Y GOR CATE Chirographic Cultures Typographic Secondary2 Six teenth cent ury Eig hte ent h c ent ury...
1
Dates 40,000 BCE (?)- Twentieth century 33,000 BCE- Middle Ages 25.500 BCE- Twentieth century 17,000-3,000 BCE 14,500 BP- Nineteenth century 3000-700 BCE 3500 BCE 3000 BCE 3000-2400 BCE 1500-900 BCE 1500 BCE 1200 BCE 700-650 BCE Fifth century BCE 274 BCE Second century BCE AD 50 AD 550-700 Eighth century 1200-1300 1400 1452 Sixteenth century Eighteenth century Nineteenth century 1916-1959 1960-1965 1966-1969 1970-1977 1978-1982 Culture Australia Europe African Egypt Americas Archaic Greeks Sumerians Egyptian Chinese Minoan Crete Greeks Greeks Greeks China Mayan Europe Arabs Europe Aztec Europe Event or Development Homeric poems exist in oral form; basis for history, ritual, identity, and sacred perspectives Developed the first writing: cuneiform Hieroglyphic Hybrid script: pictograph, ideograph, and rebuses Indus Valley script Vedas Hybrid script: pictograph, ideograph, and rebuses Linear B Homeric poems set in text Sophists Plato, in the Phaedrus , critiques both oral (poets) and writing (in writing) Paper manufac- turing Script-- glyphs Learned Latin becomes institutionali zed as the teaching language Paper distribu- ted to Middle East Paper manufac- tured in Europe; writing mostly done by scribes Pictographic script; codex Gutenberg Bible : printing press with moveable metal type enables book production Print begins to effect teaching of rhetoric, and provides foundation for new scientific era Rise of dictionaries Elocution contests Invention of the telephone ushers in electronic communciation Research observation Formulary, monumental personalities and mnemonic aids: wily Odysseus, wise Nestor, angry Achilles, the Seven Against Thebes, Three Fates, etc. (Diringer 1953; Gelb 1963) Peabody (1975) suggests Vedas share “oral provenance” because of redundant patterns. They work on memory: “traditional formulaic and stanzaic patterns” (66, 142) Sophists invent the art of rhetoric, a classification of persuasive oratory born in orality but sustained through time because it was written down (Havelock 1963) (Havelock 1976) Greek alphabet with vowels: “major psychological importance” (89) Writing thus gains control of education (Ong 1982) Constraints of early writing technology; Distrust of written versus spoken word; rarity of manuscript indexes (Daly 1967, Clanchy 1979) (Ivins 1953) Moveable type “congenial” to use of illustrative prints (124) Books of rhetoric begin omitting the canon of memory, and in some cases, delivery as well (Howell 1956) “early in the age of print, extremely complex charts appear in the teaching of academic subjects” (Ong 1958, 126) (Howell 1971) • Research determines the agonistic nature of response in oral dialogue (Malinowski 1923) • Jouse (1925) describes “verbomoteur culture” in the Hebraic/Aramaic; they remain basically oral and "word-oriented" even though they have some literacy (Ong 67) • The Iliad and the Odyssey use word phrases and epithets to fit the hexameter line—this observation changes our concept of oral thinking and composition (Milman Parry 1928) • Early linguists (Saussure, Sapir, Hockett, and Bloomfield) believe writing is just a visible form of oral language (Ong 17) • “umbilicus mundi” –in oral cultures, the human is the center of the universe (Eliade 1958) • Recognition that “extensive use of lists and charts” made possible by the “deep interiorization of print” (Ong 1958, 99) • Lord (1960) proves formulaic memorization in Yugoslav oral poetry; notes somatic activity accompanying oral recitation • Merleau-Ponty (1961): Vision separates, isolates, “dissects” (71) • “fixed point of view and fixed tone” present in printed text (MdCluhan 1962) • Havelock (1963) theorizes Plato was rejecting orality in favor of writing, and that interiorization of reading in Greece affects thought processes. Recognizes that “rhetorical tradition” is aligned with oral worldview and a “formulaic constitution of thought” (23) • Renou (1964) posits oral transmission of the Vedas, but makes no mention of formulary nature in verbatim memorization • Lévi-Strauss' idea of bricolage in the savage mind (1966) aligns with Ong's Orality • Haugen (1966) suggests the term ‘grapholect’ to describe deeply interiorized textuality • Iconographic labeling, Mnemonic aids in