18]

5. Conservative or traditionalist

Because oral societies have no effective access to writing and print technologies, they must invest considerable energy in basic information management. Conservatism is a term used to describe political philosophies that favour Tradition, where tradition refers to various religious cultural or nationally defined Information management ( IM) is the collection and management of Information from one or more sources and the distribution of that information to one or more audiences Storage of information, being primarily dependent on individual or collective recall, must be handled with particular thrift. It is possible to approximately measure oral residue “from the amount of memorization the culture’s educational procedures require. ”[19]

This creates incentives to avoid exploring new ideas and particularly to avoid the burden of having to store them. It does not prevent oral societies from demonstrating dynamism and change, but there is a premium on ensuring that changes cleave to traditional formulas, and “are presented as fitting the traditions of the ancestors. ” [20]

6. Close to the human lifeworld

Oral cultures take a practical approach to information storage. To qualify for storage, information must usually concern matters of immediate practical concern or familiarity to most members of the society.

Long after the invention of writing, and often long after the invention of print, basic information on how to perform a society’s most important trades was left unwritten, passed from one generation to the next as it always had been: through apprenticeship, observation and practice. Apprenticeship is a system of Training a new generation of practitioners of a skill [21]

By contrast, only literary cultures have launched phenomenological analyses, abstract classifications, ordered lists and tables, etc. . Nothing analogous exists in oral societies.

7. Agonistically toned

Beowulf fights the dragon
Beowulf fights the dragon

‘Agonistic’ means ‘combative’, but Ong actually advances a deeper thesis with this point. Writing and to an even greater extent print, he argues, disengage humans from direct, interpersonal struggle.

Products of “the highly polarized, agonistic, oral world of good and evil, virtue and vice, villains and heroes” the great works of oral literature from Homer to Beowulf, from the Mwindo epic to the Old Testament, are extremely violent by modern standards. Oral literature corresponds in the sphere of the spoken (oral word to Literature as literature operates in the domain of the written word Homer ( Ancient Greek:, Homēros) is a legendary ancient Greek epic Poet, traditionally said to be the author of the epic poems the Beowulf is an Old English Heroic epic poem of anonymous authorship dating as recorded in the Nowell Codex manuscript from between The Mwindo Epic is an oral tale from the Democratic Republic of the Congo told by the Nyanga people In Western Christianity, the Old Testament refers to the books that form the first of the two-part Christian Biblical canon. They are also punctuated by frequent and intense intellectual combat and tongue-lashings on the one hand, and effusive praise (perhaps reaching its height among African praise singers) on the other. [22]

8. Empathetic and participatory

In an oral culture the most reliable and trusted technique for learning is to share a “close, empathetic, communal association” with others who know. Participation in Social science is an umbrella term including different means for the public to directly participate in political economic management or other social decisions

Ong cites a study of community decision-making from 12th Century England. England is a Country which is part of the United Kingdom. Its inhabitants account for more than 83% of the total UK population whilst its mainland Writing already had a long history in England, and it would have been possible to use texts to establish for example, the age of majority of the heir to an estate. But people were skeptical about texts, noting not only the cost of generating and managing them, but the problems involved in preventing tampering or frauds.

As a result, they retained the traditional solution: gathering together “mature wise seniors of many years, having good testimony”, and publicly discussing the age of the heir with them, until agreement was reached. [23] This hallmark principle of orality, that truth emerges best from communal process, resonates today in the jury system. A jury a sworn body of persons convened to render a rational, impartial Verdict (a finding of fact on a question officially submitted to them

9. Homeostatic

Oral societies conserve their limited capacity to store information, and retain the relevance of their information to the interest of their present members, by shedding memories that have lost their past significance. [24]

While many examples exist, the classic example was reported by Goody and Watt (1968). Sir John ( Jack Rankine Goody (born 1919 is a British social anthropologist. Written records prepared by the British in Ghana in the early 1900s show that Ndewura Jakpa, the seventeenth century founder of the state of Gonja, had seven sons, each of whom ruled a territorial division within the state. The Republic of Ghana is a country in West Africa. It borders Côte d'Ivoire (Ivory Coast to the west Burkina Faso to the north Togo to the This page discusses the Ghanaian kingdom of Gonja for uses for the word Ganja see Ganja (disambiguation Gonja (also Ghanjawiyyu Six decades later two of the divisions had disappeared for various reasons. The myths of the Gonja had been revised to recount that Jakpa had five sons, and that five divisions were created. [25] Since they had no practical, present purpose, the other two sons and divisions had evaporated.

