Oral cultures and writing: Where does Deaf culture fit in?

Posted on October 1, 2012 by adi

Walter Ong’s (1982) ideas on oral cultures and writing are not altogether correct in that they exclude Deaf cultures and their communities. This fault lies in his narrowed view that not “only communication, but thought itself relates in an altogether special way to sound” (Ong, 1982:7). What of the Deaf[i]? Their thought process cannot be linked to sound; their language is not vocal- auditory; it is visual- gestural (Tovar, 2001). Asserting that “[D]espite the richness of gesture, elaborate sign languages are substitutes for speech, and dependent on oral speech systems, even when used by the congenitally deaf ”, demonstrates tremendous ignorance regarding Deaf cultures, their communities and languages. Mexican Sign Language (MSL), for example, is a language in itself, with its own linguistic and social identity and very different from Spanish; the signs are not directly linked to words in Spanish (Faurot et al, 1999). One need not know Spanish in order to learn MSL, or vice versa. What is more, there are some important grammatical differences between Spanish and MSL. “It should be made clear that signed languages are not gestured versions of spoken languages. There is not a one to one mapping of signs to words. In sign languages the “surface forms” of lexical items are mapped directly to real- life referents, not to spoken words”(Faurot et al, 1999: 4). They are not only not universal, they possess important differences specific to their country, region and context that merit further research and their inclusion within the orality-literacy discussion. A critical analysis of some of Ong’s assertions will hopefully demonstrate this.

According to Ong (1982:31), [W]ithout writing words as such have no visual presence, even when the objects they represent are visual. They are sounds. You might ‘call’ them back – ‘recall’ them. But there is nowhere to look for them”. The spoken word or sounds are indeed perishable; as is signed discourse, that if not visually recorded, also perishes unless recalled. However, for the Deaf, sounds do not exist, and the written word is not a written representation of their ‘natural language’[ii]; it is a foreign language. Unlike a hearing person that relates the written words to sounds and then a visual object, the Deaf relate the written word to sound.

It is true that “[W]ritten discourse develops a more elaborate and fixed grammar than oral discourse does because to provide meaning it is more dependent simply upon linguistic structure” (Ong, 1982:38); oral discourse engages the body. In this sense, sign language is similar, but much richer kinesthetically. Some of the uses of the body are: hands as signs used separately or together, but also in relation to the body to denote time, location and aspect; eyebrows and the head may be used for signaling the interrogative, imperative or negative forms, as well as for speech turns; the lips for adverbs of manner or number; the torso and its level of proximity signals register (Josep Jarqer, 2011). According to Janzen (2008 ) the “ three-dimensional spatial component of signed languages … has consequences for clause structure in general, because,  it “challenge[s] a more traditional notion of clause structure that depends on a linearly ordered string of lexical items” (Janzen, 2008: 122). Signed language is “encoded in two different perspectives in narrative discourse: static space and mentally rotated space” (Morales et al, 2011:7). Just as “[P]rint situates words in space” and “[W]riting moves words from the sound world to a world of visual space..” (Ong,1982:119), sign language uses space to situate meaning. Like any other human group, the Deaf use sign language to negotiate meaning. Thus, signed discourse in some ways like oral discourse, is less grammatically fixed, but it is much more elaborate.

 

Fig. 1 Deaf vs hearing space [Taken from: Kaneko & Sutton-Spence, 2012:124].

Unfortunately, the limits of this commentary do not allow for a truly thorough analysis of sign language, which throughout this paper has been generalized to contrast its visual-gestural aspect with the vocal-auditory side of oral discourse. However, despite similarities existing between sign languages, as mentioned previously, they are not universal.  Just like there are different oral cultures, so is there a Deaf culture made up of smaller Deaf communities each with their own language and culture that cannot and should not be ignored. Ong’s analysis cannot be complete while it ignores this equally important culture.

 

References

Faurot, K., D. Dellinger, A. Eatough, & S. Parkhurst. (1999). “The identity of Mexican Sign as a Language”. http://www.sil.org/mexico/lenguajes-de-signos/G009i-Identity-MFS.pdf . Retrieved 23/08/12.

Janzen, T. (2008). Perspective shifts in ASL narratives. The problem of clause structure. In: Tyler, Andrea, Kim, Yiyoun, Takada, Mari (Eds.), Language in the Context of Use. Discourse and Cognitive Approaches to Language. De Gruyter, Berlin, pp. 121-144.

Josep Jarque, M. (2011). Lengua y gesto en la modalidad lingüística signada http://www.culturasorda.eu/resources/Jarque_Lengua_gesto_modalidad_linguistica_signada_2011.pdf  Retrieved 27/09/12.

Morales-López, E., Reigosa-Varela, C., Bobillo-García, N. (2011). Word Order and Informative Functions (Topic and Focus) in Spanish Signed Language (LSE) Utterances http://www.cultura-sorda.eu/resources/Morales_et_al_WordOrderLSE-2011.pdf Retrieved 29/09/12.

Ong, Walter. (1982.) Orality and literacy: The technologizing of the word. London: Methuen.

Kaneko, M. & Sutton-Spence, R. (  ). Iconicity and metaphor in sign language poetry. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/10926-488.2012.665794

Peluso Crespi, L. (1997). Lengua materna y primera: ¿son teórica y metodológicamente equiparables? . http://www.cultura sorda.eu/resources/Peluso_Lengua_materna_y_primera_1997.pdf Retrieved 27/09/12.

Tovar, L. (2001). La importancia del estudio de las lenguas de señas. http://www.cultura-sorda.eu/resources/Tovar_Importancia_estudio_LS_2001.pdf Retrieved 25/09/12.

 

 

[i] Deaf with a capital ‘d’ is used to refer to a people from the Deaf community, while a lower case ‘d’ is used to refer to people with a physical loss of hearing.

[ii] As per Peluso Crespi (1997), who argues that a natural language is one whose medium does not present obstacles to the person using it,  should certain physiological  characteristics exist.

 

 

 

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Farewell to Fixity: The Virtual Library Fantasy

Posted on September 30, 2012 by awhetter

In “The Virtual Library: An Idea Whose Time Has Passed,” cultural historian James J. O’Donnell challenged the ideal of a virtual library. The present-day version of this ideal – a universal, digital library that includes all the world’s literature from antiquity to present day, freely accessible to all from an Internet-enabled device – has much to commend. It would be a utopia of libraries. If the fundamental purpose of a library is to extend access to information, the ideal universal digital library would be the apex of access, both in terms of resources available, and in terms of the numbers of people who would be able to access these resources.

