Oral vs Written and the Role of Memorization
One of the items I found most interesting in the reading was that in oral cultures memorization of literature and ballads took on a different form, by using blocks of phrases instead of repeating the same words each time. I think that this really illustrates how our brains have changed with the written word. Since we have the capability to record each word we do, thus creating a record to refer back to and judge our performance against. I think it has also led us to become more direct and quicker even in our spoken language. If you look back to some of the old writings you can see how our language has changed even in written history. When you read works by the Ancient Greeks they are often written the same way that you would say them, or, as is the case with Phaedrus, are written in dialogue. Ong mentions that in Ancient Greece orators did not write down their speeches ahead of time as we commonly do. Even though they had written language, they were closer to the oral tradition than we are. It is interesting to observe the development of written culture as more and more people became literate.
I also found it interesting that in cultures with oral tradition children do not learn through memorization but through observation and experimental learning. I think the idea of rote learning is a product of our literate culture because the “right” answer is recorded somewhere and you as a learner are judged on your similarity to the correct version. Now that we have such easy access to written information I don’t see a place for rote memorization. I think it is much more important that we teach our students how to do things or how to find the information they need, instead of having them memorize a bunch of facts. Generally speaking, you tend to have a quick recall on information that you use all the time and most people now will look something up rather than rack their brains for the answer. I think this is both a good thing, we have access to so much information and the possibility to learn so much, but also a bad thing. We don’t exercise our minds, and work to recall information that is there but far away because it is so much easier just to look it up. For example, if I’m watching a movie and I think a person or a place look familiar, instead of thinking and going through my memories until I find it, I google. It might be more satisfying in the short run because I quickly know the answer, but I do worry about not working on my memory.
I think education is extremely different now that we are based in a written culture. It often seems to be that we are more concerned with students all having the same, “correct” answer than their thought process and the skills they are developing. In many ways I think we are starting to move back because there has been more research and discussion about different teaching methods, like experimental learning or skills based learning.
It’s a pleasure to read this post about memorization and how it was so important in oral cultures, but less used in contemporary literate cultures.
It seems that there might be some skills of the oral culture that have survived to today’s literate society – I think particularly of people who remember and tell jokes, even whole repertoires of them. How is it done?
Perhaps some aspects of oral culture have been retained long after humans lost sole reliance on oral communication. It chimes with something Engell said in ‘From Papyrus to Cyberspace’ (O’Donnell & Engell, 1999), in that old and new technologies integrate into an “an onion layers situation”.
Perhaps we have retained more of rhetoric and memorization than we realise? It could be held that ‘like, ‘like’, ‘like’ is the modern day way of saying ‘and’, ‘and’, ‘and’.
Thank you for your post, Catherine. It has helped me to think about how the idea of memory is different for oral and literate cultures.
In oral cultures, there is no concept of verbatim memorization. As you pointed out, skilled speakers drew on a repertoire of phrases to construct a version of a well-known narrative that was different with each telling. This required great familiarity with the plot and characters of their tale so that they could fluidly develop the story for each new audience. They also needed to have ready access to their repertoire of phrases so that they could make the most appropriate choice “in real time”. Unlike a writer, the epic poets could not hesitate or backtrack while they were delivering their performances. This did not limit them to telling simple stories, as we can see from intricate and complex tales such as The Odyssey. Jenny Strauss Clay, in Homer, Mapping and Mnemonics, gives us an idea of how elaborate that story is, and describes the poet’s technique as cinematic. This challenges the idea that oral cultures are not capable of developing intricate or detailed thought. Instead of depending on external memory (written works) as we do, these cultures developed a technology that allowed them to weave complex oral texts.
As you’ve pointed out, written works provide a “definitive” version of a story, and insist that memorization must reproduce the work precisely. Oral performance of a written work relies on verbatim memory and doesn’t permit the sort of creative weaving that performance of an oral work does. Literacy limits memory to exact recall. If we think of memory in this limited way, it doesn’t seem that we have lost much by relying on written works to supplement our memories. After all, if we can’t remember something, we can always just look it up. Ong (2003) claims that this frees our human consciousness for a fuller potential, but I wonder if we haven’t lost an ability to be creative in the moment because we don’t have the immediate access to our knowledge that the epic poets had.
