Even in today’s society where our concepts of communication are constantly evolving due to the influence of the\u00a0World Wide Web<\/a>, these flawed\u00a0beliefs still\u00a0exist. \u00a0Cultures around the world who still rely on mainly oral forms of communication are often instantaneously labeled as undeveloped, uneducated, subordinate, and impoverished. \u00a0This is also fuelled by the way certain forms of communication are treated within North America, today, where oral communication is seen as lesser than the ability to read and write, and illiteracy is treated as a problem that plagues the poor and useless. \u00a0Orality is often framed within this ideology that those without a written text central to their society are not as well off, in need of help, and are part of a statistic\u00a0that teaches us about realities of poverty in the US and Canada. \u00a0Furthermore, many respected scholars within the realm of communication support and advocate these same ideas. \u00a0In Courtney MacNeil’s article on “Orality”<\/a>, the Toronto School of Communication places alphabetical writing as “absolutely necessary for the development of not only science, but also of history, philosophy… [and] literature…and of any art”.<\/p>\n However, there are undoubtedly many problematic aspects of this way of thinking that frames communication on a hierarchy. \u00a0 As J. Edward Chamberlain points out in his text “If This Is Your Land, Where Are Your Stories?”, this way of judging\u00a0cultures, where orality is always subordinated by the more desirable and respected form of written text, encourages a “blend of condescension and contempt” for those that fail to fit Western and European standards. \u00a0Furthermore, even when other cultures do have their own forms of “written culture”, they fail to be recognized as legitimate because they do not fit the confines of the syllabic and alphabetical understanding of writing that governs Western society. \u00a0This binary structure of orality vs. writing thus fosters an incredibly hostile and toxic environment\u00a0where other cultures and minorities are appropriated to Western and European ideologies of what is significant, what is respected, what is REAL.<\/p>\n In reality, not only do oral and written forms of communication coexist in their importance, but the defining features of what constitutes as a “written text” are far from limited to Western and European ideals of letters, syllables and alphabets. \u00a0On page 20 of Chamberlain’s text, he notes that for some so-called “oral cultures”, a written text exists for them but in the form of “woven and beaded belts and blankets…canes and sticks, masks [and] hats and chests”. \u00a0Moreover, for countries like China that have a very rich and flourishing culture, written text comes in the forms of characters that do not fit the Western standards of a standard alphabet. \u00a0In fact, many\u00a0of the original versions of these characters, that have changed from dynasty to dynasty, found their way to be from pictures and stories. \u00a0Thus, by seeing communication as a hierarchy with rigid rules about what constitutes culture, we are hindering ourselves from the potential benefits of communication that can only happen by seeing spoken word and written text as\u00a0“mutually interdependent”<\/a>.<\/p>\n The reality is that “our stories” and our cultures can not flourish successfully from only relying on written text and\u00a0seeing orality as a thing of the past. \u00a0Instead, we must realize that all of us are “much more involved in both oral and written traditions than we might think”, and that the hierarchal understanding of the two must be abandoned for us to move forward.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Works Cited<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Butler, Chris. “The Invention of the Printing Press and Its Effects.”\u00a0Flow of History.\u00a0<\/em>N.p., 2007. Web. 21 May 2015. <\/http:\/\/www.flowofhistory.com\/units\/west\/11\/FC7>.<\/p>\n Chamberlin, J. Edward. If This Is Your Land, Where Are Your Stories?: Finding Common Ground<\/i>. Toronto: Knopf Canada, 2003. Print.<\/p>\n “Invention of Paper in China.” History of China.\u00a0<\/em>N.p., 2007. Web 19 May 2015. <http:\/\/www.history-of-china.com\/han-dynasty\/invention-of-paper.html>.<\/p>\n MacNeil, Courtney. “Orality.” The Chicago School of Media Theory<\/i>. N.p., 2007. Web. 21 May 2015. <https:\/\/lucian.uchicago.edu\/blogs\/mediatheory\/keywords\/orality\/>.<\/p>\n Olmstead, Gracy. “The Death of Writing & Return of Oral Culture.”\u00a0The American Conservative.\u00a0<\/em>N.p., 2013. Web 20 May 2015. <http:\/\/www.theamericanconservative.com\/death-writing-oral-culture\/>.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Welcome back ENGL 470! Prompt:\u00a0Explain why the notion that cultures can be distinguished as either\u00a0\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. The idea that\u00a0orality is a primitive precursor to written text is a concept that is […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":26232,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-24","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/fredaliblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/fredaliblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/fredaliblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/fredaliblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/26232"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/fredaliblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=24"}],"version-history":[{"count":13,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/fredaliblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":78,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/fredaliblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24\/revisions\/78"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/fredaliblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=24"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/fredaliblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=24"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/fredaliblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=24"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"18\"](\"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/fredaliblog\/files\/2015\/05\/18.jpg\")
\u00a0<\/a>\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0![\"chinese-characters1\"](\"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/fredaliblog\/files\/2015\/05\/chinese-characters1-300x152.jpg\")
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