The Fantasy of the Universal Library

Tracing the history of the universal library ideal back to Alexandria, O’Donnell nevertheless claimed that the true origins of the modern-day virtual library “fantasy” lie in a change of attitude to text that occurred around the 5th century A.D. Those with power sought to affirm and extend it through the imposed authority of text. People began to depend on texts as arbiters of truth, and the resultant collection and maintenance of great numbers of texts began the tradition that extends to today’s libraries.

The fantasy is that somehow, in these great collections of truth and knowledge, we can gather all of humanity’s intellectual output together in a universal location or access point. With the exponentially growing numbers of texts freely available in digital format on the Internet, and the continually increasing percentage of the world’s population online – 37% in 2011 (Internet) – the fantasy of “total inclusiveness” (O’Donnell) grew.

A Fading Ideal of Fixed Authenticity

The question is not whether such a fantasy is good or bad. From an educated, Western perspective, greater access is good, generally speaking. However, such total inclusivity has never been and will never be possible. Anthony Grafton wrote: “The supposed universal library, then, will be not a seamless mass of books, easily linked and studied together, but a patchwork of interfaces and databases, some open to anyone with a computer and WiFi, others closed to those without access or money.” Even this description is overly optimistic. The patchwork can never gather all, across cultures and languages, over time – too much has already been lost, and digital obsolescence threatens much of what is to come. The idea O’Donnell challenged is that this is a fantasy that will continue to hold sway in our society – “the idea that the totality of our culture can in some way be incorporated in a library is precisely what will disappear” – which predicts a major shift in the way we think.

O’Donnell wrote, “Now, fixity is to our eyes the only satisfactory guarantee of authenticity, but fixity brings with it rapid obsolescence.” Wikipedia is an example of how our ideas of fixed authenticity are changing. Articles in Wikipedia are in constant flux, and are written and edited by multiple people, authorities none. Its great value lies in this very lack of authority and fixity. Wikipedia changes to keep up with currently accepted ideas and priorities. Looking up a topic in Wikipedia gives you a quick “state of the union” overview. It is like the storyteller of traditional oral cultures, constantly changing the “story” being told to suit the changing beliefs or interests of the people. When we lose the idea of fixity of text, the idea of textual authority goes along with it.

To Altered Authenticity

In his influential book Orality and Literacy, Walter Ong listed the characteristics of traditional oral cultures. One of these characteristics is “homeostasis” (46). Ong wrote that oral traditions always reflect a society’s present values; the storekeepers of knowledge (storytellers, wise men) forget things that are no longer relevant. Traditional stories, rituals, and legends are used to justify what currently matters to society, and may be altered in order to be more effective in this way. I believe that Wikipedia represents an increasing homeostatic tendency in our culture, and is perhaps a good example of Ong’s concept of “secondary orality” (133) – the emergence of oral culture characteristics on top of our digitally literate society.

Google searches also reinforce (or illustrate) homeostasis. The Google PageRank algorithm orders our web search results partially based on the PageRank value of each web page. PageRank is determined by “the number and PageRank metric” (“PageRank”) of all pages that link to it, i.e. popularity. Pages that are currently relevant to lots of people will have many more pages that link to it than those that are less popular. PageRank in turn reinforces the page’s popularity, and irrelevant web pages are destined to be sloughed off the end of the search results list, and into oblivion (see Vaidhyanathan’s The Googlization of Everything).

The Long Tail

As our culture seeks total inclusiveness and textual authority less and less, the information we seek on the Internet increasingly reflects our own perspectives and biases (or is it vice versa?).  This trend is aided by Google search preferences that try to predict what we are looking for based on our past searches (Vaidhyanathan) – another illustration of the emergence of an oral culture characteristic in digital culture: information is situational and contextual rather than general.

Traditional libraries serve literate societies. What kind of libraries will serve the digital, post-literate society? What idea of a library will replace the idea of a universal, virtual library? I think the answer lies in a focus on smaller, specialized collections, local expertise, and community engagement. Huge digital libraries are still gathering steam, and will never go away. Indeed, they are part of the new normal, part of the landscape. In the future they may no longer be thought of as libraries. Farewell to fixity, the very idea of a library is in flux.

Works Cited

Grafton, Anthony. “Future Reading: Digitization and its Discontents.” New Yorker n.p., 5 Nov. 2007. Web. 30 Sept. 2012.

 Internet World Stats. n.d. Web. 30 Sept. 2012. <http://www.internetworldstats.com/stats.htm>

O’Donnell, James J.  n.d. “The Virtual Library: An Idea Whose Time Has Passed.”<http://web.archive.org/web/20070204034556/http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/jod/virtual.html>

Ong, Walter. Orality and Literacy: The Technologizing of the Word. London: Routledge, 2002. E-book.

“PageRank.” Wikipedia: The Free Encyclopedia. Web. 30 Sept. 2012.

Vaidhyanathan, Siva. The Googlization of Everything: (And Why We Should Worry). Berkeley: University of California Press, 2011. E-book.

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Bringing School Change Through Technological Determinism

Posted on September 30, 2012 by jmah

Technological determinism as described by Warschauer, is a phenomena in which “the mere presence of technology leads to familiar and standard applications of that technology, which in turn bring about social change” (2003, p. 44). With this in mind, technology has been seen as a universal change agent for education (Selwyn, 1999). School districts everywhere have spent untold amounts, anticipating that these large investments would bring profound changes to student learning. However, this has not necessarily been the case; studies we have determined that technology adoption in classrooms is not wide-spread and has been problematic (Bauer & Kenton, 2005; Cuban, Kirkpatrick, & Peck, 2001; Hennessy, Ruthven, & Brindley, 2005). As with other areas within our society, technologies’ ability to affect social change has been fraught with debate (Chandler, 1995).

Barriers to Technological Determinism

At the heart of technological determinism involves reductionism, where complex issues are reduced to a part or parts (Chandler, 1995). Schools and education systems are complex entities, by reducing barriers to simple entities, we ignore important causal factors. Hence, many studies identify the lack of wide-spread technology adoption are attributed to teacher attitudes and beliefs (Cuban et al., 2001). Although a factor in educational technological determinism, there are also other variables in play.

Rapid changes in technology, which causes users to falter (Brand, 1999), creates a cycle of adoption, learning, and dismissal. In addition to changes in devices and software, there is also the complexity associated with media formats. As software evolves through the adoption cycle, users are constantly exposed to new media. Integrating these new formats and tracking them is a paramount task for most educators. Schools possess a diverse library of resources ranging from VHS cassettes to digital media servers. Coupled with technical difficulties between incompatible software, hardware, and maintenance, these complexities have led users away from unfamiliar technology. As a side effect of these rapid changes, teachers often have very little input into the decision making process (Sugar, Crawley, & Fine, 2004). With limited input and autonomy, teachers feel a sense of helplessness in their control of technology. In order to overcome these complexities, holistic approaches look at the interconnections associated with the broader phenomenon (Chandler, 1995).