References
Homer, Mapping and Mnemonics, with Jenny Strauss Clay. (2013, March 25). Retrieved June 4, 2015, from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yEuYsvxAyRM
Ong, Walter J.. (2003). Orality and Literacy. Routledge. Retrieved 31 May 2015, from
Hi Catherine et.al.;
In reading your post and the attached comments it came to me that the movement from oral cultures to include writing was not a bad idea. In looking at the positive side of this change, we now have a record (if only meager) of the existence of these oral systems. You wrote “in oral cultures memorization of literature and ballads took on a different form, by using blocks of phrases instead of repeating the same words each time. I think that this really illustrates how our brains have changed with the written word.” Would we have been able to learn so much of our past without the use of writing? What would our lives be like if writing had instead developed into a trend, a passing fade? “Since we have the capability to record each word we do, thus creating a record to refer back to and judge our performance against.” Having the capability to compare may be a good thing. We have heard of how First Nation oral languages were helpful as codes during times of war.
It’s quite possible that the Brothers Grimm took note of the Greek orators and started recorded the folklore to preserve the culture and make it available to all (see quote on page 2-3 from their first edition from 1812).
https://books.google.ca/books?id=p3QYBAAAQBAJ&pg=PR4&lpg=PR4&dq=Zipes,+J.+(2014).+Grimm+Legacies:+The+Magic+Spell+of+the+Grimms%27+Folk+and+Fairy+Tales.&source=bl&ots=W0hHwfYXQZ&sig=Mx-as_Cel36uof0AGV7GIKNC7L0&hl=en&sa=X&ei=8viIVaaRNIzsoATPq4X4Aw&ved=0CEIQ6AEwBg#v=onepage&q=Zipes%2C%20J.%20(2014).%20Grimm%20Legacies%3A%20The%20Magic%20Spell%20of%20the%20Grimms’%20Folk%20and%20Fairy%20Tales.&f=false
Would we have been able to maintain these historical treasures without the emerging technology of the day? And closer to home is the work of Canadians like folklorist, Helen Creighton, who took it upon themselves to collect local oral culture.
Creighton, Mary Helen (1899–1989), folklorist.
Born to an upper-class Nova Scotian family, Helen Creighton… In 1928, out of an interest in journalism, she began collecting Nova Scotian folksongs. She attended the Indiana University Summer Institute of Folklore in 1942, and her collecting efforts in the 1940s were supported by the Library of Congress and the Rockefeller Foundation. From 1947 to 1967 she held contracts with the National Museum of Canada. While folksongs remained Creighton’s emphasis, she was less selective in collecting folklore than many of her contemporaries. Nevertheless, she has been criticized for concentrating heavily on communities of European descent and for contributing to an anti-modernist vision of Nova Scotia. Although her significant collection of field recordings and over 80 books and articles had minimal impact on the academic study of folklore, their regional popular influence was significant. ‘The Nova Scotia Song’, collected in 1933 and known familiarly as ‘Farewell to Nova Scotia’, is the province’s unofficial anthem. Creighton’s Dartmouth home, ‘Evergreen’, is part of the Nova Scotia Museum system, and an annual festival celebrates her work and memory. DIANE TYE
And then there is the work to preserve the Inuit languages of the Canadian north. I recall listening to a conversation on the CBC (the names escape me at this moment) on how efforts were being made to record the Eskimo languages. It opened my eyes to a new area of Canada I knew very little about and one that we as a nation should have learnt more about.
Thank you for letting me look on the brighter side.
Terry
http://indigenousfoundations.arts.ubc.ca/home/culture/languages.html
Smith, W. (2013). Happily Ever After: The folk tales gathered by the Brothers Grimm not only enchant us; they record the hardships European families endured for centuries. The American Scholar, (1), 105.
Tye, D.(2004). Creighton, Mary Helen. In The Oxford Companion to Canadian History. : Oxford University Press. Retrieved 22 Jun. 2015, from http://www.oxfordreference.com.ezproxy.okanagan.bc.ca/view/10.1093/acref/9780195415599.001.0001/acref-9780195415599-e-410.
Zipes, J. (2014). Grimm Legacies: The Magic Spell of the Grimms’ Folk and Fairy Tales. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
” …instead of thinking and going through my memories until I find it, I google. It might be more satisfying in the short run because I quickly know the answer, but I do worry about not working on my memory.”
I recall (what a memory) that I have in my cupboard of games boxed game called Memory which is made up of various cards with images of different objects. It has always been a big hit with little people who come to visit so has stayed in my collection. I guess the adult version is the one that is played at baby/wedding showers.
My husband would test my memory when we were on road trips. Begin the driver, he got to control the radio/ music selections which tended to be mostly classical. I would have to identify the composer. And as classical music was not my first love, I was quite pleased with myself when I got one right. I think we need to come up with ways to put our memory cells in various situations so as to reap a fully potential of its powers.
Terry