Orality can be defined as thought and its verbal expression in societies where the technologies of literacy (especially writing and print) are unfamiliar to most of the population. The study of orality is closely allied to the study of oral tradition. However, it has broader implications, implicitly touching every aspect the economics, politics and institutional and human development of oral societies. The study of orality has important implications for international development, especially as it relates to the goal of eradicating poverty, as well as to the process of globalization.
Walter J. Ong, a key scholar in this field, distinguishes between two forms of orality: ‘primary orality’ and ‘residual orality’.



Contents:

1 The impact of literacy on culture

2 Primary orality

3 Residual orality

4 Importance of the concept

6 References

7 See also

Theory of the characteristics of oral culture Drawing on hundreds of studies from anthropology, linguistics and the study of oral tradition, Ong summarizes ten key aspects of the ‘psychodynamics of orality’. While these are subject to continuing debate, his list remains an important milestone. Ong draws his examples from both primary oral societies, and societies with a very high ‘oral residue’.

A seafarer tells the young Sir Walter Raleigh and his brother the story of what happened out there at sea.
1. Formulaic Styling To retain complex ideas requires that they be packaged memorably for easy recall.

To solve effectively the problem of retaining and retrieving carefully articulated thought, you have to do your thinking in mnemonic patterns, shaped for ready oral recurrence. Your thoughts must come into being in heavily rhythmic, balanced patterns, in repetitions or antithesis, in alliterations or assonances, in epithetic and other formulary expressions… Serious thought is intertwined with memory systems.

Jousse identifies a close linkage between rhythm and breathing patterns, gestures and the bilateral symmetry of the human body in several ancient verse traditions. This synergy between the body and the construction of oral thought further fuels memory. 2. Additive rather than subordinative Oral cultures avoid complex ‘subordinative’ clauses. Ong cites an example from the Douay-Rheims version of Genesis (1609-10), noting that this basic additive pattern (in italics) has been identified in many oral contexts around the world:

In the beginning God created heaven and earth. And the earth was void and empty, and darkness was on the face of the deep; and the spirit of God moved over the waters. And God said …

The New American Bible (1970) offers a translation that is grammatically far more complex:

In the beginning, when God created the heavens and the earth, the earth was a formless wasteland, and darkness covered the abyss, while a mighty wind swept over the waters. Then God said …