Developing Educational Uses

Educators’ use of technology as a management and communication tool has resulted in efficiencies toward electronic recording keeping, communication, reporting, etc. Due to questions of reliability, schools duplicate the information they are asked to collect, store, and manage. This duplication of information resides on both computers and in paper. As a throwback to the past, paper files have become our modern day equivalents of symbolic objects for authenticity (Ong, 2002).

However, as much as school and other traditional institutions have straddled the line between paper and digital, the rest of the world has been rapidly moving towards a digital only environment. Google is a prime example. Having developed the resources and technology to gather the world’s books and make them universally available (Kelly, 2006), Google is poised to become the iTunes of books. Combining their expertise to search, manage, and organize, Google is revolutionizing our ability to access knowledge. This directly impacts users because it then becomes Google who manages the obscurity; charged with the task of seeking out and obtaining permission for copyrights (Kelly, 2006). I feel that this significantly impacts schools in a positive manner.

Kelly (2006) hints that as a result of Google’s actions, books liberated from copyright will become commonplace. This freeing of copyright has already begun voluntarily through Creative Commons licensing. Other initiatives, such as authors donating work into the public domain and the ultraistic intentions of open textbook initiatives serve to offer schools freely accessible content. As Google develops their repository of knowledge, I see teachers using this to their advantage as a collaborative action research tool. In addition to Google, educators are enabled by the proliferation of social media tools to pursue scholarly topics, along with planning for classroom instruction.

In this case, it is as McLuhan (1967) stated in reference to the medium; technology has the ability to enact social change. Writing is a technology that has been limited due to universalism (Chandler, 1995). In the past, writing has happened in classrooms with limited ability to create authentic situations. With the advent of word processing and Web 2.0 technologies, technology has revolutionized the art of writing. These are serious tools, enabling students to develop their ideas in the same manner as professionals. Ong’s (2002) assertion that writing as a technology can only happen with the assistance of tools has never been truer. It is my opinion that writing can be a tool to create social change in two ways; i) as a metacognitive tool and, ii) through a critical literacy approach.

Because “writing is a solipsistic operation” (Ong, 2002, p. 100), it is important that educators consider this aspect in promoting writing’s role in metacognition. Use of technologically enhanced tools such as blogs and wikis not only create one’s ability to develop thoughts in a literal manner, it also allows for others to question and comment. Creating these opportunities allows the author to further explain and develop ideas.

In addition to making writing a reciprocal process, blogs and wikis have also been significant in enabling writers to expand boundaries in terms of audience. The audience for our writing is now far reaching; creating globally connected readers. It is through this affordance that students have a writing platform to develop critical literacy. By bringing social change through writing, we speak to “Multiliteracies” (The New London Group, 1996). It is through students’ critical participation as writers and their effect on audience; which will enable social change. Writing therefore plays a greater role in technological literacy.

I surmise through this “soft” view of technological determinism (Chandler, 1995), that new changes in technology may alter my perspective on technology’s ability to impact the classroom. However, this time has not yet arrived. In conclusion, although technology can be the lever for creating societal change, it still requires a conscious guide.

References

Bauer, J., & Kenton, J. (2005). Toward technology integration in the schools: Why it isn’t happening. Journal of Technology and Teacher Education, 13(4), 519–546.

Brand, S. (1999). Escaping the Digital Dark Age. Library Journal, 124(2), 46–48.

Chandler, D. (1995). Technological or media determinism. Retrieved from http://www.aber.ac.uk/media/Documents/tecdet/tecdet.html

Cuban, L., Kirkpatrick, H., & Peck, C. (2001). High access and low use of technologies in high school classrooms: Explaining an apparent paradox. American Educational Research Journal, 38(4), 813.

Hennessy, S., Ruthven, K., & Brindley, S. (2005). Teacher perspectives on integrating ICT into subject teaching: commitment, constraints, caution, and change. Journal of Curriculum Studies, 37(2), 155–192.

Kelly, K. (2006, May 14). Scan This Book! New York Times. Retrieved September 25, 2012, from http://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/14/magazine/14publishing.html?_r=1&pagewanted=all

McLuhan, M. (1967). The medium is the message. NEA Journal, 56(7), 24–27.

Ong, W. J. (2002). Writing restructures consciousness. Orality and literacy (2nd ed., pp. 77–114). New York, NY: Routledge.

Selwyn, N. (1999). Why the computer is not dominating schools: a failure of policy or a failure of practice? Cambridge Journal of Education, 29(1), 77–91. doi:10.1080/0305764990290106

Sugar, W., Crawley, F., & Fine, B. (2004). Examining teachers’ decisions to adopt new technology. Educational Technology and Society, 7(4), 201–213.

The New London Group. (1996). A Pedagogy of Multiliteracies: Designing Social Futures. Harvard Educational Review, 66(1), 60–93.

Warschauer, M. (2003). Demystifying the digital divide. Scientific American, 289(2), 42–47. doi:10.1038/scientificamerican0803-42

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A Universal, Virtual Library – Coming Soon?

Posted on September 30, 2012 by kymfrancis

Humans have always felt a need to record and preserve information for later access. Tracing back to Mesopotamia, libraries have functioned to collect, organize, and retain the writing of a culture. As we step further into the digital future, not only is our definition of writing changing, so is the manner in which we need to store, share, and preserve our history.

Although there is stability in printed text, there is a perceived need to store text digitally in a virtual or universal library. This digital library would provide one place to store all past and present knowledge. This knowledge would consist of all books, conceptual works, all languages. Kelly (2006) goes one step further, arguing the library contents should include “the entire works of humankind…available to all people, all the time”. Is it possible to collect and archive every work of art, broadcast, film, and site ever created?

The dream of a virtual library has been imagined for decades – initially as a sci-fi dream involving special goggles and helmets. Now, this vision “is weighed down with silicon chips, keyboards, screens, headsets, and other cumbersome equipment” (O’Donnell, 1993). In 2004, Google made a giant leap towards the dream, announcing they would digitally scan the books of five major research libraries to make the contents searchable, thus making every book available to every citizen with internet access. Grafton (2007) believes that the virtual library’s ability to bring all books in the world together would make it the greatest technology to impact reading since the invention of the printing press.

