Voice to Text

The Unedited Written Text

I remember this image from my last weeks lecture that a guy or a man from a Pier ha or was sitting in front of a desk and trying really hard to figure out how to match the threads like on the desk with the balloons that he had this is such a fancy dating thing to think about that people could leave in this society without numbering system it is almost impossible too in our society that already has like a numbering system to actually do things without exact you won’t have dates to remember things like birthday anniversary statutory holidays and you don’t have week days to think about OK today’s Monday or today’s the 7th of the days of Sunday so I should take a day off something so how are you going to record events are without dates and time those exact numbers system and another thing is about exchanging things or just go grocery shopping shopping how much are you going to pay in exchange for a certain amount of food and money so money monetary system is built on numbers without numbers like how is there anything that in their society is is used to represent money or they’re just going to do exchange that curious some apple and here is some pears and then let’s exchange this actually reminds me of a story book that I I was reading to my daughter recently about the 12 animals that we have like in China to represent 12 different years and then they rotate and in that story book the reason for at the 12 animals to be chosen to represent here was because that people can’t really tell like different ages so they want to make sure that we have something to read it’s like a numbering system so rat represent the first year and then ox represent in the second year it’s interesting story talking about how they compete and how rats cheap through his way and get to the the first place being the first animal an it’s interesting book and there are different versions of stories that that actually talks about this 12 animals but that’s kind of like the starting point of the how we use 12 to count our ears rotated and then whenever you’re saying your birth the animal of the year that you were born to other people and they could quickly kind of like related to the ad for example if I’m born in a year of rabbit and then someone else is pouring the year of rabbit I know either he or she has exact same age I sign or they’re like either 12 years younger or 12 years older or 24 years younger 24 years older than I am so it’s quite interesting and people start grouping people just like horoscope people start group grouping like people born on the same year like with like certain characteristics like for example if you’re kind of like ox that means you are hard working people and if you’re dragon dragon is kind of like an imaginary animal in China China and represents like everything like like like the all the emperors the kings they use dragon so that’s kind of like the year that you will have a baby boomer because everyone want their kids to be boring the year of dragon OK so that’s a little bit off topic it’s just interesting to think that you will be living in a society without number it would probably be amazing ’cause think about it you don’t have due dates that you need to stress about and you don’t have like grades so to compare with and then you don’t have exact amount of money so you don’t really have to have a budget or you don’t even have idea how much you spend each month and how much you’re making so a lot of stress will go away and it’s it’s amazing however if I’m putting the SoC I think it’s gonna be very difficult for me to comprehend anything just like how we have been talking about how language shapes thoughts aids very difficult to untrain ourselves too do things that are not the way we’re accustomed to do because our the way we think would be very different and we have already lived in a society with numbering system so it’s it’s going to be very difficult to go back just like maybe it’s not a very appropriate comparison but just like how in the article that oh mentioned he’s saying like it’s very different to have like oral literacy and then compared to rating one but it’s really hard to do any kind of experiment ’cause kids are boring the award even if they don’t speak anything but they’re surrounded by written words so it’s very difficult to do that the same applies to us so if we want to test something in the SoC with no number system it’s going to be impossible ’cause like the first thing you’re you’re going to survive on will be like to know your exact dates and time and money those are all associated with numbering so it is fascinating to actually dig deeper to the how PR pure hey people are doing like dealing with things that I need to like exchange stuff remembering events like dates and ages like things like that in in their society just be fascinating to learn like how that all works

I hope you didn’t read the unedited text entirely because if you do, you will be asking yourself, “what on earth is this?” 😉  I had revised this very paragraph (that you are reading now, not the one above) many times. Erasing the word I don’t think is necessary, moving sentences to make the paragraph flow better, and just to realize how embarrassing my “written text” of the story that I just told look because I have no chance to revise anything!

The Differences

It takes a lot of courage to look at the written text from unscripted oral storytelling. Luckily, no one is keep tracking of what we are saying daily (shhh, maybe someone is), or it would be such a headache trying to figure out the main idea of our conversations (or if we have any main idea at all) through the repetitive words, not so relevant examples, accent and mispronunciation, etc.

Now, take a deep breath. Let’s dive in and see the differences in action!