monumental, bizarre figures (Yates 1966) • Interiority of sound, voice; “experience of bodiliness” (72); orality depends on community, supports a sacral perspective (Ong 1967) • Writing as magic, powerful; amulets, prayerwheels; Craft- literacy stage (Goody 1968) • The written word is power: clerical access to reading; power conferred to translators of text (Tambiah 1968) • Clarification of Milman’s work in context of subsequent research (Adam Parry 1971) • Research into somatic aspects of oral communication (Biebych and Mateene 1971); (Peabody 1975); (Scheub 1977); (Havelock 1978) • Print media enables labels, including the "lettered label" of the title page (Steinberg 1974) • Peabody (1975) describes the link between oral memory and somatic activity in aboriginal Australians • Havelock (1976) shows that Plato was rejecting orality in favor of writing • List-making history; oral cultures attempt exact memorization, but are rarely successful (Goody 1977) • Orality places meaning in context, while writing situates meaning in language itself (Olson 1977) • Bynum (1978) classifies formulaic elements of LoDagaa oral poetry into “elements” and “phrases” (25) • Syntactic formulas of Somali poets (Antinucci 1979) • Prose rules internalized the same as grammar; connects phonetic alphabet and left-hemisphere activity in the brain (Johnson 1979); (Kerckhove 1980) • “’autonomous’ discourse” (Olson 1980) • The role of music in memorization in Japanese Heike chants (Rutledge 1981) • Evidence of verbatim replication in Curia (Peru) puberty rite (Sherzer 1982) Historiographic Element Applies to my Research Aristotle's History of Animals provides a new way of understanding and organizing the natural world 1735: Linnaeus, Systema Naturae 1826: Audubon, Birds of America; 1859: Darwin, On the Origin of Species Introduction of the Internet The changes wrought by literate communication altered the way we conceive the natural world, according to Ong. In science, literate capabilities made possible listing, categorizing, and cataloging of the natural world in a way not possible in primary orality, a fact noted by Goody, M.T. Clanchy, and Ong. Primary oral cultures represented animals in pictures, though they did not have symbolic iconography. Early writing developed in the process of recording quanities of domestic animals along with other commodities, and many pictographs and even letters can trace their genesis to animal images. We still use pictures along with textual descriptions of animals, for, as William M. Ivins Jr. notes, moveable type and print processes are "congenial" to the use of illustrative prints (qtd. in Ong 124). I am curious about this intersection of oral/textual representation--do images operate as a vestigal link to orality? How has the evolution of data recording effected our understanding of natural systems? And, in a world increasing represented in digital information, how do imagery and text work together to instantiate our understanding of the natural world? This is the focus of my article, which will examine the historical development of taxonomic systems which employ graphic representations of biota. Online educational and professional sites provide interactive taxonomic charts combining images, graphic elements, and text. DNA research makes possible bar-coding by DNA to illuminate new forms of cladistic organization. Visual Translation of Walter J. Ong’s Orality and Literacy Marcy Galbreath Texts and Technology in History Dr. Saper, Professor Thanks to Patricia Carlton, Amy Giroux, and Valerie Kasper for their help in this project. 2500 BC: Goody comments on early categorization found in cuneiform records from Tell Harmal, noting the "degree of systematic formalization" (Domestication 83). These tablets are "'inscribed with hundreds of names of trees, reeds, wooden objects, and birds. The names of the birds, more than one hundred of them, are listed'" (Kramer, qtd. in Goody 83). The metahistorical framework I will apply to my own project will contain ironic, radical, satirical, and contextual elements. The tools of speech and text that help us coordinate actions and improve survivability as a species may act as impediments to understanding other species; the paradox is that categorically atomizing knowledge may help us understand nature on one level while moving us further and further