The Challenge of Copyright
Unfortunately, most of the world’s expertise still lies within printed books, and organizations are currently scanning about one million books a year. Changes to copyright law resulted in the abandonment of a large number of printed works. Kelly (2006) states that 75% of the world’s books are ‘orphaned’, 15% are public domain, and only 10% are still in print. Google believes they have solved the copyright issues by scanning copyrighted books, working with publishing partners to scan the 10% of printed books, and then scanning the remaining 75% without first resolving the copyright status. Google is only showing short snippets of these orphaned books, therefore still functioning with the copyright laws.

Jenner (2011) reminds us that copyright law supports the creator’s income, therefore encouraging creation of new content. Digital environments negatively affect the flow of content, limiting revenue. Currently, there is no universal database of recorded music that provides information regarding ownership, publication and performance rights. The same needs to be considered in the creation of a virtual library encompassing all text.

The Benefits
The dream of a universal library is one where not only is text accessible by every citizen, but it is organized in such a way that text can be understood at a deeper level. Kelly (2006) describes the capabilities: digital materials will be linked so that consumers will be able to connect to other materials based on subject, author, tags, and categories. Just as online search engines can predict and analyze our browsing histories, our digital library would use our preferences to create a community. Text consumers could be brought together over common text interests, and reading would become a shared activity. A community would be created through bookmarking, shared resources, and virtual bookshelves.

Kelly (2006) believes there are several key advantages to virtual libraries. Publications with limited following would find a larger audience, due to the ability to share within a community of readers and a deeper grasp of history would be possible. Readers would become more aware of what they know and don’t know, and there is greater possibility of interaction and participation with text. Making printed works searchable increases the ability to share text, thus making it more valuable.

Personally, I can’t imagine that printed books will ever become obsolete. Despite the increase in digital text available online, consumers continue to use both digital and print text. The number of printed books sold each year continues to increase, as does the number of PDF documents read online without printing (Kelly, 2006).

The Hesitation
Brand (1999) reminds us that digital storage has a limited lifespan. When we discontinue one form of storing text, there is concern that the technology used to store and locate information will become obsolete. Culture is being lost when we are no longer able to access past text. There is also concern that transitioning to a virtual library will be difficult due to the various computer systems and processing formats in use. It may take several generations to instigate true change, in which one format of storing and accessing text is used by all.

There is also difficulty in managing a universal library; computers and software change at a rapid pace. Brand (1999) states “there is still nothing in the digital world like acid-free paper” and believes we are at risk for losing our cultural memory at the price of staying current. Text goes through small changes to make it compatible with various storage formats. Consider the way storage has changed through floppy disks, to cd-rom, to online storage. With each change we have made in how we store text, we risk losing information. Think of the files you currently have stored on floppy disks. How do we access that information now?

Google has two projects working since 2002 – Google Book Search and Google Library Project, collaborating with publishers to digitize as many books as possible. There are some problems with the documents scanned by Google – some versions are mistakenly transcribed, some miss pages, and some are out of order.

Currently we are functioning within a short term solution, and we need something consistent and reliable that will last us centuries. Brand (1999) believes that digital storage is not the issue, instead it is preservation of material that we must be concerned with. Preservation will be a challenge for non-profit organizations like libraries and universities; they face significant effort and expense, in order to develop a system for easy cataloging and access. O’Donnell believes it will take several generations to move into a new medium for storing and accessing digital texts. How do we determine the best way to archive material digitally?

Conclusion
In this information age, we yearn for speed and reliability in the manner in which we search and retrieve text. It is easy to be overwhelmed by the sheer volume of information available to us. The move towards one universal, digital library creates the possibility for greatness, as well as many potential pitfalls. We have the technology to solve these problems, but we don’t have the long-term solutions necessary to effectively preserve our culture and text. What should be included in this virtual library?

 

Resources

Brand, Stewart; Sanders, Terry. Escaping the Digital Dark Age. Library Journal 124. 2 (Feb 1, 1999): 46-48.

Grafton, A. (2007, Nov 5). Future reading: Digitation and its discontents. The New Yorker. Retrieved Sept. 28, 2012 from http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2007/11/05/071105fa_fact_grafton?currentPage=all

Jenner, Peter, Copyright in the Digital Age; Benefiting Users and Creators? (December 31, 2011). Review of Economic Research on Copyright Issues, Vol. 8, No. 2, pp. 55-64, 2011. Available at SSRN: http://ssrn.com/abstract=2024579

Kelly, K. (2006, May 14). Scan this book! The New York Times. Retrieved Sept. 30, 2012, from http://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/14/magazine/14publishing.html?pagewanted=all

O’Donnell, James J. Avatars of the Word. From Papyrus to Cyberspace. Cambridge, MA: Harvard UP, 1998. 44-49.

O’Donnell, James J. The virtual library: An idea whose time has passed. Retrieved Sept. 30, 2012 from http://web.archive.org/web/20070204034556/http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/jod/virtual.html

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The Influence of Writing on Thought Processes

Posted on September 30, 2012 by ddubien
“If you can’t explain it simply, you don’t understand it well enough” (Einstein, as cited in BrainyQuote, 2012).
“The best [science writing] flows like poetry; the worst actually impedes progress of science” (Jared Diamond, as cited in Kovac & Sherwood, 2001).

In Orality and Literacy, Ong (2002) briefly discusses the impact of writing on thought processes. He indicates that written texts act as an extension of memory by permitting the reader to backloop and glance at details repeatedly, which in turn, allows for thought analysis, revision-making and selection of the most accurate wording. Given that the short-term memory has limited capacity, text certainly helps to think about concepts more thoroughly. How else does writing affect thinking? The purpose of this post is two-fold. It serves to further explain how writing influences thinking in general and in chemistry, and to provide examples of methods to develop chemical knowledge using writing activities. The post concludes with an activity for readers to apply the theory presented here.

To begin, Flower and Hayes (1981) developed the Cognitive Process Model to explain the interaction between writing and long-term memory when specific skills are used, such as planning, translating, reviewing and monitoring. Planning involves (1) generating ideas, which requires retrieving information from the long-term memory, (2) organizing concepts, which would have the writer structuring knowledge according to themes and (3) goal-setting, which guides idea generation by combining knowledge and purpose. Translating involves expressing a thought using words, symbols, images or any other means. It also challenges the writer to examine an idea in detail to accurately portray it. Reviewing consists of evaluating the text and revising it. These processes trigger further cycles of planning and translating by forcing the writer to reconsider the relevance of different sections and refining word, symbol or image choices. Monitoring involves deciding when to move from one step of the writing process to another, and as such, is a meta-cognitive skill.

