A Short Story – Timmy’s Awakening
The skinny red haired boy stared out the window of the castle. Mount figen aki was active with red hot lava flowing steadily into the sea. New land would be formed but this scared and excited boy would not be around to see it. The spirits had told him he needed to leave on the ship that night. A Raven had flown into the castle the previous night to deliver the message. Having never been off the island and never spoken to another human being the boy was paralyzed with fear and the most excited he had ever been. The night dragged on for what seemed to be an eternity. The boy could sleep no more than a baby could run. the next morning the boy’s courage his scrawny little feet to the same window. The ship had arrived. Quotation mark who was on it the boy wondered to himself. Would they be nice would they be evil, what would happen to him? Quotation mark. Suddenly a bright green creature a rose from the bottom of the ship two horns protruded from the grotesque creatures skull. The boy hesitantly approached this mysterious beast who stood 9 feet tall and smelled of garbage.
Analysis
How does the text deviate from conventions of written English?
The most obvious deviation from the text is punctuation and spelling. Capitalization was not picked up in with a few words. The sentence, “the next morning the boy’s courage his scrawny little feet to the same window.” had one word (carried) missing completely. One convention surprisingly not picked up by speech-to-text was quotation marks. When I spoke quotation mark into the dictation the text came out as the word quotation mark instead of the symbol, “.
The story did not flow with a logical structure with many different locations and settings, and the characters were sometimes confusing. Unfortunately, the story only consisted of the beginning and the audience may find it difficult to connect to makes certain connections. Written texts can thus convey their message more precisely, adding to the sense that writing is worth more than speech (Gnanadesikan, 2011, p, 5).
What is “wrong” in the text? What is “right”?
Wrong – I was trying to name the place “Mount Fujinaki but throughout my dictation, the “sound” of the word got lost along the way, and besides I do have an accent that sounds different from a Canadian. Although writing represents information about how words are pronounced, it does not record the identifying details of any individual utterance of those words. It records language, but not actual speech (Gnanadesikan, 2011, p, 9). It can be difficult to capture the tone of a story, or the uniqueness of a character without the nuances available through writing or typing. Some of the things that were wrong with the text were spelling, capitalization, word omission, punctuation (e.g. quotation marks, missing hyphen, missing apostrophe).
Right – Most of the words were spelled correctly. Most of the sentence structures flowed as planned, other than one.
What are the most common “mistakes” in the text and why do you consider them “mistakes”?
The most common mistakes in the text were quotation marks, spelling, and capitalization. I consider them mistakes because these are the standards of writing, and they somewhat altered the meaning of the story.
What if you had “scripted” the story? What difference might that have made?
Whenever I think about constructing a story, I usually write down my thoughts on paper or use a word document. If I had scripted the story, it would have had way more content and been completely organized. The thought of my unscripted story being shared did cause some anxiety. I took time to think about what I was saying and got nervous during my dictation. A scripted story would have allowed time for editing and practice which likely would have eliminated some of the mistakes and allowed me to add more description.
In what ways does oral storytelling differ from written storytelling?
Oral storytelling is an older artform than written storytelling. It is often, although not always, shorter. Written storytelling requires a literate performer. Another difference that exists is the value put on the type of storytelling. Indigenous cultures value oral storytelling and it is a significant part of most Indigenous cultures. In general, Western and European cultures tend to value written storytelling more than oral.
Another major difference between the two forms of storytelling is the author. With oral storytelling, the author is a performer who is the central focus of the story. Comparatively, the author of a written story is usually unseen, and the reader’s interpretation of the story has a more significant opportunity to play a role in the story. The fact that many writing systems are alphabetic (because they represent individual sounds) suggests that individual sound segments called phonemes are fundamental to human language production (Besserat, 2009, p.21)
References
Gnanadesikan, A. E. (2011).“The First IT Revolution.” In The writing revolution: Cuneiform to the internetLinks to an external site. (Vol. 25). John Wiley & Sons (pp. 1-10).
Schmandt-Besserat, D. (2009). “Origins and Forms of Writing.” In Bazerman, C. (Ed.). Handbook of research on writing: History, society, school, individual, text.Links to an external site. New York, NY: Routledge
Haas, C. (2013). “The Technology Question.” In Writing technology: Studies on the materiality of literacyLinks to an external site.. Routledge. (pp. 3-23).
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MICHAELMCDOWALL
October 11, 2021 — 11:45 am
Bonjour Analesa,
Your experiences using talk-to-text technology were similar to mine. Missing punctuation, misspelled words, and really a lot of the context from the story which doesn’t get missed when speaking face-to-face.
What stood out to me in your analysis was something short, but vitally important:
“Another difference that exists is the value put on the type of storytelling. Indigenous cultures value oral storytelling and it is a significant part of most Indigenous cultures.”
Growing up on the West Coast on Canada and living within the very strong and proud indigenous communities, oral story telling is the cornerstone of their culture. Written histories were never kept, and throughout the colonization of Canada, languages were banned and most of the physical artifacts which had any meaning to indigenous groups were either confiscated or destroyed.
But what lived on through the forced change of language were the stories. In his 2003 Massey Lecture, Thomas King notes “The truth about stories is that’s all we are” (CBC, 2003). Once you have the honour of hearing a story, it can’t be taken from you like physical objects or beat out of you like a language. It can passed on to another person who can keep the story alive and pass it on to someone else.
While living in Prince Rupert for the past 7 years, I have had the honour of welcoming in many Ts’msyen elders into my classroom to share local “adawx” (stories) to students about a variety of subjects including salmon, weather, and celestial objects such as the sun and the moon. These adawx are some of the only things that have remained from this area over the last several thousand years. That’s why these adawx are so powerful and treasured when shared with my students. Though the stories may slightly changed how they are told from person to person, the messages remain the same.
As you also rightly point out “In general, Western and European cultures tend to value written storytelling more than oral.” For many reasons many of the adawx have never been put to paper, which sometimes makes it difficult to share with students as you need to arrange a time with a particular elder who has the right to share the story. Although it may be challenging for scheduling purposes, fear of losing control to whomever publishes the stories is always on the mind of the local Indigenous Education Department. Over the last few hundred years the Ts’msyen have watched colonialists come and take nearly everything they have known as valuable, so I can’t blame them if the are extremely carful how some of their last items of value of treated and shared.
MICHAELMCDOWALL
October 11, 2021 — 11:46 am
Sorry … I forgot to add the Thomas King Reference:
Reference
Canadian Broadcast Company. 2003. The Truth About Stories: Part 1. CBC.ca. https://www.cbc.ca/player/play/2398900256