All cultures have oral and written language. To say one is either or, is a mistake in understanding how culture operates. The mistake in this train of though is the very distinction between written and oral as to separate entities, with oral usually subservient to written. First deconstructing the idea that cultures can be defined as one or the other, when written cultures have oral traditions is in and of itself confusing. The creation between the duality of the two ignores the interdependent relationship of the two forms of communication. Literature and stories exist on the same level, in order to have literature one must have stories to write about. On the other hand stories must rely on a literary canon, history, culture, etc., to uphold their believability.
In his article Courtney MacNeil goes over the ideas of Walter Ong, who categorizes orality into that of cultures that have no writing and those that use oral language as communicative that derive from writing.But as MacNeil and Chamberlin (75) mentioned this is wrong to delegate the oral to an imaginary position of subjugation under the written. Writing itself is a communication form that can be short sloopy and crude, abbreviations and slang one of the most basic. In this day and age writing can even include pictures such as gifs. Expanding even further on the concept of the oral and the written, both serve different functions of communication. It’s hard and almost impossible for an individual to give up one or the other as a form of communication. Then in the presence of story telling, the order of speech to written can be true, but in the contexts of forms such as movies, recordings and other forms of media, we work backwards from the written to the oral or the seen. In forms of communication through ideas and displays of leadership we value the oral abilities, charisma and debating skills are those that are prized in communicative forms in both business and politics.
In the first chapter of his book, “If This is Your Land, Where are Your Stories?” Chamberlin discuses the distinction and the entwinement of imagination and reality (73). He talks about the ceremonies of belief that we go through as we tell ourselves the stories that we wish to create into reality. Professor Paterson dissects Chamberlin’s ideas on the intersections of ‘land’ and ‘home,’ how both are forms of storytelling that rely on the realities of power to enforce in order to make them real. The real world depends on the ideas that shape it, countries are not things that simply exist, but they are maintained by the power structures that created them and the people that believe in their laws and rule. This is what Chamberlin speaks of when he talks about how stories shape reality. This particular story about the duality of oral and written and the subsequent subjugation of the oral to the written is a story that we create and re-enforce through our everyday actions. Yet as one is hard-pressed to give up one form for the other, this duality serves no larger purpose, both forms work together and to separate one from the other seems counterproductive in terms of simple communication.
Reference:
Chamberlin, Edward. If This is Your Land, Where are Your Stories? Finding Common Ground. AA. Knopf. Toronto. 2003. Print.
Courtney MacNeil, “Orality.” The Chicago School of Media Theory. Uchicagoedublogs. 2007. Web. 19 Feb. 2013.http://lucian.uchicago.edu/blogs/mediatheory/keywords/orality/
Lesson 1:2 | English 372 99C Canadian Studies. https://blogs.ubc.ca/engl372-99c-2019wc/unit-1/lesson-12/. Accessed 16 Jan. 2020.
Thank you Nargiza for a great response to my question. You raise an interesting question when you write:
“On the other hand, stories must rely on a literary canon, history, culture, etc., to uphold thier believability.”
Hmmmm, so, if I understand you correctly — stories depend on textuality to “uphold believability “This is a thought that I’d like to examine. Why would the idea that textuality brings believability to a story –be so? It is true that western cultures predominantly preach the believability and reliability of the written word over the spoken word, for all sorts of interesting reasons that we will explore through-out this course. However, there are other cultures for which the spoken word carries far more weight in terms of believability. And, interestingly, in western cultures there is an exception to this notion found in our court rooms. Spoken testimony under special circumstances, the court room, is considered highly believable.
Thanks for the thought provoking idea that the spoken word relies on the written word to uphold believability – I think we will blow this idea out of the water this term 🙂 And ironically, we will probably never speak to each other. I love irony.
Note: watch out for the word “must’ …… . Try to remain uncertain.
Your concluding statement is equally thought provoking: “Yet as one is hard-pressed to give up one form for the other, this duality serves no larger purpose, both forms work together and to separate one from the other seems counterproductive in terms of simple communication.” I would say along with others, the purpose served was a colonizing purpose: to subjugate a people. We will discuss this further as well, for now I simply want to point out one of many colonizing strategies that we will examine in literature and the stories we tell ourselves. Thank you so much for an exciting read.
Enjoy, Erika
Hi Erika,
Thanks for commenting on my post! Though I have to admit replying to it is making me nervous 🙂 For my idea of the relationship of believability of the spoken by the written, I’m probably referring to a smaller group of ideas, mainly from Western culture, rather than cultures that rely extensively on the oral form. Mainly in terms of legality, understanding, media. For legal, we generally write our laws down instead of keeping them in our stories, as we learn that First Nation people do, but we present promises and communicate deals with each other in spoken form. Even the idea of a promise of exchange is only able to be taken seriously because of the vast system of text that make up our judicial system. For things such as media, I’d consider plays, scripts, and lyrics as a good example. Though considering my comment I probably shouldn’t have used the word “believability” or maybe expanded on the idea more to make my thoughts more coherent. Though I’m glad you managed to get something interesting out of it!
Thanks for commenting professor!
PLEASE adjust your settings so comments do not need approval, thank you.