While general writing skills are certainly useful for learning at a basic level, literacy skills in chemistry, for example, must be content-specific to be most beneficial (Hamilton-Wieler, 1988; Shanahan, Shanahan, & Misischia, 2011). One explanation is that “discipline-specific discourse conventions generate thoughts that […] would not be accessible without these conventions” (Bizzell, as cited in Hamilton-Wieler, 1988, p. 173).

Why are common practices insufficient for providing students with an adequate understanding of chemistry? While the need for disciplinary literacy skills has been known for a long time, students are often taught general literacy skills such as understanding of high-frequency words, reading fluency, vocabulary and comprehension (Shanahan et al, 2011). Additionally, there is too much emphasis on the mathematics involved in numerical problems and not enough focus on the concepts with which they are associated at all levels of education and writing exercises are excluded from undergraduate chemistry curricula (Kovac & Sherwood, 2001). For these reasons, it is suggested that students be taught disciplinary writing skills to improve their grasp of chemical concepts.

From experience, writing laboratory reports and literature reviews affect thought processes in many ways. Writing an introduction requires clarification of existing knowledge and justifications for performing new experiments. Data analysis causes scientists to both break information down into manageable components and to look at results globally. Describing data involves noting obvious trends, re-examining the data to find what may have previously been missed, and repeating the cycle in an attempt to develop a thorough understanding and interpretation. Throughout the process, research literature is consulted and cited, bringing to light errors, limitations and accurate claims. Ultimately, the writer must draw conclusions and in the process will make discoveries.

What kind of exercises can be used to develop relevant writing skills in chemistry courses? Kovac and Sherwood (2001) offer suggestions of informal, formal and “writing-to-learn” assignments which allow students to deal with concepts in increasingly challenging ways: listing, definition, seriation (writing an ordered list or a procedure), classification, summarization, comparison/contrast, analysis and argumentation. The assignments can vary in level of difficulty and the focus can change from the topic (explanation), to the audience (persuasion) or the author (expression). Types of assignment include project papers, abstracts, bibliographies, literature reviews, laboratory reports, proposals, popular science articles and essay examinations, among others. For those who are interested in learning more, I recommend purchasing Kovac and Sherwood’s book.

While the previous approach can be used sporadically, Esteb, Magers, McNulty and Wilson (2006) used methods that involve content spanning the length of a course. They had their undergraduate organic chemistry students write reactions according to type and mechanism in a notebook and write an end-of-semester paper about a total synthesis (complex multi-step synthesis reaction). The notebook helped the students to organize and better understand reactions, and consult lists of similar reactions to detect trends and make predictions about products in more difficult and unknown reactions. The end-of-semester assignment required students to determine the steps in a reaction to synthesize a specific product. This is an extremely complex task requiring understanding of the reactions covered during the semester. The students wrote a reflection explaining the goal of the project and predicted experimental results that would be obtained by analysing the final product.

Challenge! Select an article or video below and identify one to three terms that are sources of confusion for you. Do research on the term(s) or ask me questions. Write a short definition of each one. Then, view the article or video once again. Comment here on whether or not your conceptual understanding has improved and try to explain why.

A popular science article about a substance that is harder than diamond

A video from MIT about a laboratory technique called recrystallization (Just watch the first five minutes.)

A video of an instructor explaining an example of a total synthesis
[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QjQvDB3rjlM[/youtube]

 

References

BrainyQuote. (2012). Albert Einstein quotes. Retrieved September 30th 2012 from: http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/a/alberteins383803.html

Esteb, J. J., Magers, J. R., McNulty, L. & Wilson, A. M. (2006). Projects that assist with content in a traditional organic chemistry course. Journal of Chemical Education, 83, 1807-1808. Retrieved September 29th 2012 from: http://www.jce.divched.org/

Flower, L. & Hayes, J. R. (1981). A cognitive process theory of writing. College Composition and Communication, 32, 365-387. Retrieved September 30th 2012 from:  http://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=ncte&

Hamilton-Wieler, S. (1988). Thought process: Site of a struggle. Journal of Teaching Writing, 7(2), 167-180. Retrieved Sept 26th, 2012 from: http://journals.iupui.edu/index.php/teachingwriting/issue/archive

Ong, W. J. (2002). Orality and literacy. New York, NY: Rouledge

Shanahan, C., Shanahan, T. & Misischia, C. (2011). Analysis of expert readers in three disciplines: History, mathematics, and chemistry. Journal of Literacy Research, 43, 393-429. doi: 10.1177/1086296X11424071

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Virtual Libraries: The Question of Copyright

Posted on September 30, 2012 by Meggan Crawford

In their discussions of the creation of online libraries through the scanning of texts, both Kelly (2006) and Grafton (2007) highlight the potential that this trend has in making texts accessible to a much larger percentage of the world population and thus helping people to improve their knowledge and literacy. Although they overlook some elements, including the accessibility of technology to the world population, they do highlight one valid concern; that of copyright. Through the details of Google’s work in scanning texts and the resulting international legal battles, the question of digital copyright is brought to the forefront and we must begin to consider the ramifications of pitting social concerns against commercial ones.

As Google has been one of the front runners in the digitization of texts, they are the target of much of the conversation surrounding copyright and how scanning texts may or may not violate an author’s rights to their own texts. Grafton explains that “Google, controversially, is scanning these [possibly copyrighted] books although it is not yet making them fully available; Microsoft, more cautiously, is scanning only what it knows it can legitimately disseminate” (2007, para. 16). The contrast between the two approaches is interesting, particularly given their sometimes competitive nature. With both large companies pursuing the same goal of digitizing more texts, the difference reveals something more about the companies themselves and their views of intellectual ownership Google has faced lawsuits over this issue since 2005, resulting in a 2008 decision (that established guidelines for the United States alone) that Google must follow the Books Rights Registry and provide compensation to authors and publishers in exchange for an agreement not to sue the company further (Skidelsky, 2009). The question remains, however, as to whether or not this agreement does enough to protect authors and publishers. Does Google have the right to scan and share texts for which no one steps forward to claim compensation?

Given the looming threat of copyright now hanging over Google as more lawsuits continue around the world (for example, see Flood, 2012; Blade, 2012), it is interesting to note that the earlier competitors in the race to digitize texts, Amazon and Microsoft, have now both reversed their approaches and were a part of the original lawsuit (Skidelsky, 2009). Although the societal benefits of digital copies may be immense, the commercial concerns over copyright overwhelm the issue, leaving strict limitations upon what may or may not be scanned and distributed. In particular, Google’s scanning of texts has raised concerns not only over their violating copyright by duplicating texts that are still protected, but also by their thinking that there was no need to first gain the consent of the authors and publishers (Kelly, 2006).

