Hello again!
Each week every member of Eng 470A will be answering one of a sampling of questions related to the themes of that week. This week we were asked to read J. Edward Chamberlin’s If This is Your Land, Where are Your Stories? Finding Common Ground and Courtney MacNeil’s article “Orality.” As we read and explored the work of these scholars, we were challenged to think critically about issues such as:
- Story and literature
- The contradiction: imagination and reality
- Forgetting and un-learning
- Home / Land
This week I wish to focus on ideas, perceptions and distinctions of and between “oral cultures” and “written cultures,” which I believe is fundamental to the above topics. For my fellow students, this is question #1: Explain why the notion that cultures can be distinguished as either “oral culture” or “written culture” (19) is a mistaken understanding as to how culture works, according to Chamberlin and your reading of Courtney MacNeil’s article “Orality.
In his book, If This is Your Land, Where are Your Stories? Finding Common Ground, Chamberlin argues that the way for different (and possibly clashing) cultures to find common ground is our common belief in stories. By legitimizing and attempting to understand other cultures’ stories, as well as our own, we can disentangle the attitude of “us” and “them” and coexist more harmoniously. One fundamental aspect of the “us vs. them” perspective is a way of viewing civilization in two distinct categories: “babbling barbarians” and “civilized people” (Chamberlin 19) and this outlook is transferred to views about communication, words and stories. It seems to be a common belief that “written culture” is more civilized and less barbaric than “oral culture.” Indeed many people tend to see “oral culture” as primitive and regard it with a sense of nostalgia, whereas the written word is viewed as evolved. Both Chamberlin and MacNeil disagree with this dichotomy and ask their readers to reexamine this distinction more carefully. Indeed both argue that “oral culture” and “written culture” are not as easy to tease apart as those who support a dichotomous view might suggest.
I believe that this point can be illustrated in a more modern context. Take, for instance, the act of texting. To me it seems to be to be an amalgamation of the spoken and the written word. We would never write an essay in the same language that we speak in and few of us would speak in the same way that we would write essay and yet, texting, a form of writing, more closely resembles natural speech than say, an essay or a novel. In fact, texting seems to have become a hybrid; it’s own vernacular so to speak. I think that this highlights the ever-changing nature and adaptability of language and not just the spoken word, but the written word as well. The written word is not at all stagnant, nor is it “a prison house” with imposed rules that box us in (Chamberlin 19). Furthermore, it is not entirely distinguishable from oral communication. I do not (as some might), see texting as a devolved form of writing, but instead as it’s very own mode of communication, of telling our stories.
In the article, “The language of texting: The new language of a digital nation,” Cater Lee Swartzlander argues for some of the pros of texting, comparing it to a ‘pidgin’ language that allows for freedom of expression. She distinguishes between older and younger generations, or “digital immigrants” and “digital natives” and urges older generations (who may view texting as a devolved mode of writing) to embrace this new form of communication in order to understand the younger generation better, as we as to reap its benefits (Swartzlander 6). Here’s a cool TED Talk that further illustrates this point. In my opinion these draw interesting comparisons to Chamberlin’s text.
The activity of texting may go to show that, even in what we would like to call a primarily “written culture,” orality is central to human interaction (MacNeil). Every culture, every generation will find its own way of telling their stories, whether it is orally and/or through pen on paper (or keyboard) and these are all interconnected, impossible to tease apart. The sooner we realize this, the sooner we will begin to understand each other and hopefully find common ground.
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Chamberlin, J. Edward. If this is Your Land, Where are Your Stories? Finding Common Ground. Toronto: AA. Knopf. 2003. Print. 1-25.
MacNeil, Courtney. “Orality” The Chicago School of Media Theory. Uchicagoedublogs. 2007. Web. 22 May. 2014.
McWhorter, John. “Txtng is killing language. JK!!!” Online video clip. Youtube, 22 Apr. 2013. Web. 22 May. 2014.
Swartzlander, Cater Lee. “The language of texting: The new language of a digital nation.” University of Southern California. ProQuest, UMI Dissertations Publishing. 2010. Web. 22 May. 2014.
When I was a kid, I refused to learn how to read. I understood stories, knew the alphabet, had been making up fantasy worlds since I could talk. I loved books; the feel of their pages, the smell of the paper, the sound of the words being read aloud. And yet, I refused to learn how to read to myself. I persisted in this obstinate behaviour until I was almost ten(obviously, I eventually caved). It wasn’t that I didn’t like stories, written or oral ones, in fact I loved them. It was simply that to me, the written word was something that should be spoken aloud, so it could set the imagination on fire. Having a story read aloud was better than going to the movies, and just as audible and real to me. To this day, whenever anyone discusses the supposed distinction between oral and written stories, I always think of how I perceived stories as a kid, as a harmony between the two.
It’s true that modern inventions like texting and Instant Messaging have turned even the oral practice of conversation into something that can be written down, but perhaps this also works the other way around. If the written word is now being used in exactly the same way as the spoken one, does that not break down the supposed difference between the two? Yes, talking will probably always be faster than texting, but both are still ways of speaking, still “oral”. Do you think that the so-called “digital natives”, who grew up with texting, will see the same difference between written and oral cultures as we do? Or will their definition of what is oral and what is written be fundamentally different, fundamentally blurrier and harder to separate, than in the past?
Thanks for this post, Caitlyn. I love what you said about text-language being not so much a disintegration as a new form of communication. I’m interested in the way this divides generations: do you think it came about partially as a way for young folks to create their own world that is separate from that of their parents? I think every generation does this, to some extent, and every older generation laments “kids these days” as they watch the sun of their own heyday sink over the horizon. What’s exciting to me is the way these different worlds intersect, and how text-language (for example) becomes part of an essential mode of communication used across generations.
Obviously, oral culture and storytelling practices bleed into our online and text conversations, but I’m also interested in what happens when the influence goes the other way – for instance, when someone mentions an internet meme in a face-to-face conversation, or uses expressions (that usually make me cringe) such as ‘lol’ or ‘lmao’ in speech. Are we finding a new code-speak that reinforces boundaries between generations, or are we finding a new universal communication? Are we becoming more efficient, or lazy? Are we losing something in bypassing more formal communication methods, or are we discovering new possibilities?
I wonder if the text messages from today will one day be treated as authoritative documents in the same way that we consider letters and telegrams. Does the ease and frequency of messaging via text diminish its cultural importance? Texting, for me, represents the flexibility and adaptability of language, and I’m so excited to see where it takes us. Regardless of the medium, the more we can share and listen to one another’s stories, the better we can see one another as whole beings, and the more we can create a culture of understanding and respect.
I love the point you brought up about the orality that exists even within something that can be entirely written down: texting. I think in general the internet is an amazing example of a culture that is very much both written and oral. Even though much of the internet is text, there are also music and videos and even gifs that we can watch and listen to people speaking alongside the text that we read. For example, it is easy to find an interview that has been transcribed into text. At the same time as we can read that interview, we can also watch that interview on youtube and hear the voices of the interviewer and interviewee. Even a culture dominated by written word, as most of the internet is, there still exist many elements of orality.
I completely agree. Having taken a societal discourse class in which we analyzed and transcribed casual conversation, it’s interesting to compare a video and its transcription, and see how that changes our view of how the story is told. Interesting blog post!
🙂