Orality and Literacy: The Technologizing of the Word

Extant studies into the psychodynamics and social impact of the orality-literacy shift are far from exhaustive in the field of literary studies. The relationship between literature and the residual orality that was prominent until the Romantic Movement has yet to be examined in depth. The primacy of the art of rhetoric in classical education has undoubtedly influenced Western literary traditions, but although the broad strokes of this influence have been traced in this book, there is much still to be analyzed. In particular, the influence of women writers on the creation of the novel genre and the subsequent shift away from orality has yet to be researched.

Levi-Strauss developed structuralist analysis of literature by breaking down oral narratives into binary contrastive elements. This abstract conceptualization has been criticized for oversimplifying its analysis, and Ong posits that it could benefit from attention to the psychodynamics of orality-literacy. The subtle connections and nuances of skilled oral storytelling are difficult to fully appreciate unless one has shed the biases of a literary perspective. Ong has already demonstrated that oral composition doesn’t have a straightforward narrative line, and he is focused instead on informational cores.

Structuralism is a theory of linguistic analysis developed by Levi-Strauss (1908-2009), which analyses discourse by breaking it down into contrastive binary elements. Structuralist analysis already pays significant attention to oral narratives rather than texts, but has often been criticized as reductive and excessively abstract. Such criticism could be mitigated by incorporating consideration of the psychodynamics of orality into the theory. Structuralist analysis fails to account for many elements of storytelling that fall outside of its binary, such as the urgency of the narrative. Oral narrators must contend with mistakes and distractions, and Levi-Strauss considered the organization of oral narratives to be a haphazard “bricolage” or improvisation. Instead, Ong proposes that oral narratives are actually organized with subtle connections around “informational cores”.

Textualists specialize in the analysis of written material dating from the modern (specifically post-Romantic) period. According to Ong, work on orality-literacy contradicts many of the assumptions and conclusions of this textualist school of thought, particularly the treatment of written material since the internalization of literacy as natural utterances. The deconstructionists, noting the lack of consistency and solid structure in language, further built on the work of the textualists. Ong agrees that the pipeline model of language does not mesh well with theories of orality but argues that this is no reason to dismiss orality altogether. Rather both schools of thought would benefit from the inclusion and incorporation of orality-literacy research.

Within the field of linguistics, Grice’s cooperative principle states that implicit rules govern discourse, such as the fact that interlocutors—unless otherwise motivated—follow unspoken rules to ease the flow of conversation and achieve mutually satisfactory outcomes. Ong posits that the implicit rules of discourse might differ between oral and literate cultures, resulting in different styles of interaction. The reader-response model of textual analysis might also benefit from the incorporation of orality-literacy distinctions. Further research is necessary, One states, but it does appear that readers with residually oral mindset have different norms and expectancies for formal discourse than radically textual individuals.

Many academic fields are related to the study of orality and literacy, as both the arts and sciences are dependent on the technology of writing. Linguistics and anthropology are the most closely connected, as well as sociology and historiography, although little headway has yet been made in integrating theories of orality into all the relevant areas of even these disciplines. Any reflective existential questioning into the nature of philosophy is incomplete without consideration of the impact of orality-literacy. Orality studies has particular potential to contribute to Biblical theology due to the importance of the oral background of religious texts and the role of both speech and writing in religious dogma.

Historically, people of Western nations have often characterized their own cultures as “civilized” in contrast with the “primitive” or “savage” cultures observed outside of Europe. Ong proposes that making the distinction between oral and literate cultures is a more meaningful and constructive basis for cross-cultural comparisons. According to Ong, orality is not an inferior state to literacy, although no oral cultures have ever opposed the introduction of writing to their society given the benefits it offers for social and technological advancement. One can mourn the loss of oral artforms while still acknowledging the necessity of literacy. Of course, many of the concurrent changes observed in culture and cognition are not in fact due to the onset of literacy but are rather the result of other related social developments.

Ong objects to the term “media” as a misrepresentation of human communication, which is not well represented by any model showing communication as merely the transfer of units of information from one place to another. Any message depends on its audience, whether real, imaginary, or fictionalized, and is shaped by its anticipated feedback and response. Engagement with the inaccurate “Media model” of communication is a mark of chirographic conditioning, since the performance-orientated communication in primary oral cultures resists such a perspective. Writing adds a measure of distance between producer and recipient as the recipient is absent or distanced, although always conceived of and influential in some sense.

Collective human consciousness has evolved over the ages, an evolution marked by a growth in articulated internal analysis of the individual. Self-awareness is an inherent human trait, but this reflective and expressive development is at least somewhat dependent on the technology of writing. Western literature reflects this evolutionary trend, with narratives becoming more introspective and inward-facing over time. Ong claims that the orality-literacy dynamic touches the depth of the human psyche and affects the highest ambitions and concerns of the species, with both the written and spoken word carrying great significance in many religions. Numerous questions still remain in fields related the topic of orality-literacy dynamics and the evolution of human consciousness.