I cannot help but wonder if many of these concerns are arising at least in part as a reaction to the newness of the medium. Presenting full texts online is a relatively new option and, as with most things, it will take some time to establish the details of its inner workings. Over ten years ago when discussing copyright on the Internet there was a suggestion that the need for copyright would “fade away in the digital environment because it will be unnecessary or obsolete…[and] will have no relevance in the electronic environment” (Gasaway, 1998, pg. 1003). Clearly this did not turn out to be true as millions of dollars are now being invested in seeking an answer to only one copyright question, whether it is lawful to scan books without compensating the author and publisher or, at the very least, obtaining their consent. The speed of electronic development is outpacing the advancement of copyright law and is forcing companies, individuals, and average people to reconsider what intellectual property is and what control or compensation people are entitled to.

The ways in which thoughts about copyright and the Internet have evolved since these comments were made shows the ways in which technological thinking can evolve at a relatively high speed. Whereas fourteen years ago the discussion centered around a lack of need for copyright, today it is focused upon how best to respect copyrights that are already in place and what copyright laws may cover the current additions to the electronic world. In another ten years the conversation may shift once again to viewing certain texts as open source and free to the world or perhaps it will become a world where copyrights are a part of the text itself, with a mark visible on every copyrighted text. Either way, the potential benefits and difficulties within both the social and commercial realms are limitless and cannot truly be calculated until our current copyrights are firmly established and include the emerging elements of the digital world.

References:

Blade. (2012). Appeals court suspends suit on google book scanning. France 24. Accessed from http://www.france24.com/en/20120918-appeals-court-suspends-suit-google-book-scanning.

Flood, A. (2012). US authors seek damages in google books copyright rows. The Guardian. Accessed from http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2012/aug/07/authors-damages-google-book-copyright.

Gasaway, L. N. (1998). Copyright, the internet, and other legal issues. Journal of the american society for information science. 49, 11, p. 1003-1009.

Grafton, A. (2007). Future reading: Digitization and its discontents. The New Yorker: New York.

Kelly, K. (2006). Scan this book. New York Times: New York.

Skidelsky, W. (2009). Google’s plan for world’s biggest online library: philanthropy or act of piracy? The Guardian. Accessed from http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2009/aug/30/google-library-project-books-settlement.

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From Orality to Print: How Memory Aids Saved the Epic Tale

Posted on September 30, 2012 by jjmh

Beowulf

In his book, Orality and Literacy, Walter J. Ong compares the differences between how oral and literate cultures communicate knowledge. Chapter 3 specifically addresses the qualities of primary oral cultures in contrast to the chirographic, typographic and literate cultures of today. Ong notes the difficulty a literate person has understanding primary oral culture. Literate culture depends on looking up and documenting information to preserve knowledge whereas oral culture relies on memory. A major focus of this chapter is the examination of the linguistic features associated with characterization in oral storytelling. Traditional narratives remain in tact due to situational concepts, formulaic structure and reference to the human world. The classic stories from our childhood and the historic narratives we studied in university have endured due to oral preservation, as well as the increased distribution of print text.

Ong highlights oral culture’s reliance on memory. In an oral culture, the lack of visual aids, such as text requires verbal thinking to take place in the form of patterns, and mnemonic terms. Systemic repetition and linguistic embellishment is used to ensure that information will be passed on to the next generation. Epithets bring colour and richness to speech through descriptions of “bizarre figures” that “add another mnemonic aid” (p.69). Although the prolixity of oral narration is often rejected by high literacy, the attention to vibrant character description offers a rich platform for a variety of the modern day story genres. The scene of an oral tale is most commonly known for the description of physical and often violent behaviour. The elaboration of story elements create a “highly polarized, agonistic, oral world” where language is used to juxtapose “good and evil, virtue and vice, villains and heroes” supporting the memory of the oralist (p.45). By referencing classic tales, Ong confirms that oral culture depends on memory to pass down knowledge from generation to generation.

Oral cultures refer to human experience in order to pass on knowledge to the younger generation. Ong explains the importance put on real life experience by describing the way in which job skills are acquired through apprenticeship training as opposed to print manuals. Oral cultures see the importance of “observation and practice with only minimal verbalization,” a practice that would certainly involve the development of problem-solving skills in real-time settings (p. 43). For the oral mind, the acquisition of knowledge is most commonly situated “within the context of a struggle” (p.43). The element of everyday struggle is documented in texts, such as the Iliad and Beowulf and associates the oral world with an endless sense of hardship.

Among all of the memory aids, Ong suggests that the epithet creates a strengthened formula that, once an “expression has been crystallized, had been best kept intact” (p.39). Even today, timeless sayings such as “beautiful princess,” “brave soldier” and “sturdy oak” cannot break away from their descriptors (p.38). Modern literacy views “epithets and other formulary baggage which high literacy rejects as cumbersome and tiresomely redundant” (p.38). Literate culture would contest that the act of writing frees the mind of memorizing but for primary oral culture, it was thought to “downgrade the figure of a wise man” (p.41). Oral culture unites groups of people who receive and respond to information in the same physical place, at the same time. Narrators can bring new variations to a story based on the audience they are speaking to. It is far too difficult to question the stories of a narrator because once a word has been spoken, it “soon vanishes” (p.41). A literate culture enables the distribution of current information in print while documenting events that can be retrieved at a later date. Once written text has been received, literate cultures have more freedom to react or objectify the news differently. Oral culture would say that this form of distribution isolates literate people, giving them the ability to have differing opinions towards a situation. Ong implies that although epithets transmit orally, they are protected under the authority of orality and therefore cannot be forgotten.

In oral culture, knowledge is dependant on what an educated person can recall. In contrast, a literate person would surely ask how a person recalls information without reference to text. Ong develops the idea that literate culture anticipates a set of writing conventions because of the way writing shapes the brain. Although Ong spends much of the chapter drawing attention to the differences between oral and literate culture, he ends by noting the evolutionary changes in verbal and written communication that make it impossible for either to exist independent from the other. From the beginning of chapter 3, Ong explains the difficulty a literate person has understanding the psychodynamics of primary oral culture, yet he manages to give ample explanation as to how certain memory tools bring structure to oral culture.

Reference:

Ong, W. J. (2002). Orality and Literacy. London: Routledge.

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Orality – past and present

Posted on September 30, 2012 by ceciliaysun

Initially being introduced to the topic of orality and literacy, the link between the two seems necessary and dependent upon each other. Orality has existed for a much longer period than literacy. But the eventual introduction of written text seems inevitable. In The Orality of Language, Ong (Ong, p.7) describes the great number of language, which are oral and of them very few that have developed written forms. While oral language have existed without accompanying written text, it is not true of the existence of written text without oral language (Ong, p.8).