away from the life- world. I am not a utopian, but there is a chance we may still be able to avert the sixth great extinction with appropriate understanding and action. Of course, that would call for human exceptionalism, of which I am skeptical. The context within which this research will take place is the Enlightenment mythos of scientific objectivity, which colors the Western relationship with nature. Most languages through the course of human existence have been primarily oral, and we have no way of knowing how many existed or went extinct. Walter J. Ong estimates that "only around 106 have ever been committed to writing to a degree sufficient to have produced literature" (7). According to Ong, primary orality cannot exist once it is exposed to the idea of literacy, so it does not exist in our contemporaneous world. However, traces of residual oral culture have been studied in contemporary cultures, providing much of the context for Ong's theories. Cave art, spear points, clay and leather utensils provide evidence of pre-literate cultures. Amond the oldest: Ubirr (Australia); Chauvet Cave (Europe); Apollo 11 (Africa); Wadi Kubbaniya (Egypt); and Monte Verde (South America) (Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History ). According to Ong, features of orality include: • Formulaic, repetitious elements • Memorization devices (mnemonics) • Additive elements such as introductory "ands" • Aggregative features like clusters of associated terms • Redundancy, necessary repetition and slow movement • Traditional, conservative approaches to knowledge • Apprenticeships for learning • Agonistically toned verbal exchange • Audience awareness--participatory engagement • Contextual, interrelational approach to language • Situational knowledge, use of metaphors • Standard themes and formulas sustain oral memory The years between 1923 and 1982 provide most of the research into language and orality from which Ong bases his argument. Key ideas: • Pre-literate cultures were/are psychologically different in their approach to the world because of their form of communication • The advent of literacy supported abstract, analytical thought processes, which in turn brought about different ways of organizing knowledge • Orality can exist without literacy, but literacy only arises from an oral history • Communication history can be divided into Oral Culture, Chirographic Culture, Typographic Culture, Grapholects, and Secondary Orality • Grapholects are cultures with deeply internalized use of the written word; words become the things they represent • The psychological changes manifested in Grapholectic culture merge into a Secondary Orality with the technological advances of aural and visual communication devices; the word moves from static to action Ong brings oral culture to our attention, showing it as something of value in its own right. He vests it with significance, then reveals we must "die to continue living" (15), an indication of his position on writing as the "most momentous of all human technological inventions" (84). Within Hayden White's historiographical perspective, Ong falls within the comedic vein of emplotment, since technology (writing and printing) ultimately frees humans to be more creative, more productive, and more analytical. He achieves the harmony of the comedic by primarily citing research that bears up his theories, and downplaying or ignoring conflicting arguments. Richard Cullen Rath, for example, contests Ong’s static view of orality, asserting that oral cultures are not monolithic or “ahistorical,” and that Ong’s catalogue of “intrinsic properties of orality” limits historians to a view of “orality as an initial, natural, and primitive state of mind” (424). Carol Fleisher Feldman challenges Ong, along with others, in the viewpoint that “writing is necessary for the forms of consciousness found in modern Western thought” (47), citing evidence that oral forms can demonstrate “remoteness from everyday activity” and demand “skill of their makers,” qualities that align them with typographic “artful genres of poetry, legal briefs, biblical exegesis, and the novel” (48). Ong fits a conservative ideological lens, with the history of human communication changing as human conditions change, and progress defined as the ascension of Westernized literate values, and his