Punctuation

The most obvious element missing in the written text (maybe can be viewed as a “mistake”) is punctuation. All words are next to each other, with no emphasis, no emotion, utterly contrary to what oral storytelling is excellent with. For this, I “blame” the technology – the dictation tool that doesn’t have the ability to read my tone and add matching punctuation. (Yeah, just blame the technology because you can’t hurt its feeling.)

Grammar and Spelling Mistakes

Below are just some examples, and I think the technology is not the only one to blame here (check out the “X” factor later).

Structure and Presentation 

I have tried to write down the story and read it to myself. It sounds less natural but much more concise.

I remember this image from my last week’s lecture (Boroditsky, 2017). A young man from the Piraha was sitting in front of a desk, struggling to lay out the same numbers of balloons that match the spools of thread already on the table.
It is so fascinating to think that people could live in a society without numbers at all. People will not recall the exact date and time when an event has happened, such as a birthday, a wedding. And no exact days of the week, such as you rest on the 7th day of a week, called Sunday. How do they trade? Do they have money or a similar concept? The monetary system lives and breaths numbers.
This reminds me of a storybook that I read to my daughter about how the 12 animals become the Chinese Zodiac. It says in ancient China.

People can’t remember how old they are because they can’t keep track of numbers. The Chinese God had decided to have a race to pick out the first 12 animals to represent 12 years. The story is obviously not real, but it is common in China to ask people what animal is of the year they were born. Even though we have a base-ten numbering system, it automatically changes to base 12 for the Chinese Zodiac. For example, if I was born on a year of Dragon, I learned someone else was too. It reads to me as either s/he 2 (or 24, or 36, etc.) older or younger than me.
It is great to have a numbering system, but I kept wondering what it would feel like to live in a society without numbers. It is probably amazing because we don’t have to stress about due dates, grades, budgets, income, age anymore! It is also challenging for me to envision a world without numbers. Language shapes our thoughts, so once we have immersed ourselves in a world with all numbers, our brain is tailored to comprehend the world through numbers, putting a value on everything. If we were accidentally stumbling into a civilization without numbers, we would probably get everyone to start using one instead of trying to forget numbers ourselves 😉

The Conciseness 

It is hard to have anyone tell a story without repeating a few words. In writing text, we can easily remove unwanted words. With the help of technology, we can choose many different synonyms to make the writing looks more educated. This is hard to achieve via oral storytelling, especially the ones that are not rehearsed. But if it is rehearsed, it will probably rely on written text instead of simple recall.

The Main Idea

In writing, it is easy to go back and review your text, trim and polish to ensure your main idea is expressed through the story. In the oral storytelling, speakers are easily carried away, such as the examples I made about how Chinese people love to have babies in the year of Loong (Dragon) because we think Loong represents higher power, contrary to the representation of evil in western fiction stories.
The story flows better this way, and it eliminates the distraction that a not-too-relevant example could bring to the story.

The Structure

In writing, you can plan how you would like the story to unfold. There are many writing techniques, such as opening with a suspenseful scene. Or presenting the story’s absurd end makes people want to read how the story gets to this end.
This isn’t easy to achieve. As Ong (2002) expressed, the oral expression is linear. Your audience may not have the ability to recall a detail that you mentioned earlier. Such as the Piraha people mentioned in the lecture, I would not be able to recall the name Piraha without writing it down when watching the lecture.

The Accountability

In oral storytelling, there are no references that the speaker can include in his/her story. The audience also doesn’t have anything to rely on. They have to decide whether to believe the speaker and trust his/her memory when listening to a story. Information can get distorted this way. Whereas in written text, we can include references, quotes or rephrase the information we get from the source, and the readers can look it up and see if our understanding of the source is the same as theirs. The writing holds the writer more accountable for the information s/he presented.

The X Factor

Oral storytelling relies heavily on the person who tells it, which I decided to call the “X” factors because so many unknown things could cause the meaning not appropriately expressed.
For example, I am a second language English speaker, and my accent will get in the way when I tell a story in English. I may not even know the correct pronunciation of some words, or I think I am using the right word, but I was not. Or I may stutter when I get nervous telling a story in English.
I do not need to worry about these because I can check how to spell a word, and search online to see if people express things this way, or even use technology (e.g. Grammarly) to correct all my spelling and grammar mistakes.

References

Boroditsky, L. (June 2017). [Video]. How the languages we speak shape the way we think.

Ong, W. J. (2002). Orality and literacy : The technologizing of the word Routledge.