Explain why the notion that cultures can be distinguished as either \u201coral culture\u201d or \u201cwritten culture\u201d (19) is a mistaken understanding as to how culture works, according to Chamberlin and your reading of Courtney MacNeil\u2019s article \u201cOrality”.<\/p>\n
The notion that cultures are either written or oral is completely false, especially in the context of current day, where new media forms such as television and podcast rely completely on written language to be produced, and are permanent. The overlap of written and oral culture is particularly clear in these media forms that have both qualities of oral culture and written culture, but do not fall completely into either category. For example, an episode of a television show needs written word to produce the scripts, schedules, advertisements, and much more, while it also relies on the orality of its cast to communicate to the viewers. In addition, viewers of the program can watch the episode orally, by just listening to what the cast says, or with written language, by using subtitles. Subtitles allow television programs and movies to be more accessible to people with hearing loss or who are deaf, which is another example of how interwoven written and oral culture are. Some people in society may have disabilities or that allow them to only communicate through one form of either written or oral culture. However, as a society, we have made much of everyday life accessible for people with these disabilities by interweaving oral and written culture even further, by allowing the same program on television, for example, to be viewed with either, or both, written and oral language. Even without the example of new media forms, written culture and oral culture overlap in our everyday lives. Much of our everyday communication is orally based, such as our general greetings or getting to know a co-worker, for example. However, we tend to document information we find important, such as medical records, birth certificates, much of history, and maybe even our own feelings or experiences in a journal entry. In cultures that were considered written cultures throughout history, all did not completely rely on written word alone, they also used oral communication. The use of the terms primary orality and secondary orality seem to illustrate the interlinked complexities of the discussion, highlighting that different cultures may use written and oral word in different ways, but that they use both. The term \u2018oraliture\u2019 describes the need for both oral and written word in Haiti, observed by Edouard Glissant. The use of new media such as television shows, social media, and podcasts combines oral culture and written culture even further, complicating the discussion even further.<\/p>\n
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Work Cited<\/p>\n