10. Situational rather than abstract

In oral cultures, concepts are used in a way that minimizes abstraction, focusing to the greatest extent possible on objects and situations directly known by the speaker. A study by A.R. Luria, a psychologist who did extensive fieldwork comparing oral and literate subjects in remote areas of Uzbekistan and Kirghizia in 1931-2[26] documented the highly situational nature of oral thinking. Alexander Romanovich Luria Александр Романович Лурия ( July 16, 1902 - August 14, 1977) was a famous Soviet Uzbekistan, officially the Republic of Uzbekistan ( Uzbek: O‘zbekiston Respublikasi or Ўзбекистон Республикаси is a doubly Kyrgyzstan (ˈkɻ̩gɪztɑn (AmE or /'kɝgəztan/ (BrE Kyrgyz: Кыргызстан; Russian: Киргизия or Киргизстан or Кыргызстан

References

  1. ^ Walter J. Ong. Orality and Literacy: The Technologizing of the Word (second edition). Routledge, London and New York, 2002
  2. ^ Marshall McLuhan. The Gutenberg Galaxy: The Making of Typographic Man, University of Toronto Press, Toronto, 1962. The format of the book—a mosaic The book is unusual in its design
  3. ^ Walter J. Ong. Orality and Literacy, p. 11.
  4. ^ Walter J. Ong. Orality and Literacy, p. 32.
  5. ^ Adam Parry (ed. ). The Making of Homeric Verse: The Collected Papers of Milman Parry. Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1971, p. 272.
  6. ^ Dame Frances A. Yates. The Art of Memory, Pimlico Edition, London, 1992.
  7. ^ Eric Havelock. A Preface to Plato. Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Mass. , 1963.
  8. ^ Walter J. Ong. Orality and Literacy, pp. 92-93.
  9. ^ Walter J. Ong. Orality and Literacy, pp. 78-79.
  10. ^ Harold Innis. Empire and Communications. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1950, pp. 68-69.
  11. ^ Monro E. Edmonson. Lore: An Introduction to the Science of Folklore and Literature. Holt, Rinehart & Winston, New York, 1971, pp. 323, 332.
  12. ^ Walter J. Ong. Orality and Literacy, p. 29.
  13. ^ Reaching the Rural Poor: A Renewed Strategy for Rural Development. World Bank, 2003.
  14. ^ Walter J. Ong. Orality and Literacy, p. 34.
  15. ^ cited in Ong, p. 34. Marcel Jousse. Le Parlant, la parole, et le souffle. Ecole Pratique des Hautes Etudes, L’Anthropologie du geste. Gallimard, Paris, 1978.
  16. ^ Walter J. Ong. Orality and Literacy, p. 37.
  17. ^ Walter J. Ong. Orality and Literacy, p. 39.
  18. ^ Walter J. Ong. Orality and Literacy, p. 40.
  19. ^ Jack Goody, cited in his introduction to Jack Goody (ed. ) Literacy in traditional societies, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1968, pp. 13-14.
  20. ^ Walter J. Ong. Orality and Literacy, pp. 42.
  21. ^ Walter J. Ong. Orality and Literacy, p. 43.
  22. ^ Walter J. Ong. Orality and Literacy, pp. 43-45.
  23. ^ M. T. Clanchy. From Memory to Written Record, England 1066-1307. Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Mass. , 1979, pp. 230-33.
  24. ^ Jack Goody and Ian Watt. The consequences of literacy. In Jack Goody (ed. ) Literacy in traditional societies, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1968, pp. 31-34.
  25. ^ Jack Goody and Ian Watt. The consequences of literacy. In Jack Goody (ed. ) Literacy in traditional societies, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1968, pp. 33.
  26. ^ Aleksandr Romanovich Luria. Cognitive Development: its Social and Cultural Foundations, Michael Cole (ed. ); Martin Lopez-Morillas and Lynn Solotaroff (trans. ). Harvard University Press. Cambridge, Mass. , and London, 1976.
  27. ^ Walter J. Ong. Orality and Literacy, pp. 49-54.

See also

Further reading

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