Oral Tradition

I tend to see and experience the world through my own cultural lens. Before reading this excerpt taken from Methuen Ong’s Orality and Literacy I hadn’t spent much time reflecting on my thought process and how it is fundamentally affected by the written word. “Try to imagine a culture where no one has ever ‘looked up’ anything. In a primary oral culture, the expression ‘to look up something’ is an empty phrase: it would have no conceivable meaning” (Ong, 1982, p. 31). It’s hard for me to think of a world where language is spoken but not written. I haven’t experienced it. I would even dare to say living in a world like that would change a foundational part of my daily communication. Ong goes on in his text to describe the difficulty of understanding a culture rooted in oral tradition. “Freeing ourselves of chirographic and typographic bias in our understanding of language is probably more difficult than any of us can imagine, far more difficult, it would seem, than the ‘deconstruction’ of literature, for this ‘deconstruction’ remains a literary activity” (Ong, 1982, p. 77).

As time has marched on I wonder how much oral tradition I lose out on because of my immersion in the written word. In an interview by the St. Petersburg Times, reporters interviewed Tampa Florida educators and found that they were using storytelling rather than having the students read in order to teach learning in the classroom. “According to Tampa educators I talked with, not only are we not necessarily helping them to be better readers, we are losing a golden opportunity to teach children our values in a creative setting” (Brooks Tiplin Post, 1987, p. 2). The article went on to describe all the positive effects storytelling can have on children. I wonder if my memory would be better if I was better versed in story telling? Or perhaps I would be more creative?

I’ve been reading a book in the little spare time I have entitled A. Lincoln. It’s a biography of Abraham Lincoln’s life and it notes the utmost importance of oral tradition just a little over 150 years ago. “A society oriented around the spoken word rewarded those who learned its ways. In his constant drive for self-improvement, Lincoln sought out opportunities to enhance his speaking ability” (White, 2009, p. 86-87). I think about our presidents today and their use of notes and teleprompters when they communicate to the masses. In Lincoln’s time, people were expected to give speeches without the help of these crutches. This required the speaker to spend much more time internalizing and committing to memory the words that would be shared.

In a thesis written by a University of Central Missouri graduate student named Xiaoshi Wei, Wei explores how the introduction of the phonetic alphabet contributes to detribalization in a rural Chinese village. “To be specific, the use of the phonetic alphabet contributes to detribalization, for it rationalizes oral culture material to be textualized. The process of incorporating alphabets into culture is the process of standardizing and notating the oral words by their combinations of sounds. As McLuhan (1964) said, detribalization translates humans from the magical world to the visual world” (Wei, 2011, p. 4) Wei’s findings help in further illustrating the shift that happens when the written word is introduced into a culture rooted in oral tradition.

Ong believed that the technology of writing would change the way people think and process information. Although it is hard for me to wrap my mind around a culture in which I have no experience, the evidence suggests that Ong’s findings are true and accurate. Our culture today is based around the written word. Even though our culture has shifted away from an era of oral tradition, I think there are some invaluable things that we should hold onto from this era of communication.

References:

BROOKS TIPLIN POST. (1987, December 26). Storytelling is a good way to teach learning :[CITY Edition]. St. Petersburg Times,p. 2. Retrieved February 6, 2011, from ProQuest Newsstand. (Document ID: 50174910).

Ong, Methuen, Orality and Literacy: The Technologizing of the Word, 1982.

Wei, X.. The disappearing Hua'er tradition: A case study of electronic media in the Chinese rural village, Lianlu. M.A. dissertation, University of Central Missouri, United States -- Missouri. Retrieved February 6, 2011, from Dissertations & Theses: The Humanities and Social Sciences Collection.(Publication No. AAT 1446340).

White, Jr. Ronald C. (2009). A. Lincoln: A Biography. Random House Publishing, New York.

Online Identity Construction

To what extent is the identity you present on-line a construction?

This last Wednesday, after reading many of the postings in our online discussion forums, I was inspired to watch the movie “Catfish”. It was an independent film that captured an eight-month experience in the life of a man named Nev Schulman who started a relationship with a girl named Megan online. Over the course of thousands of emails, text messages and phone calls they developed significant romantic feelings for each other.

The pivotal point of the movie is when Nev finds out that much of what Megan is telling him is a lie. And after further investigation, he finds that she may not even be real. By this time, Nev and his friends decide to actually drive to Michigan and visit this girl. The surprise at the end of the movie ends up being that this girl he had been talking with for the past eight months was made up and acted out by a 40 something year old married woman.

I listed below a link to a CNN interview with those involved in the movie. I think it gives a good quick overview of what the film is about.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KGkiq-9UG1Q

“In theory, CMC offers a special opportunity for identity play – pretending to be someone else or just portraying different aspects of yourself” (Thurlow, 2004, p. 100). Although this film portrayed an extreme example of online identity construction, it’s interesting to see how some of how I present myself online is a construction as well. If we take the pictures I post on my Facebook page as an example, I choose to only post pictures that I like. I don’t post pictures in which I had a bad hair-day or an ugly expression on my face. In doing so I neglect to show the viewer the less attractive parts of my identity.

Another argument could be made that our Face-to-Face identity is filled with just as much construction. “One mistake people often make about online identity is to exaggerate the idea of play while forgetting that offline identity itself is as much a performance” (Thurlow, 2004, p. 102). In my Face-to-Face communication I choose how I present myself as well. I think a great example is the clothes I choose to wear which play into forming others’ view of my identity.

Thurlow refers to the “ideological climate in which we live” playing a role in our identity formation. “So our identity is partly formed by the ideological climate into which we’re born and in which we live and partly by the choices we make” (Thurlow, 2004, p. 98). As our text points out, I know that my identity also shifts depending on my location and environment. A great example of this is the difference between my identity as a co-teacher for a City College course and my identity as I spend time with close friends relaxing and barbequing in my backyard. I disclose much less personal information as a teacher than I do with my close friends. Therefore my identity would be constructed differently depending on the climate in which I live.

A final note I have on on-line identity construction is the fact that identity is in a constant state of change; whether it is online or Face-to-Face. “Current theorists now regard identity as being much more flexible, multidimensional and as we’ve seen, socially constructed. As a result, nowadays we’re encouraged to think not so much about identity as identification – it’s a process we’re working on all the time” (Thurlow, 2004, p. 97). Every thought and interaction I have will continue to shape how I see myself and how others see me. Because identification is a process, my identity today is going to be different than it will be tomorrow.

Is the identity I present online considered a construction? I would say yes. But much of my Face-to-Face identity is also. Thurlow writes, “…identity is something which we are working on all the time and that, in doing so, we like to be able to tell a structured, coherent story about who we think we are – with a beginning, a middle and an end” (Thurlow, 2004, p. 96). No matter what identity I construct, I think it important to be honest and accurate in portraying my identity in that moment.

References

Thurlow, C., Lengel, L., & Tomic, A. (2004). Computer mediated communication: Social interaction and the Internet. London: SAGE.