December 19th, 2007
In this post, I return to the conversation about whether digital orality is part of the secondary orality or can be considered a tertiary orality (see post on 11.12.07) and whether there is anything in the current age and level of orality that can be seen as a return to orality (see entire section on return to orality). Basically, new media and digital orality is not a return to orality, at least not primary orality, because we cannot at this point let go our reliance on, awareness of, recalling of words… even if we wanted to, which I doubt would ever occur. On page 3, Ong states, “The electronic age is the age of secondary orality.” So, what is our age now, how is it different from the electronic age, and is it logical to apply a new level (tertiary)? Read the rest of this entry »
December 2nd, 2007
“Oral societies must invest great energy in saying over and over again what has been learned arduously over the ages. This need establishes highly traditionalist or conservative set of mind that with good reason inhibits intellectual experimentation. … By storing knowledge outside the mind, writing and, even more, print downgrade the figures of the wise old man and the wise old woman, repeaters of the past, in favor of younger discoverers of something new.” (Orality and Literacy, 41).
Similarly, Eric Havelock writes (as quoted in O&L):
“The text frees the mind of conservative tasks, that is, of its memory work, and thus enables the mind to turn itself to new speculation (Havelock 254-305). (41).
Essentially, primary orality remained traditional out of necessity. Read the rest of this entry »
November 29th, 2007
Continuing the conversation regarding redundancy or repetition (from 11.21.07), this concept can be seen as a large difference in the digital orality and new media psyche, quite separate from the writing psyche.
“Since redundancy characterizes oral thought and speech, it is in a profound sense more natural to thought and speech than is sparse linearity. …. Eliminating redundancy on a significant scale demands a time-obviating technology, writing, which imposes some kind of strain on the psyche in preventing expression from falling into its more natural patterns” (Orality and Literacy, 40).
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November 21st, 2007
“Thought requires some sort of continuity. Writing establishes in the text a ‘line’ of continuity outside the mind. If distraction confuses or obliterates from the mind the context out of which emerges the material I am now reading, the context can be retrieved by glancing back over the text selectively. …. In oral discourse, the situation is different. There is nothing to backloop into outside the mind, for the oral utterance has vanished as soon as it is uttered.” (Orality and Literacy, 39).
Ong’s point in this passage is certainly true. The written passage allows readers to backloop to reread any section if they did not understand it or even if their minds wandered while reading. Such an ability to retrieve or re-experience the content is not possible in a live setting, short of requesting the speaker repeat the seemingly lost statement or section (a condition rarely possible in a public setting).
However, the communication methods in digital orality replace this downfall. Read the rest of this entry »
November 19th, 2007
Another aspect of digital orality style takes into consideration how meaning is established and to what extent grammar and syntax play into that.
“Chirographic structures look more to syntactics (organization of the discourse itself)…. Written discourse develops more elaborate and fixed grammar than oral discourse does because to provide meaning it is more dependant upon linguistic structure, since it lacks the normal full existential contexts which surround oral discourse and help determine meaning in oral discourse somewhat independently of grammar.” (Orality and Literacy. 38).
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