3. Aggregative rather than analytic Oral expression brings words together in pithy phrases that are the product of generations of evolution: the ‘sturdy oak tree’, the ‘beautiful princess’ or ‘clever Odysseus’. This does not apply specifically to poetry or song; rather the words are brought together out of habit during general communication. ‘Analyzing’ or breaking apart such expressions adds complexity to communications, and questions received wisdom. Ong cites an American example, noting that in some parts of the United States with heavy oral residue, it is still considered normal or even obligatory to use the adjective ‘glorious’ when referring to the ‘fourth of July’. 4. Redundant or ‘copious’ Speech that repeats earlier thoughts or thought-pictures, or shines a different light on them somehow, helps to keep both the speaker and the listener focused on the topic, and makes it easier for all to recall the key points later. "Oral cultures encourage fluency, fulsomeness, volubility. Rhetoricians were to call this copia". 5. Conservative or traditionalist Because oral societies have no effective access to writing and print technologies, they must invest considerable energy in basic information management. Storage of information, being primarily dependent on individual or collective recall, must be handled with particular thrift. It is possible to approximately measure oral residue “from the amount of memorization the culture’s educational procedures require.” This creates incentives to avoid exploring new ideas and particularly to avoid the burden of having to store them. It does not prevent oral societies from demonstrating dynamism and change, but there is a premium on ensuring that changes cleave to traditional formulas, and “are presented as fitting the traditions of the ancestors.”
6. Close to the human lifeworld Oral cultures take a practical approach to information storage. To qualify for storage, information must usually concern matters of immediate practical concern or familiarity to most members of the society. Long after the invention of writing, and often long after the invention of print, basic information on how to perform a society’s most important trades was left unwritten, passed from one generation to the next as it always had been: through apprenticeship, observation and practice. By contrast, only literary cultures have launched phenomenological analyses, abstract classifications, ordered lists and tables, etc.. Nothing analogous exists in oral societies. 7. Agonistically toned Agonistic’ means ‘combative’, but Ong actually advances a deeper thesis with this point. Writing and to an even greater extent print, he argues, disengage humans from direct, interpersonal struggle. Products of “the highly polarized, agonistic, oral world of good and evil, virtue and vice, villains and heroes” the great works of oral literature from Homer to Beowolf, from the Mwindo epic to the Old Testament, are extremely violent by modern standards. They are also punctuated by frequent and intense intellectual combat and tongue-lashings on the one hand, and effusive praise (perhaps reaching its height among African praise singers) on the other. 8. Empathetic and participatory In an oral culture the most reliable and trusted technique for learning is to share a “close, empathetic, communal association” with others who know. Ong cites a study of community decision-making from 12th Century England. Writing already had a long history in England, and it would have been possible to use texts to establish for example, the age of majority of the heir to an estate. But people were skeptical about texts, noting not only the cost of generating and managing them, but the problems involved in preventing tampering or frauds. As a result, they retained the traditional solution: gathering together “mature wise seniors of many years, having good testimony”, and publicly discussing the age of the heir with them, until agreement was reached. This hallmark principle of orality, that truth emerges best from communal process, resonates today in the jury system. 9. Homeostatic Oral societies conserve their limited capacity to store information, and retain the relevance of their information to the interest of their present members, by shedding memories that have lost their past significance. While many examples exist, the classic example was reported by Goody and Watt (1968). Written records prepared by the British in Ghana in the early 1900s show that Ndewura Jakpa, the seventeenth century founder of the state of Gonja, had seven sons, each of whom ruled a territorial division within the state. Six decades later two of the divisions had disappeared for various reasons. The myths of the Gonja had been revised to recount that Jakpa had five sons, and that five divisions were created. Since they had no practical, present purpose, the other two sons and divisions had evaporated. 10. Situational rather than abstract In oral cultures, concepts are used in a way that minimizes abstraction, focusing to the greatest extent possible on objects and situations directly known by the speaker. A study by A.R. Luria, a psychologist who did extensive fieldwork comparing oral and literate subjects in remote areas of Uzbekistan and Kirghizia in 1931-2 documented the highly situational nature of oral thinking.

• Oral subjects always used real objects they were familiar with to refer to geometric shapes; for example a plate or the moon might be used to refer to a circle.
• Asked to select three similar words from the following list “hammer, saw, log, hatchet”, oral subjects would reject the literate solution (removing the log to produce a list of 3 tools), pointing out that without the log there wasn’t much use for the tools.
• Oral subjects took a practical, not an abstract, approach to syllogisms. Luria asked them this question. In the far north, where there is snow, all bears are white. Novaya Zembla is in the far north and there is always snow there. What colour are the bears? Typical response: “I don’t know. I’ve seen a black bear. I’ve never seen any others. … Every locality has its own animals.”
• Oral subjects proved unwilling to analyze themselves. When asked “what sort of person are you?” one responded: “What can I say about my own heart? How can I talk about my character? Ask others; they can tell you about me. I myself can’t say anything.”

The transition of communication technology: Orality, Manuscript Culture, Print Culture, and Information Age

Oral tradition or oral culture is a way for a society to transmit history, literature, law or other knowledge across generations without a writing system. An example that combined aspects of oral literature and oral history, before eventually being set down in writing, is the Homeric epic poetry of the Iliad and the Odyssey. In a general sense, "oral tradition" refers to the transmission of cultural material through vocal utterance, and was long held to be a key descriptor of folklore (a criterion no longer rigidly held by all folklorists). As an academic discipline, it refers both to a method and the objects studied by the method. The study of oral tradition is distinct from the academic discipline of oral history, which is the recording of personal memories and histories of those who experienced historical eras or events. It is also distinct from the study of orality, which can be defined as thought and its verbal expression in societies where the technologies of literacy (especially writing and print) are unfamiliar to most of the population. See also:

• Cultural traditions
• Oral literature
• Oral poetry
• Oral history
• Oral law
• Oral contract
• Intangible culture
• Ethnopoetics
• Storytelling
• Performance poetry
• Oral interpretation
• History of communication
• History of writing
• Linguistic anthropology