Language and (Hyper)Literacy

Prepared for Eng 444 section 1,

“Literacy and Hyperliteracy”Fall 2002

Webster Newbold, Instructor

Stages of Development of “Human Consciousness,” or

Frameworks for Thought, Knowledge, and Expression

OverviewStages defined by dominant mode of language

useOral—spoken word predominates (no history or concept of writing) Chirographic—writing in manuscript predominatesTypographic—writing in print predominatesCybernetic—expression in digital form predominates; writing mixes with other audio-visual forms in complex and dynamic ways

Overview--Time FrameStage

Predominant inHigh Culture

Predominant inGeneral Culture

Oral To about 500 BC To about 1600 AD

Chirographic To about 1500 AD To about 1800 AD

Typographic To about 2000 BC Into near future

Cybernetic Current time ?

Orality

From Walter Ong, Literacy and Orality, chapter 3

Time Frame for Primary Orality

(Varies with cultures)

Western Culture—until pre-Classical Greece, about 1,000-800 BC

Characteristics of Primary Orality

Words are Power and Action

Words exist as long as they are going OUT of existence

Words are events, not objects

Religious implications

Oral Knowledge Must Be Recallable

“Patterning” of words essential (rhythm, formulae)

Knowledge is recalled as proverbial or epic (short durable, long durable forms)

Proverbial wisdom forms/guides thought

Verbal Memory Works Differently in “Song”

Rarely “verbatim” or word-for-word

Uses modular strategies in real time

Performances vary within consistent framework (response to live audience dynamic)

Sound Comes from the Interior

Sound reveals hidden nature or beings, objects

Sight reflects externals, is unreliable

Hearing is holistic and unifying--happens all at once, everywhere

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Orality Affects Thought and Expression

It is additive rather than subordinative in discourse structure

“Aggregative” rather than analytic in thought

Orality Affects Thought and Expression

It is redundant or “copious”

Hearers can only process language so fast--repetition aids communication

Repetition and expansion aid production (orator thinking in real time)

Orality Affects Thought and Expression

It is conservative, traditionalist

Hard-won knowledge is guarded carefully

Folkways are preserved as valuable

Orality Affects Thought and Expression

Orality is Close to the “Human Lifeworld”

Knowledge has to be connected to life to have meaning

Abstraction is nearly impossible (it is separate from life and action)

Concepts are understood situationally

Orality Affects Thought and Expression

Oral Interchange is Agonistically Toned

Link to human lifeworld retains link to conflict

Disease, disaster, death often personalized--causing conflict

Ritual praise and blame common worldwide

Orality Affects Thought and Expression

Oral Cultures are Homeostatic

Knowledge serves to preserve the culture as

it is (homeostasis)

“Truth” changes to fit current circumstances

Orality Affects Thought and Expression

Oral Cultures are Situational Rather than Abstract

Concepts understood operationally

(“hammer, saw, log, hatchet”)

Abstract thinkers held in suspicion

Orality Affects Thought and Expression –Song and Literature

Characteristics of Oral Song and Story

Narrative--

Loose, episodic; begins in middle of the "action"

Voice and presence of the singer is relatively prominent

Frequent "set speeches" between antagonists

Orality Affects Thought and Expression –Song and Literature

Characterization–

"Heavy" characters--gods and heroes

Character types revealing sociocultural roles

"Flat" characters--little psychologizing

Orality Affects Thought and Expression –Song and Literature

Language

Metrical (sung)-Generated in real time

"Formalistic" or modular tone, created by

Repeated epithets

Repeated formulae

Review

•Words are Power and Action

•Oral Knowledge Must Be Recallable

•Verbal Memory Works Differently in “Song”

•Sound Comes from the Interior

Review ctd

• Orality Affects Thought and Expression…it is

Additive

Redundant or “copious” Conservative, traditionalist

Close to the Human Lifeworld Agonistic

Homeostatic

Situational Rather than Abstract

Review ctd

• Oral Characteristics of “Story” mark

Narrative

Characterization

Language

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From Manuscript to Typographic Culture

From Walter Ong, Literacy and Orality

Chapter 5, “Print, space, and closure”

Chapter 6, “Oral memory, the story line, and characterization”

Time Frame for Manuscript Culture

In Western cultures, approximately 800 BC through 1500-1600 AD

Characteristics of Manuscript Culture

Manuscript Culture

Hearing-dominantWriting cues oral performance (e.g., reading aloud, in groups or alone)