argument follows an organiscist perspective, citing examples of research, such as Milman Parry’s findings on Homeric poems or Albert B. Lord’s study of Yugoslav bards, as parts that substantiate the view of the whole (Ong’s theory of orality). His overarching tropological pre-figuring mode is metonymy, as he uses multiple singular representations to stand for the whole. When he mentions that “Fieldwork across the globe has corroborated and extended” Parry’s and Lord’s works, for example, he just cites Jack Goody (61). CATEGORY Secondary Orality Grapholects Typographic 1876-Current era Chirographic Cultures Primary Orality Indo- European (India) Initially Western, spreading globally Ong (1982) notes a “secondary orality” in electronic technology; a “hypervisualized noetic world” (125). The telephone, phonograph, television, personal computer, and subsequent electronic devices rely on a grapholectic understanding of textual communication, but renew aural and kinetic components, as well as instituting new forms of visualization. Writing materials include: Clay tablets, parchment, vellum, bark, papyrus, dried leaves, wax tablets, wood, stone, quill pens, brushes, branches Human language is born in an oral and somatic estuary, nurtured by social bonds and manifesting in the loops (redundancies) and interconnections (mnemonic devices) of the river delta. Like the river, orality is fluid and repetitious, and requires balance to remain afloat in the moment. The skilled navigator has no map to follow, just knowledge of the currents and shoals that is passed down from generation to generation. Aural and kinetic senses predominate, and humans view themselves as part of the life-world. Ah Mun. Mayan Glyphs, Relief on Stone. Ancient Egyptian Hieroglyphics “Domestic Bulls Engraving.” Rock art, Africa. Rock art, Australia. “X-ray” figures. Rock Art. American Southwest 350 BC, Aristotle: History of Animals 1735, Linnaeus: Systema Natura 1826, Audobon: Birds of America 1845, Darwin: Journal of Researches Written language transforms the river into a solid road: substantial, engineered, signifying forward progress, and mapped outside human memory. The road is rough- hewn and shaped from natural formations at first, but adapts to all vehicular needs. As human society becomes more complex, roads and vehicles are created to meet those changing demands. Humans now travel in multiple modes on multiple platforms, at speeds far beyond the memory of river-dwelling oral communities. Technology shapes language, and continues to shape human consciousness. “Administrative Tablet.” Mespotamia Indus Valley Script. Indo-European Oracle Bone. Ancient Chinese
Transcript of Y GOR CATE Chirographic Cultures Typographic Secondary2 Six teenth cent ury Eig hte ent h c ent ury...
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Six
teen
th c
entu
ry
Eig
hte
enth
cen
tury
Nin
etee
nth
cen
tury
1916-1959 1960-1965 1966-1969 1970-1977 1978-1982
Cu
ltu
re
Au
stra
lia
Eu
rop
e
Afr
ican
Egy
pt
Am
eric
as
Arc
hai
c G
reek
s
Su
mer
ian
s
Egy
pti
an
Ch
ines
e
Min
oan
Cre
te
Gre
eks
Gre
eks
Gre
eks
Ch
ina
May
an
Eu
rop
e
Ara
bs
Eu
rop
e
Azt
ec
Eu
rop
e
Eve
nt
or
Dev
elo
pm
ent Homeric poems
exist in oral form; basis for
history, ritual, identity, and
sacred
perspectives
Developed the first
writing:
cuneiform
HieroglyphicHybrid script:
pictograph,
ideograph, and
rebuses
Indus Valley
scriptVedas
Hybrid script:
pictograph,
ideograph,
and rebuses
Linear B
Homeric
poems set in
text
Sophists
Plato, in the
Phaedrus ,
critiques both
oral (poets) and writing (in
writing)
Paper
manufac-
turing
Script--
glyphs
Learned
Latin becomes
institutionalized as the
teaching
language
Paper distribu-
ted to Middle
East
Paper manufac-
tured in Europe; writing mostly
done by
scribes
Pictographic
script; codex
Gutenberg Bible :
printing press
with moveable
metal type enables book
production
Print begins to
effect teaching of rhetoric, and
provides
foundation for
new scientific
era
Rise of
dictionaries
Elocution
contests
Invention of the telephone ushers
in electronic
communciation
Res
earc
h o
bse
rvat
ion
Formulary,
monumental personalities
and mnemonic aids: wily
Odysseus, wise
Nestor, angry
Achilles, the
Seven Against Thebes, Three
Fates, etc.
(Diringer
1953; Gelb
1963)
Peabody (1975)
suggests
Vedas share
“oral
provenance” because of redundant
patterns.
