This post, I want to explore the concepts of “oral culture” and “written culture” by answering the discussion question as per below:<\/p>\n
“Explain why the notion that cultures can be distinguished as either \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.””<\/p>\n
The theory that culture can be distinguished as either “oral culture” or “written culture” is a mistaken understanding as to how culture works because as Chamberlain points out, it is a binary notion which creates a superficial and false hierarchy of “superior culture.” When people think in black and white, they are thinking inside the box, and creating categories where there should be fluidity.\u00a0 Think about sexuality, people like to categorize based on sexual orientations,\u00a0 one is either gay or straight – but can there not be a spectrum in between these binary concepts? Just like creating categories for sexual orientation can be limiting,\u00a0 so is distinguishing culture as either written or oral. In Courtney MacNeil’s article “Orality,” she describes, “speech and writing are so entangled with each other in our various forms and performance of language that we are like Penelope, weaving them together during the day and unweaving them at night” (MacNeil 2007).\u00a0 This is to makes so much sense, sometimes orality triumphs literature and other times literature triumphs orality, because both are necessary in making sense of culture, and the best way make sense of the world around us, is to use both speech and writing.<\/p>\n
One thing to point out is that with the established of www, and new technologies such as computer with high speed internet, radio stations, audio records, text messaging,\u00a0 there is no clear line between oral and written culture. Its nearly impossible to draw boundaries or create a defining box for either. As Alexis Madrigal from the Atlantic points out. <\/a>“written culture is opening up to oral psychodynamics,”\u00a0 in programs such as YouTube and Twitter.<\/p>\n The distinguishing of written and oral culture seems more of an excuse of defining Western culture as superior compared to others, such as the Indigenous populations of Canada.\u00a0 MacNeil points out that, while “Western egocentrism” defines orality as a inferior medium, it is also a globally dominant method of knowledge exchanging and truth searching (MacNeil).\u00a0 One of the arguments of the inferiority of orality is that it is used as merely an aesthetic but one must keep in mind that written work can be detrimental as well, as it has the power to misinform to large audiences\u00a0 If anyone is curious on how Indigenous people are affected by misrepresentation by Western media, check out the podcast from Media Indigena, EP 184:Escaping the Orbit of Settler Colonialism. <\/a>In the podcast, they discuss how they must Indigenous Media must counteract misinformation perpetuated by mainstream media, yet create and inform the public of their own issues as well, instead of merely just responding to the misrepresentations.\u00a0 Side note, does this podcast come out to you as inferior because it is oral? Probably not, because there is no clear line between oral and written culture, it is just as informing and truth seeking as written work.<\/p>\n Overall, the only thing archaic, is the binary concept that culture can be defined as written or oral, clearly that is not the case.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Works Cited<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Chamberlin, Edward. If This is Your Land, Where are Your Stories? Finding Common Ground<\/i>. AA. Knopf. Toronto. 2003. Print.<\/p>\n Macneil, Courtney. \u201cOrality.\u201d\u00a0The Chicago School of Media Theory RSS<\/i>, 2007, lucian.uchicago.edu\/blogs\/mediatheory\/keywords\/orality\/.<\/p>\n \u201cMedia Indigena: Indigenous Current Affairs.\u201d\u00a0Media Indigena: Indigenous Current Affairs<\/i>, Media Indigena, 11 Nov. 2019.<\/p>\n Madrigal, Alexis C. \u201cOral Culture, Literate Culture, Twitter Culture.\u201d\u00a0The Atlantic<\/i>, Atlantic Media Company, 31 May 2011, www.theatlantic.com\/technology\/archive\/2011\/05\/oral-culture-literate-culture-twitter-culture\/239697\/.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" This post, I want to explore the concepts of “oral culture” and “written culture” by answering the discussion question as per below: “Explain why the notion that cultures can be distinguished as either \u201coral culture\u201d or \u201cwritten culture\u201d (19) is a mistaken understanding as to how culture works, according to Chamberlin and your reading of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":70152,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-13","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/sashini\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/sashini\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/sashini\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/sashini\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/70152"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/sashini\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/sashini\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/sashini\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13\/revisions\/17"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/sashini\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/sashini\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/sashini\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}