Writing “recycled knowledge” back into oral world (e.g., reading lessons in school; writing to practice rhetorical exercises)

Memory retrieval based on sound--no visual retrieval practicable

Manuscript Culture

Producer-oriented

Copyists, “scholars” originated and controlled MS texts

Texts open-ended--copyists, readers could become part of them (scholae)

Manuscript Culture

Homeostatic

MS writing allows conveying of some knowledge over time

MS writing culture is traditional, conservative, preserving bias toward orality

Key factor = socio-cultural aspects of literacy (not enough text, not enough readers within economic limitations)

Time Frame for Typographic Culture

(Western culture)

From approximately 1700-1800 AD to 2000 AD

Characteristics of Typographic Culture

Typographic Culture

Dynamic

Shift is slow at first (1450-1800)

Change accelerates with Industrial Revolution and machine press (1800-1950)

Change increases, complications abound with advent of media and digital culture (1950--current)

Typographic Culture

Sight-dominant

Reading can be rapid, silentKnowledge can be directly gained from print source, privatelyMemory retrieval becomes visually based (indexes embed words in space)Print documents develop labels for books as identical “objects” (titles and title pages) Typography organizes visual space as knowledge (words objectified; graphic representation)“Typographic space,” not just writing, becomes a total, visual communication environment

Typographic Culture

Sight-dominant ctd

Dictionaries list, control decontextualized words; correctness becomes issuePeople can think of their own knowledge as objectified and neutralPrinted book is “closed”--cannot be queried or changed

Strongly implies the book covers all of its subjectEncourages readers to think their knowledge is also complete

Typographic Culture

Consumer-oriented

Final product is the goal of the printing/publishing process (rapid, silent reading creates more reader demand)Machine-produced print is automated, detached: an object for consumption

“Reading public” gains strength, consumes fiction and non-fiction

Narrative is in demand with readers; features of “high literacy” become increasingly prominent and dominant

Typographic Culture—High Literacy

Story takes primary shape by means of a tight climactic plot

The unity among all phases of the plot is made explicit and pervasive

Action rises to a climax, then resolves in denouement

Typographic Culture—High Literacy

Visual elements are prominent

The environment in which characters live and take

action is fully presented--natural world; human

environments (city) etc.

Imagery is often concretely presented and linked

to story's themes

Typographic Culture—High Literacy

The narrator can be abstracted into the "omniscient eye" with

a detached "voice"

Narration can get inside characters' thoughts

The narrator can be and usually is depersonalized--not tied to a specific human being

Narration can present varied perspectives (points-of-view) on the characters and actions

Frequently, purpose of narration is to illuminate character

Typographic Culture—High Literacy

Characterization is a major focus of a written story

Major characters or protagonists tend to be

individualized, "round"

Characters develop and change like real humans

with faults and limitations

Self-reflection is common

Typographic Culture

Secondary Orality

Print becomes invisible, underlying structure for Television

Film

Telecommunications

Popular and Educational Computing

Typographic Culture

Secondary Orality

Is “like” primary orality in its

Group sense

Promotion of “oratory”

Typographic Culture

Secondary Orality

Is unlike primary orality in itsImmense unseen audience (“Global Village” of the media) Dilution of “oratory”; no spontaneous oral “combat” but weak “debates”Reliance on PowerPoint. No good speaker ever needs a visual support framework!

From Typographic to Cybernetic Culture

High literacy evolves into hyperliteracy—the time is NOW

Some Conjectures about Digital Culture

Digital technology extends capabilities of print

world (first generation):

“Desktop publishing” duplicates older activities

Digital text often solidified on paper for comprehension, exchange

Some Conjectures about Digital Culture

BUT--DT transcends print world (second generation)

Flexibility, changeability of text becomes the normDuplicationHypertext

Graphic element becomes increasingly significant

Some Conjectures about Digital Culture

Enables “return” of oral elements

In email and real-time chat

Graphic “iconography” :^] (8^/

“Brings People Together”

Instant messaging; CU C ME audio/video conferencing; newsgroups; MOOs; other virtual communities

Key Questions to Follow

How has “takeover” of digital textuality changed the pattern once again, in relation to

Dominant sense and sensory processingWriting, reading, expressing

Patterns of consumption and production e.g., Internet commerce, “dot coms,” Napster

Impetus for cultural changeHas DT brought people “together” productively, and will it continue to do so?

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