They work
on memory:
“traditional formulaic
and stanzaic patterns”
(66, 142)
Sophists invent
the art of
rhetoric, a
classification of persuasive oratory born in
orality but
sustained
through time
because it was written down
(Havelock 1963)
(Havelock 1976)
Greek alphabet with vowels:
“major
psychological
importance” (89)
Writing thus
gains control
of education
(Ong 1982)
Constraints of
early writing
technology;
Distrust of written versus
spoken word; rarity of
manuscript
indexes (Daly 1967, Clanchy
1979)
(Ivins 1953) Moveable type
“congenial” to
use of
illustrative prints (124)
Books of
rhetoric begin omitting the canon of
memory, and in
some cases,
delivery as well
(Howell 1956)
“early in the age
of print,
extremely complex charts
appear in the teaching of
academic subjects” (Ong 1958, 126)
(Howell 1971)
• Research determines the agonistic nature of response in oral dialogue (Malinowski 1923)
• Jouse (1925) describes “verbomoteur culture” in
the Hebraic/Aramaic; they remain basically oral
and "word-oriented" even though they have some literacy (Ong 67)
• The Iliad and the Odyssey use word phrases and
epithets to fit the hexameter line—this
observation changes our concept of oral thinking
and composition (Milman Parry 1928)• Early linguists (Saussure, Sapir, Hockett, and Bloomfield) believe writing is just a visible form
of oral language (Ong 17)
• “umbilicus mundi” –in oral cultures, the human
is the center of the universe (Eliade 1958)
• Recognition that “extensive use of lists and charts” made possible by the “deep interiorization of print” (Ong 1958, 99)
• Lord (1960) proves formulaic
memorization in Yugoslav oral poetry;
notes somatic activity accompanying
oral recitation
• Merleau-Ponty (1961): Vision separates, isolates, “dissects” (71)
• “fixed point of view and fixed tone” present in printed text (MdCluhan
1962)
• Havelock (1963) theorizes Plato was rejecting orality in favor of writing, and
that interiorization of reading in Greece affects thought processes. Recognizes
that “rhetorical tradition” is aligned
with oral worldview and a “formulaic
constitution of thought” (23)
• Renou (1964) posits oral transmission
of the Vedas, but makes no mention of
formulary nature in verbatim
memorization
• Lévi-Strauss' idea of bricolage in
the savage mind (1966) aligns with
Ong's Orality • Haugen (1966) suggests the term
‘grapholect’ to describe deeply
interiorized textuality
• Iconographic labeling, Mnemonic aids in monumental, bizarre figures (Yates 1966)
• Interiority of sound, voice;
“experience of bodiliness” (72);
orality depends on community, supports a sacral perspective (Ong
1967)• Writing as magic, powerful; amulets, prayerwheels; Craft-
literacy stage (Goody 1968)
• The written word is power:
clerical access to reading; power conferred to translators of text (Tambiah 1968)
• Clarification of Milman’s work in context
of subsequent research (Adam Parry 1971) • Research into somatic aspects of oral
communication (Biebych and Mateene
1971); (Peabody 1975); (Scheub 1977);
(Havelock 1978)
• Print media enables labels, including the "lettered label" of the title page (Steinberg 1974)
• Peabody (1975) describes the link
between oral memory and somatic activity
in aboriginal Australians • Havelock (1976) shows that Plato was
rejecting orality in favor of writing • List-making history; oral cultures attempt exact memorization, but are rarely
successful (Goody 1977)
• Orality places meaning in context, while
writing situates meaning in language itself (Olson 1977)
• Bynum (1978) classifies formulaic elements of LoDagaa oral poetry
into “elements” and “phrases” (25)
• Syntactic formulas of Somali
poets (Antinucci 1979)• Prose rules internalized the same
as grammar; connects phonetic alphabet and left-hemisphere
activity in the brain (Johnson 1979);
(Kerckhove 1980)
• “’autonomous’ discourse” (Olson
1980)• The role of music in
memorization in Japanese Heike chants (Rutledge 1981)
• Evidence of verbatim replication
in Curia (Peru) puberty rite
(Sherzer 1982)
His
tori
ogr
aph
ic
Ele
men
tA
pp
lies
to
my
R
esea
rch
Aristotle's
History of Animals
provides a new way of understanding and organizing the natural world
1735: Linnaeus,
Systema Naturae
1826: Audubon,
Birds of
America; 1859:
Darwin, On the
Origin of Species
Introduction
of the Internet
The changes wrought by literate communication altered the way we conceive the natural world, according to Ong. In
science, literate capabilities made possible listing, categorizing, and cataloging of the natural world in a way not possible in primary orality, a fact noted by Goody, M.T. Clanchy, and Ong. Primary oral cultures represented animals in pictures,
though they did not have symbolic iconography. Early writing developed in the process of recording quanities of domestic animals along with other commodities, and many pictographs and even letters can trace their genesis to animal images. We still use pictures along with textual descriptions of animals, for, as William M. Ivins Jr. notes, moveable type and print
processes are "congenial" to the use of illustrative prints (qtd. in Ong 124). I am curious about this intersection of oral/textual representation--do images operate as a vestigal link to orality? How has the evolution of data recording effected our understanding of natural systems? And, in a world increasing represented in digital information, how do imagery and
text work together to instantiate our understanding of the natural world? This is the focus of my article, which will examine
the historical development of taxonomic systems which employ graphic representations of biota.
