Category Archives: Written to Oral
Electric Rhetoric – Technologies of Electric Rhetoric
The Sophistic performance of electronic rhetoric has arrived. …It is on computers. … and it is on television. (137) Welch, Kathleen E. Electric Rhetoric: Classical Rhetoric, Oralism, and a New Literacy. The MIT Press, 1999. In this fifth Chapter of Electric Rhetoric, Technologies of Electric Rhetoric, Welch elaborates on her idea of an electric rhetoric–stemming…
Avatars of the Word – O’Donnell– 2: The Instability of Text
O’Donnell, J. J. (2000). Avatars of the word: From papyrus to cyberspace: Harvard University Press. In this chapter, O’Donnell discusses the instability and, in some ways (un)reliability, of the written word in both printed and electronic form. The printed format is generally a far cry more consistent than the pre-Gutenberg manuscript format. However, upon closer…
It’s Not “Human”
Following a meeting with my dissertation committee, it was drilled-in that what I am calling “Humanness”–the elements of face-to-face communication, such as visual (gesture, facial expression, attire, location, etc.), audio (voice intonation, volume, emotion, etc.), ability to be participatory– is really not represented well (or accurately) by that term. I need to come up with…
Residually Cyclical Style 2
Continuing the conversation on Residually Cyclical Styles (the cyclical nature of orality and literacy), I realize the next (or most recent) cycle.
Connecting the Jotts to Plato
In past posts, I have established digital orality as relevant to the way we communicate using non-textual (largely oral), computer-mediated communication forms, such as podcasting and vodcasting. I have juxtaposed this concept to writing, noting the differences between the two and why communicative writing tools, such as IM and Chat cannot be forms of digital…
Oral Genealogy is Ephemeral
“Narrators narrate what audiences call for or will tolerate. When the market for a printed book declines, the presses stop rolling but thousands of copies may remain. When the market for an oral genealogy disappears, so does the genealogy itself, utterly.” (66). This is certainly logical in consideration of the printed word. When the call…
What’s on the Telly? – Navigation and Control of our Content
In a primarily oral culture, there is no way to record and recall a speech or oral performance. As Ong, Heim, and others have detailed, this is the reasoning for the structured, rhythmic nature of the oral epic. It was just not possible for the human mind to organize and remember a detailed, complex story…