CLASH of CULTURES: Orality and Literacy

CLASH

For the longest time in history, primary oral cultures and literate cultures have coexisted in various periods in time. Therefore, allowing comparative observation of how the both of them function.

Primary oral cultures and literate cultures may be different in most parts but they are very much alike in certain aspects.

First is their potential to be inaccurate. By passage of tongue, orality can be twisted as it’s told. On the other hand, literate culture has the possible bias of the writer. In the delivery of a message, both cultures are prone to inaccuracy or deficiency of facts and disproportionately much of unnecessary details.

SPOKEN WRITTEN

Second, is their use of methods in communication in order to disseminate information. Both cultures can develop one’s active and receptive skill, since it helps people to learn producing and sustaining language in the capacity of the corresponding culture where a person exists in.

Among their apparent differences lies the discontinuity of knowledge in orality. Oral traditions have the tendency to be stagnant due to redundant traditions, while literacy enables abstract concepts to be perceived.

The content of orality cannot survive alone without the aid of literacy, while literacy will lack basis of the history if orality will not matter. Therefore, orality and literacy are related through its dependence to each other.

CHIRO

At the dawn of media, however, comes chirographic conditioning wherein the transit of knowledge becomes a one-way affair. That is to say when the sender of the message makes a text or manuscript, the receiver is usually not present in the same area of the writer. Feedback is not usually directed to the writer.

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This is unlike the human communication of discourse where sender and receiver are both active participants in the process. Communication is intersubjective in a way that the message is a subject that is distinctly identified or familiar to the sender. It is similar thinking or experience that allows the receiver to give a passive or active feedback.

Introduction to Oral Storytelling

The History of Writing – Where the Story Begins – Extra History

4 4 1 5 Key terms literacy and orality 952)

Orality and Literacy – In What Ways Are Oral and Literate Cultures Similar?

ADVANTAGES AND DISADVANTAGES OF ORAL TRADITION

What’s the Difference between Speech and Writing?

Difference Between Oral Communication and Written Communication

ADVANTAGES AND DISADVANTAGES OF ORAL/VERBAL COMMUNICATION AND WRITTEN COMMUNICATION.

Communication Media and Intersubjectivity in Small Groups

Anna Lou B. Gulbique

Jorielle Ann J. Panoy

Shawnee Shaine M. Salanap

Manichie Habuyo

Ko mo ne ka yo: On Oral and Literate Cultures

FINAL2 komonekayo

Oral culture is the most ancient way of transmitting and receiving information. It is by word-of-mouth and used by communities to tell stories, impart knowledge and culture. Meanwhile, literate culture is observed through writing and print.

The following insights are based on Walter Ong’s Orality and Literacy: The Technologizing of the Word.

Question 1

Mnemonics

According to Oxford Dictionaries, mnemonics is a system of patterns of letters or associations to aid in memorization. This has become a useful tool to fit copious amounts of knowledge into a handy pattern of letters.

Concretization of Ideas

Since oral societies cannot rely on writing to record their knowledge, they instead refer their ideas from the real world. For literate cultures, this has become a good strategy in learning and recalling concepts.

Question 2

Modes of Storing Knowledge

Oral cultures cut off information that have no value in the present in order to be practical. Unlike literate cultures that can preserve their knowledge into written accounts.

Reliability of Information

Literate cultures are more objective in their accounts of information than oral cultures. For oral cultures, memory bias can alter shared information. Oftentimes, people just accept certain knowledge as truths because its source cannot be traced back. Contrarily, literate cultures have the means to analyze various accounts and arrive at an objective conclusion.

Question 3

intersubjectivity

Communication is intersubjective because one person can share something – interests or relationships to have a connection with another person. The media model suggests that information must pass through a “medium” before reaching the receiver in order for communication to occur. For Ong, communication can exist without the need for a medium. Some people can communicate using eye contact alone. Despite the absence of a “medium”, communication still happened through intersubjectivity.

Question 4

The media model of communication shows chirographic conditioning by not always expecting feedback. It removes the concept that the recipient’s feedback is required for a communication to happen. The recipient may not always give feedback, thus, communication may not take place. Similar to writing, where the writer may anticipate not having a reply from his recipient at all.

References:

Edmonson, Munro E. (1971) Lore: An Introduction to the Science of Folklore and Literature (New York: Holt, Rinehart & Winston).

Jkendell. (2012). Orality and Literacy – In What Ways Are Oral and Literate Cultures Similar? Retrieved on August 21, 2018 from https://blogs.ubc.ca/etec540sept12/2012/09/30/1150

New Learning Online. (n.d). Chapter 5: Authentic Literacy Pedagogy. Retrieved on August 21, 2018 from http://newlearningonline.com/literacies/chapter-5.

Patnaik,P.(2017). Pradosh Patnaik’s Answer to “What is the difference between oral tradition and written history?”. Retrieved on August 26, 2018 from https://www.quora.com/What-is-the-difference-between-oral-tradition-and-written-history

Comm 10 member names

A synthesis of Walter Ong’s book entitled Orality and Literacy provides a landscape for the comparison and contrast between oral and literary cultures. Basically, literary culture wouldn’t have existed if it weren’t for the oral culture’s elaborate influence in the process of communication and the same is true the other way around.

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People from the primary oral cultures lived without the existence of writing and reading, while the people from the literate cultures deem not being able to know how to write and formulate speech as unimaginable. On the other hand, a common ground for both cultures is the fact that they both use active skills such as speaking and writing and receptive skills that include reading and listening, all of which are imperative in achieving effective communication.

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Another thing is that both cultures give significance towards mnemonics and formulas. This is because in oral culture, people don’t accumulate knowledge because they didn’t have a medium to use, so what they know is purely based on what they can remember, and shortened ideas reflected by their use of mnemonics and formulas is just one way for them to do this. Even up to this day, we still use mnemonics and formulas for learning convenience.

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With one culture serving as a backbone of the other, “intersubjectivity” is formed. Walter Ong indirectly defined this as a spectrum of ideas formed by the involvement of conscious minds in which the sender of the idea could anticipate a response from the audience.

Using this premise, we can say that communication is different from media because while the former is a process, the latter serves as the venue for which communication occurs. The media model of communication displays evidences of how chirographic cultures have such high discernment when it comes to oral cultures. This is because chirographic culture provides room only for fictional audience and delayed responses.

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As Ong emphasized, literacy plays a major role in the development of all the significant discoveries from past to present. To further understand these concepts, please refer to the link provided here.