Online educational and professional sites provide
interactive taxonomic charts combining images, graphic
elements, and text. DNA research makes possible bar-coding by DNA to illuminate new forms of cladistic organization.
Visual Translation of Walter J. Ong’s Orality and LiteracyMarcy Galbreath
Texts and Technology in History
Dr. Saper, ProfessorThanks to Patricia Carlton, Amy Giroux, and Valerie Kasper for their help in this project.
2500 BC: Goody comments on early categorization found in cuneiform records from Tell Harmal, noting the "degree of
systematic formalization" (Domestication 83). These tablets are
"'inscribed with hundreds of names of trees, reeds, wooden objects, and birds. The names of the birds, more than one hundred of them, are listed'" (Kramer, qtd. in Goody 83).
The metahistorical framework I will apply to my own project will contain ironic, radical, satirical, and contextual elements. The tools of speech and text that help us coordinate actions and improve survivability as a species may act as impediments to understanding other species; the paradox is that categorically atomizing knowledge may help us understand nature on one level while moving us further and further away from the life-
world. I am not a utopian, but there is a chance we may still be able to avert the sixth great extinction with appropriate understanding and action. Of course, that would call for human exceptionalism, of which I am skeptical. The context within which this research will take place is the Enlightenment mythos of scientific objectivity, which colors the Western relationship with nature.
Most languages through the course of human existence have been
primarily oral, and we have no way of knowing how many existed or went extinct. Walter J. Ong estimates that "only
around 106 have ever been committed to writing to a degree
sufficient to have produced literature" (7). According to Ong,
primary orality cannot exist once it is exposed to the idea of
literacy, so it does not exist in our contemporaneous world.
However, traces of residual oral culture have been studied in contemporary cultures, providing much of the context for Ong's
theories.
Cave art, spear points, clay and leather utensils provide evidence of pre-literate cultures. Amond the oldest: Ubirr (Australia);
Chauvet Cave (Europe); Apollo 11 (Africa); Wadi Kubbaniya
(Egypt); and Monte Verde (South America) (Heilbrunn Timeline of
Art History ).