The question that arises from this observation is what was the need for the formation of a written language if oral language has fulfilled our needs for years prior to the development of written language? One reason perhaps is the need to keep lists, charts or figures (Ong, p.97). Another reason is that written text frees the mind from the need to memorize (Ong, p.43) and allows it to be engaged to create other meanings. For someone who has not been exposed to a completely oral culture it is perhaps difficult to image why we would not move from the natural progression of oral to written language. The extent that the transformation of a culture this progression brings to a society is also difficult to grasp.

Written text and oral language however are closely linked. Ong (p.8) proposes that sound is the natural form that language takes. The transformation of oral language into written language has meant that for those who are accustomed to written language, words are not only sounds but are also visual images (Ong, p.12). We visualize the letters when we hear the sound of the word. However written culture holds greater potential for the complexity work it can produce over an oral culture (Ong, p.14). Orality therefore leads to literacy. An oral culture also has a closer link to the human experience and world (Ong, p.42).

Ong (Ong, p.9) examines the many differences between those who are exposed to a written language and those who are not. One difference is in the way they learn. People who only know oral language learn by doing, while those with written language study texts. How do people who only have oral language remember or recall facts? The answer to this is that they use mnemonics to help them remember (Ong, p.34). Oral culture promotes fluency, because pauses during speech are unnatural (Ong, p.42).

These differences appear to reflect even in a literate society those who learn verbally and those who learn from text. Often there is a preference of one method over the other and it varies among individuals. These differences stems from the cultural differences of orality and literacy. In present day where we learn abstract ideas from texts, it would seem texts are better suited for communicating this information. Our use of mnemonics minimally reflects the extent of its use in an oral society.

In oral language the speaker doesn’t hold the same authority as source of knowledge as written text does (Ong, p.77-78). We hold the author of written text responsible for what is said. This point very much reminds me of the debate over copy right of text. We can place copy right on text and control the distribution of sharing that text. In an oral cultural this problem is not existent. Oral cultural is passed down and the source of it may be difficult to locate. In todays written culture the question of whether a resource should be controlled or if it should be free to incorporate into our own creation (Lessig, p.12) need to be asked while is was not a problem in an oral culture.

References:
Lessig, L. (2001). The future of ideas. New York: Random House.

Ong, W. (1982). Orality and literacy. New York: Routledge.

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Is Determinism Too Determined?

Posted on September 30, 2012 by kstackhouse

Is Determinism Too Determined?

Introduction

Ong (1982) poses that the technology of writing enables us to reach our full potential, that we can gain a higher consciousness, and to “live and to understand fully, we need proximity but also distance” (Ong, 1982, p. 81).  While much could be said about how this view establishes literate cultures above oral cultures, the deterministic views on writing as a technology must first be discussed.  Technological determinism arguments that follow this line of thought can be too simplistic a viewpoint on how cultures and communities interact. Other factors must be considered when trying to understand how a technology’s creation and adoption impact society.

Chandler (1995) expresses concerns over theories of Determinism in regards to technology.  Technological Determinism is evident in Ong’s (1982) views on how writing as a technology has changed how we think, behave, and interact with others. Determinism may not take into account the full scope of how technology is created. This type of thinking focuses too much on the technology itself and not the driving forces that helped create the need for and completion of the technology’s invention (Stackhouse, 2012).

Technological Determinism

Technological Determinism regards technology as the “agent of social change” (Murphie & Potts, 2003, p. 11).  Technological determinism, in forms like Ong’s (1982) views on writing, proclaim that the technology itself changes all aspects of a society, from its institutions down to the individual level (Chandler, 1995, Technology-led Theories  section, para. 2).  Murphie & Potts (2003) describe this as the idea that technology development is progress and considers the technology as an “independent factor, with its own properties” they go on to add that the development of the technology is “removed from social pressures, it follows a logic or imperative of its own” (p. 12).

Murphy & Potts (2003) point out that this view can be too focused on one side of the issue.  This narrow focus looks at technologies separately and that they come into being “of their own accord and proceed to mould societies in their image” (p. 17). The authors discuss that some may criticize Determinism when they mention critics of Baudrillard and his extreme views on Determinism. However, they do say that even he can be used as a reminder of how technology has had an impact on culture, “an effect, largely beyond social control” (Murphie & Pots, 2003, p. 17). This theory views the technologies as a driving force in changing society. It also looks, as Murphie & Potts (2003) put it, “to the present, projected onto the future” (2003, p. 12).

The idea that society only responds to technology and how it changes society does not allow for the cultural (work, social, communication) demands of society that made way for technologies to be created in response to these demands. Nor does it consider how humans choose to use and interact with the technology available (Chandler, 1995, Theoretical Stance section, para. 14). While the use of technology (writing, texting, social media, etc.) has altered our culture; it was also created as a response to how people wanted to be able to work, communicate, and interact. So, in this sense there is a teeter-totter, give and take between the technology and society. Societies have changing needs and demand changes, the technology provides them, and then society and culture adapt to the new technology (Stackhouse, 2012).  This view may align more closely to other theories such as Socio-Cultural Determinism rather than Technological Determinism.

Socio-Cultural Determinism

Socio-Cultural Determinism may be a more fitting stance on writing and its determining factors.  This view would look more to other aspects involved when dealing with a technology.  Winston and Williams (as cited in Murphie & Potts, 2003) were two historians that were interested in the “pre-existing social formations in which technological developments occur” (p. 19).  Chandler (1995, Theoretical Stances section para. 14) acknowledges that the critics of Technological Determinism try to emphasize other factors that lead to the development of technology.

In this sense then we would have to look at the history of orality and what led to the development of literate societies.  Ong (1982) does present historical implications of how writing as a technology came to be and how it has developed.  From here though he moves to the Determinism mindset that can be easily shown in his statement, “More than any other single invention, writing has transformed human consciousness” (Ong, 1982, p. 77).  Ong is giving the technology (writing) the power to transform us without our control.  This gives the technology its own autonomy.  Chandler (1995) cautions that this belief in ‘technological autonomy’ may lead to a “self-fulfilling prophecy” (Technological Autonomy section, para. 20).  This could mean that the arguments that Ong (1982) uses in declaring writing as a technology that acts on its own to create social change may be circular and it would be difficult to know which caused one or the other to happen.

