My thoughts on: Some psychodynamics of orality – Chapter Three
Some psychodynamics of orality – Chapter Three
In his introduction, Ong (1982) divided humanity into oral and writing cultures. I was a bit confused earlier about not providing direct examples on which culture or the time Ong meant in his introduction? But later on, he made it clearer that his argument covers the “Homeric Greece to those of the present day across the globe” (p. 35). Later in the third chapter, Ong challenged us to imagine an oral culture, and oral words with no meaning. He refers to this culture with no knowledge and illiterate.
Ong had degraded the oral culture and stripped it from articulating knowledge in the absence of figures or writing. However, I argue that beside what the oral culture possess there is powerful memorizing abilities and adaptive tools; because, the body organs like the brain, have to make more effort to accommodate the human needs which is to retain important events and communicating it from one generation to another. On the other hand, Ong also mentioned that in oral cultures the rhythmic patterns in articulating the verbal words is essential because it helps in retaining the information and its meaning. Therefore, the mnemonic techniques to help express and retain ideas were used for that purpose as well. In contrast, writing skills free the mind from the memorization task and gives it more prospective to articulate more complex thinking (Ong, p, 41). Ong claims that oral cultures do not use language to store knowledge but to “engage others in verbal and intellectual combat” (p. 44) which I oppose, because those were the tools that oral culture had at that time. The human being’s nature tends to retain the memory and the oral culture tries different ways to keep these memories to exist from one generation to another.
Obviously, it is easy to differentiate between the oral and the writing culture. The interaction of both cultures constitutes life with all its ambiguities. In oral culture, as mentioned by Ong, there is no dictionary and the words’ meaning is situational. There are many differences and intersections between these two cultures. The oral culture depends on memory while the writing culture is not. The oral culture is faster in generating the words while the writing culture takes longer time for that task because it requires deeper thinking. The author with the examples given about the intellectuality of people in responding to questions of case studies in chapter three has linked knowledge with education and writing, which I agree with, on how education and knowledge are linked to writing, however, it is not an indicator of the intellectual well-being. These people might be smart but they were not given the proper education to reflect their strengths. Their primitive thinking and endeavors were the precursor of the development of the human being. Without them we might not have this contemporary technology and advanced education. An interesting result found that the technique used by illiterate people (oral culture) in memorization and repetition could not have the same powerful effect if used by literate people (writing culture) (p.62).
There is no doubt that the language being used is essential in our life and those people who are specialized in language appreciate facts and trace the history behind it. Ong has mentioned many cultures and civilization but also ignored other people that master the oral skills in retaining and transferring the civilization and having a huge input in the recent modern world. I might be wrong but that what I noticed in this chapter.
Bassam
Ong, Walter. (1982.) Orality and literacy: The technologizing of the word. London: Methuen
Hello Bassam,
In your response to “Orality and Literacy” (Ong, 1982) you mentioned “Ong claims that oral cultures do not use language to store knowledge but to “engage others in verbal and intellectual combat” (p. 44) which I oppose, because those were the tools that oral culture had at that time. The human being’s nature tends to retain the memory and the oral culture tries different ways to keep these memories to exist from one generation to another.”
You do make an excellent point in that those were the tools available at that time. However, by engaging in verbal and intellectual combat ideas deepen. Perhaps this was a tool in itself to help store knowledge.
In the book “How People Learn” (Bransford, Brown, and Cocking, 2002, there is a discussion about how people become ‘experts’ and how they manage to retain information into their long term memory. It discusses the importance of ‘transfer’ by taking existing knowledge and applying it to new situations. Verbal combat would be a fantastic mode for transferring knowledge and deepening understanding. Since people were dependent upon the retention of oral history it was imperative that people also became ‘experts’ in that knowledge.
Just my thoughts.
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References:
Bransford, John D., Ann L. Brown, and Rodney R. Cocking. “How people learn.” (2002).
Ong, Walter. (1982.) Orality and literacy: The technologizing of the word. London: Methuen
Hi Bassam,
Your mention of Ong’s (1982) idea that pattern, repetition and antagonism feature strongly oral societies is a really interesting point to make.
My own history is as a classicist, so I have a little more insight into the Greek context that Ong is referring to. In Greek oral poetry, poets like Homer used the dactylic-hexameter to remember key ideas through pattern. It’s a fairly complex pattern and can be used to organize a lot of information effectively. They also used epithets with peoples and gods’ names. Achilles the brave, Athena the maiden, Hector the bold; they were used to remember the key features of the characters. They are also great at emphasizing a characteristic of that person. Often people in tribal societies distinguish people with epithets and they stick, much like nicknames. Not to say that it isn’t something that survives in literate cultures. Romans used epithets based on victories and personal characters. Augustus, Germanicus, and Brittanicus were are epithets of famous emperors and generals. So the use of naming as a rhetorical tool is quite common.
About the antagonism used in oral cultures you may be right. In the Greek case however, antagonism seems to be quite important. Rhetorical barbs were quite common and most speech is about praise or blame. I think this is because group coherence in tribal societies (and many societies) is based around ‘the other.’ By verbally or symbolically attacking the other, you can display dominance over them. In Herodotus, Xerxes curses the Bosphorous river with insults and throws chains into it to assert dominance. So verbal attack wasn’t uncommon even against inanimate objects.
Similarly, ritual often had a similar purpose. Through formulaic speech and act, a person could have power over nature. This was taken to the extreme by Romans. They often had intricate spoken rituals to persuade gods to favour them. So oral language had considerable power as a method of control, much like how Ong describes the importance of name.
Between people, oral language would also be useful in showing power. By being a better speaker and doing things like what Ong calls ‘dozens’ can demonstrate power over another, especially in a community. Similarly, by praising another person or bestowing praise on that person, the speaker demonstrates power. One of the most interesting things is that minor characters in Greek Poetry have no or little voice. There is an army but the poet doesn’t care about them. They never get to speak because speech is reserved for the powerful. So, oral language and recognition of power are linked at least in Greek poetry.
In other societies, I’m not sure if Ong has a case but I suspects he there are some similarities. Power needs to be communicated by discourse in communities, and whatever form of discourse that exists will be adapted to serve power relations in some way. Hence antagonism in that medium will ensue.
Ong. Walter. (1982). Orality and Literacy. New York: Methuen.