Orality & Literacy – Post 2
Reading through Ong’s work was at times very overwhelming. I found myself being challenged by his points and wondering where he was coming from. This being, I spent some time researching Ong and his life. Finding out about the time period in which Ong lived (1912 – 2003), as well as his life as an American Jesuit priest, professor of English literature, cultural and religious historian and philosopher – helped to give me some context into his writing. Although his work is consumed with references to the Bible and various forms of literature from all over the world, I found myself still focused on the time period in which he lived. Ong must have been greatly inspired to cultivate his ideas on orality and literacy due to the amount of growth in which he would have bared witness to. Ong’s book Orality and Literacy: The Technologizing of the Word, was published in 1982 (2nd ed. 2002), and discusses the differences between oral and literate cultures, interestingly enough 1982 was the same year that Times Magazine Man of the Year is named as being, THE COMPUTER. Technology was clearly on the rise and societal value was being placed more profoundly on the evolution of technological strides and literacy. The evolution of oral language to text would have been enormous to someone like Ong. Ong’s culture would have completely shifted. This understanding, led me to answer the following question:
How might an understanding of possible differences in communication practices in oral and literate cultures inform educational software design? With respect to this question, you might wish to consider Ong’s statements about what he terms the “secondary orality” of high-technology culture (see p. 11, pp. 135-138).
In order to understand a culture, one must first examine and clearly identify what “they” as a distinct group of people value and what it is that “they” consider necessary to go about their daily lives. This being, communication would be the most fundamental part of a culture. Examining how a group communicates with one another would be a necessity in understanding it at its most basic and organic level. This fact is especially true if you are trying to integrate or sell a specific educational software design. Stepping outside of our highly literate and text-heavy culture, it is important for us to recognize that not all culture have bought into the literate way of life. This ‘secondary orality’, that Ong coined to describe “our” type of text-savy culture is “essentially a more deliberate and self-conscious orality, based permanently on the use of writing and print” (Ong, p. 136). Ong deemed the most primary or original orality as being that of pre-literate cultures, where human interaction and participation are the primary forces in communication. However, Ong raises the point that primary and secondary orality may not in fact exist in isolation, but instead in a different and more transformed relationship: “Electronic devices are not eliminating printed books but are actually producing more of them. Electronically taped interviews produce ‘talked’ books and articles by the thousands which would never have seen print before taping was possible. The new medium here reinforces the old, but of course transforms it because it fosters a new, self-consciously informal style, since topographic oolk believe that oral exchange should normally be informal” (Ong, pp. 132-133).
Walter J. Ong (1982). Orality and Literacy: The Technologizing of the Word. London: Methuen.
I really appreciate the way that you made of sense of Ong’s writing and work. When I am overwhelmed by the reading (specifically Ong), I tend to isolate myself out of embarrassment that I should understand, question, or react in a certain way. What I have discovered is that it is immeasurably helpful to come read posts on the blog. Whether I read a post and think “Oh thank goodness I’m not the only one!” or “Ahhh so that’s what he/she meant!”, I leave with a better, deeper understanding of the overall ideas and message. Secondly, I am better able to identify ideas or points to research and where my beliefs fall in line. Not only has this given me insight into the course, I have developed a greater sense of how to support my students as readers, writers, and critical thinkers. Your introduction about researching Ong himself was a strategy I would have never thought of but seems so obvious now. If hindsight is 20/20, then background knowledge is an excellent strategy for making sense of a difficult or overwhelming piece of text. 🙂