Conclusion

Determinism focusing on technology to determine how we think and act ignores how we came to that point.  What was the cultural climate or the needs of a society that led to the point of the technology (in the case of this commentary, the technology of writing) being created? In Chandler’s (1995) conclusion he states that technology is a factor that impacts human behaviour and society, and we must consider that any great technology has the potential to impact society.  We cannot ignore the impact that technologies, including writing, have had on literate societies.  We must also realize that the technology is a tool that is developed through human need and innovation.  In this sense humans are the determining factor in how a technology will be adopted and impact society.

References:

Chandler, D. (1995). Technological or Media Determinism [Online]. Retrieved, 20 September, 2012 from http://www.aber.ac.uk/media/Documents/tecdet/tecdet.html

Critiquing Ong: The problem with technological determinism. [Course notes].
Retrieved from Lecture Notes [Online]. Retrieved, 19 September, 2012 From: https://www.vista.ubc.ca/webct/urw/tp9275170934161.lc9275170913161/cobaltMainFrame.dowebct

Murphie, A. and Potts, J. (2003). Culture and technology. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.

Ong, W. (1982.) Orality and literacy: The technologizing of the word. London: Methuen.

Stackhouse, K. (2012, September 10). Determining determinism [Forum Posting, ETEC 531]. Retrieved, 14 September, 2012 From: https://www.elearning.ubc.ca

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Writing – An Autonomous Discourse for a ‘Fictional’ Audience

Posted on September 30, 2012 by Johanne Brochu

The act of writing might be isolated but to be a good writer in order to reach what Ong (2002) called the ‘fictional’ audience (p. 100), I believe, is to use the ‘right’ written words, the ones that reflect our thoughts the best.  And this can be challenging.  Clearly, it needs self-confidence to transfer original thoughts in writing, perseverance and dedication to complete what I think is an absolute self-directed act.  Moreover, and most difficult, a writer must have the ability to materialize the written words into reality so the audience can understand his thoughts.  Indeed, transcribing is a complex process that humans are uniquely capable of; and it continues to evolve over generations. 

Autonomous Discourse in Writing

Plato (n.d.), through the voice of Socrates in Phaedrus, argued that written words were poor in comparison to spoken arguments.   Likewise, Ong (2002) said that “writing establishes what has been called ‘context-free’ language” “or ‘autonomous’ discourse” (p. 77) which he compared to oral speech that can be contested while written discourse cannot. Nevertheless, the idea that writing is detached from the author is questionable; in today’s society, the written words chosen by an author must be articulated and should be supported. 

However, Ong (2002) stated that writing “separates the knower from the known” (p. 43).  According to him, people “need not only proximity but also distance” (p. 81) to fully understand what is written and get into the writer’s mind.  Moreover, Ong (2002) developed an interesting point about writing being not natural but artificial which allows the reader’s mind to open up in new directions.  It is this artificiality that “establishes in the text a ‘line’ of continuity outside of the mind.” (p. 39)

Hence, writing should be considered an instrument of “power” (p. 92) as it gives the readers new avenues to investigate and endless possibilities to innovate.  Indeed, “by taking conservative functions on itself, 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” (p.41).  So, the process of writing allows a new organization of the thoughts; using written words is liberating the mind in some ways.

Writing: is this really a Solipsistic Operation?

Furthermore, Ong (2002) assured that “writing is a solipsistic operation” (p. 100) where the writer is alone and his writing, introspective.  Moreover, since the writer and the reader are isolated from each other as Ong (2002) alleged, the interpretation of a text may vary from audience to audience.  Still, if his words are right, can it be for the best interest of the supposedly well written piece?  Thus, since the reader can interpret the writer’s thoughts by the words he is using, it becomes important to choose them well.  Even though the ‘perfect chosen words’ will never be perfectly chosen it is necessary to decide on some words that will best represent the person’s thoughts. 

Therefore, despite the fact that the author may question the degree of his ‘fictional’ audience’s ability to understand his thoughts, it is important to note that “the medium is the message” (Marshall McLulan, 1964).  In fact, by choosing words to represent his thoughts, the writer is adapting to others, even though he doesn’t know the readers, so the text can be understood by his readers.  Hence, it certainly demonstrates a form of socialization that can only happen while the writer is in contact, even fictionally, with others which I believe is contradicting Ong (2002)’s thoughts on the subject when speaking about writing as a “solipsistic operation” (p. 100).

The Effect of Written Words on Readers     

In addition, the characteristics of the words chosen are going to determine the degree to which the readers are affected.  However, we can ask what will be the pros and cons for the written words to be understood differently by the readers and if it changes something for the writer at the end?  Also, does interpretation or misinterpretation of a text influence societal evolution?  Whose responsibility is the ‘right’ interpretation of a written text: the writer or the reader?  Is there such a thing as a ‘right’ interpretation of a text?  And can written words be specifically chosen by the writer to captivate the audience in a certain way?  Could it be looked as a form of cheating the audience?  Does the reader ‘fictionalize’ the writer like the writer does with the reader?  And does that have an impact on the reader’s interpretation of the text?  

These are just a few questions I would have liked Ong (2002) answers in the fourth chapter of his book Orality and Literacy but, ironically, since the written words cannot be questioned, as suggested by the author himself (p. 100), it allows me to self-debate my own thoughts. 

Externalizing Writing into the World

As it first started with oral stories that over time were written in sophisticated manners depending on culture and history, words are now expanding through more new technologies – including written words (e.g. text messages on a cell phone, forty characters messages on Twitter) – which diversify the writing communication spaces but where miscommunications may happened more often.  After all, written words may be understood differently depending on the readers’ individual and cultural values.  

Conclusion

Ultimately, the words might be the same but their meanings might change.  And according to Postman (1992) if we considers words being the equivalent of technology, “our task is to understand what that design is – That is to say, when we admit a new technology to the culture, we must do so with our eyes wide open” (p. 7).  Consequently, I agree with Ong (2002) when he said that “technology imperiously commandeers our most important terminology.  It redefines “freedom”, “truth”, “intelligence”, “fact”, “wisdom”, “memory”, “history” – all the words we live by.  And it does not pause to tell us.  And we do not pause to ask”. (p. 9).  Finally, it is safe to say that using written words to express ideas brings humanity to the world.

References

McLullan, M. (1964). Understanding Media: The extensions of man. McGraw-Hill.

Ong, W. J. (2002). Orality and literacy: the technologizing of the word. (pp. 1-114). London: Routledge.  

Plato. (n.d.). Phaedrus. (Jowett, B, Trans.). Retrieved from http://www.gutenberg.org/catalog/world/readfile?fk_files=1446405

Postman, N. (1992). Technology: The surrender of culture to technology. New York: Vintage books.

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