Ong – Oral and Literate Storytelling

In chapter 6, Ong outlines some of the differences between oral storytelling and literate stories. They are constructed differently (if you can even use the word construct for both) and they each hold different values for what make good stories. This comes from the function and capacity of memory, and how it influences the expectations of an audience.

In oral cultures, the values important to storytellers and their audiences have more to do with the actual performance. Imagery, details, events can go in any order. Tellings are done in a lucid and free-flowing way in terms of plot, but conventions for rhyme or stanzaic form or rhythm might be more important. For that reason, organization usually manifests in the form of episodes and not plot, as literate cultures come to expect.

In literate cultures, a different set of criteria are held important. Order and organization are such expected characteristics of story that we are disgruntled and confused when they are missing. We come to recognize this in the form of plot. We want to be introduced to the characters, understand the conflict, see it build and then resolve. If the telling of that story goes in any other order, we get uncomfortable. Thoughts like "Where are they going with this?" cross our minds, and that deviance will derail us as listeners.

I would chalk these differences up to the fact that oral storytelling emphasizes the feelings of the experience being recounted, and the reader of story in literature needs to follow a formula to know what she is to expect when reading a story. This comes from training, and as with most things, when the order strays from what we learned in our training, it is difficult to interpret and follow. We have just become so accustomed to organization that it throws us off when we have to sift through the details on our own. And that may be much more natural to an oral listener, who depends more on the senses –feeding on sound, volume, expressions of the face, body language, etc.

Ong's Orality & Literacy ... What's the Difference?

In the first half of "Orality and Literacy," author Walter Ong introduces this topic of verbally-transmitted tradition with written tradition. He begins with a summary of the development of scholarship around the concept over the history of its study. Ong's current view holds that the two traditions are separate, and should be regarded as such, in contrast to previous methods of study: older scholars would describe oral culture as "preliterate," or the more primitive version of literacy. He uses a metaphor to explain this, proposing that one can describe a horse as an automobile without wheels. At first it seems a trifling discrepancy, but he makes a case for the importance of such a distinction. 

If the frame of the comparison between orality and literacy is built around the notion that literacy is the more advanced, or that oral cultures are somehow stuck in the past, or underdeveloped – basically, inferior – this breeds a skewed understanding of the two. However, when taken separately and compared or contrasted based on individualized analyses (and not the list of what the inferior subject lacks next to the superior) one can come to a greater appreciation and understanding for both.

In our case ("our" meaning the literate culture), it seems more important to come to an understanding of an oral culture. Without comparing what one or another lacks, the evaluation of a culture void of written text stretches us to consider those aspects of a literate culture that we take for granted every day. This is not to say that we "literates" lack a thankfulness for our own tradition. On the contrary, I believe it helps illuminate the assumptions which we have come so deeply to expect that they have become part of our daily consciousness, our culture. We don't even think about the implications anymore. Actually, it would be a lie to even use the word "anymore" because we can't even imagine or reflect upon a time when we were not completely surrounded by written words. 

And that's just in the first 15 pages!

Taking a look from outside the frame, we can now begin to dissect the different ways that we as a literate society do something as simple as complete a sentence – now with the backdrop comparison of the oral culture. More specifically, how is memory involved in that process?

Already, I'm trying to find links to my life that could demonstrate this mindset, the simple recognition that spoken words and written words have very different meanings in the society I live in. One very recent anecdote comes from my experience this summer as a door-to-door salesperson. When I knocked on certain doors, their owners would immediately request “to see some literature.” The context of door-to-door sales is obviously important, considering the reputation of salespeople, scams, homeowners’ busyness and disinterest, etc. there is a truth hidden below that layer of context. People wanted to see some proof, or needed reassurance that my company and product were legitimate, and they needed something in writing to satisfy that fear, disbelief, or skepticism. In other cases, they would ask me for a business card. Hah – as if it takes more than a couple dollars at Staples to print out stack of them.

Text somehow substantiate or legitimize the truth to us. We don’t have to rely on any “gut instinct” to decipher the truth. If it’s in writing, well then, I guess it could be true. At least I have her business card so I don’t have to look her in the eye to know if she’s telling the truth.

But I digress. There is a lot more than “truth” to be found in written vs spoken word. Certain human things just do not translate well into text. Inflection, tone, enunciation, and emotion are replaced by punctuation marks and maybe some italics or capital letters. While this offers us the ability to communicate with an infinite audience, it somehow dwindles our expression of the original utterance. There is no way to recreate the entire space and feeling that surrounded an event, but we can attempt to conjure them up with letters and characters so that someone in a different time and space can experience it in some way.

A theme surrounding this topic seems to be that for every advancement in technology, something or someone suffers for it. This comes from the fact that the technology is usually designed to replace something – a function or a previous artifact that was less convenient or efficient – and the old technology is lost in a small (or a very big) way. When literate cultures adopted an alphabet so they could record words, thoughts, speeches, prices, dates, etc... they sacrificed something. I think Ong is trying to get at that, at what that something is.