According to Ong, features of orality include:• Formulaic, repetitious elements
• Memorization devices (mnemonics)• Additive elements such as introductory "ands" • Aggregative features like clusters of associated terms
• Redundancy, necessary repetition and slow movement
• Traditional, conservative approaches to knowledge
• Apprenticeships for learning• Agonistically toned verbal exchange• Audience awareness--participatory engagement
• Contextual, interrelational approach to language
• Situational knowledge, use of metaphors
• Standard themes and formulas sustain oral memory
The years between 1923 and 1982 provide most of the research into language and orality from which Ong bases his argument. Key ideas: • Pre-literate cultures were/are psychologically different in their approach to the world because of their form of communication • The advent of literacy supported abstract, analytical thought processes, which in turn brought about different ways of organizing knowledge • Orality can exist without literacy, but literacy only arises from an oral history • Communication history can be divided into Oral Culture, Chirographic Culture, Typographic Culture, Grapholects, and Secondary Orality • Grapholects are cultures with deeply internalized use of the written word; words become the things they represent • The psychological changes manifested in Grapholectic culture merge into a Secondary Orality with the technological advances of aural and visual communication devices; the word moves from static to action
Ong brings oral culture to our attention, showing it as something of value in its own right. He vests it with significance, then reveals we must "die to continue living" (15), an indication of his position on writing as the "most momentous of all human
technological inventions" (84). Within Hayden White's historiographical perspective, Ong falls within the comedic vein of emplotment, since technology (writing and printing) ultimately frees humans to be more creative, more productive, and more analytical. He achieves the harmony of the comedic by primarily citing research that bears up his theories, and downplaying or ignoring conflicting arguments. Richard Cullen Rath, for example, contests Ong’s static view of orality, asserting that oral
cultures are not monolithic or “ahistorical,” and that Ong’s catalogue of “intrinsic properties of orality” limits historians to a view of “orality as an initial, natural, and primitive state of mind” (424). Carol Fleisher Feldman challenges Ong, along with others, in the viewpoint that “writing is necessary for the forms of consciousness found in modern Western thought” (47), citing evidence that oral forms can demonstrate “remoteness from everyday activity” and demand “skill of their makers,”
qualities that align them with typographic “artful genres of poetry, legal briefs, biblical exegesis, and the novel” (48).
Ong fits a conservative ideological lens, with the history of human communication changing as human conditions change, and progress defined as the ascension of Westernized literate values, and his argument follows an organiscist perspective, citing
examples of research, such as Milman Parry’s findings on Homeric poems or Albert B. Lord’s study of Yugoslav bards, as parts that substantiate the view of the whole (Ong’s theory of orality). His overarching tropological pre-figuring mode is metonymy, as he uses multiple singular representations to stand for the whole. When he mentions that “Fieldwork across the globe has corroborated and extended” Parry’s and Lord’s works, for example, he just cites Jack Goody (61).
CA
TE
GO
RY
Secondary Orality
Grapholects
Typographic
1876-Current era
Chirographic CulturesPrimary Orality
Ind
o-
Eu
rop
ean
(I
nd
ia)
Initially Western, spreading globally
Ong (1982) notes a “secondary
orality” in electronic technology; a “hypervisualized
noetic world” (125). The
telephone, phonograph,
television, personal computer,
and subsequent electronic devices rely on a grapholectic understanding of textual
communication, but renew
aural and kinetic components,
as well as instituting new forms of visualization.
Writing materials include: Clay tablets, parchment, vellum, bark, papyrus, dried leaves, wax tablets, wood, stone, quill pens, brushes, branches
Human language is born in an oral and somatic estuary, nurtured by social bonds and manifesting in the loops (redundancies) and interconnections (mnemonic devices) of the river delta. Like the river, orality is fluid and repetitious, and requires balance to remain afloat in the moment. The skilled navigator has no map to follow, just knowledge of the currents and shoals that is passed down from generation to generation. Aural and kinetic senses predominate, and humans view themselves as part of the life-world.
Ah Mun. Mayan Glyphs, Relief on Stone.
Ancient Egyptian Hieroglyphics
“Domestic Bulls Engraving.”Rock art, Africa.
Rock art, Australia. “X-ray” figures.
Rock Art.
American Southwest
350 BC, Aristotle:
History of Animals
1735, Linnaeus: Systema Natura
1826, Audobon: Birds of America
1845, Darwin: Journal of Researches
Written language transforms the river into a solid road: substantial, engineered, signifying forward progress, and mapped outside human memory. The road is rough-hewn and shaped from natural formations at first, but adapts to all vehicular needs. As human society becomes more complex, roads and vehicles are created to meet those changing demands. Humans now travel in multiple modes on multiple platforms, at speeds far beyond the memory of river-dwelling oral communities. Technology shapes language, and continues to shape human consciousness.
“Administrative Tablet.”Mespotamia
Indus Valley Script. Indo-European
Oracle Bone.Ancient Chinese
Marcy G
Stamp
Marcy G
Stamp
