Introductory Remarks

Transcription

1 Session 4: 14 May Toronto School of Communication II: The Alphabet and Early Literacy Eric Havelock, The Greek Legacy, Communication and History, David Crowley and Paul Heyer (Eds.) pp Walter Ong, Orality, Literacy, and Modern Media, Communication and History, David Crowley and Paul Heyer (Eds.) pp John Hartley, Literacy & Orality, pp & 169 You have invented an elixir not of memory but of reminding; and you offer your pupils the appearance of wisdom [they will] seem to know many things when for the most part they are ignorant. (Plato, Phaedrus recounting Thamus Pharaoh of Egypt s rebuke of Theuth, the Egyptian god who invented writing [hieroglyphs]) Introductory Remarks Last week we covered medium/media in r/n to Medium Theory Remember that in Latin, media means middle Since the early 17 th c. medium has had the modern connotation of an intervening or intermediate agency or substance By the 20 th c. it had come primarily to refer to any material thru. which something else may be transmitted In Communication and Cultural Studies, a medium (or media) is defined as follows a substance intermediate b/n an event or experience and our sense or thought This week we are going to examine the two earliest forms of Communication media Orality Literacy For both orality and literacy, Medium theorists assert that each new medium entailed a sensory-perceptual and epistemological revolution epistemology as the study of knowledge systems in other words, the means by which we can know things But each medium has its own specific effects

2 Before examining those specificities, here is a brief overview of the differences b/n orality and literacy a) Orality Oral societies are without an alphabet or any visual representation of words all communication is oral spoken b) Literacy Literate societies have alphabets syllabaries or pictographs visual representations of words communication is both oral and literate There are profound implications for our ability to think, to produce knowledge, and to understand ourselves, those around us and the world in which we live Also, both authors this week are also members of the Toronto School Eric Havelock was a classics professor at the University of Toronto from the late 1920s to late 1940s moved to Harvard to become chair of classics his basic thesis that the shift from orality to literacy has a profound influence on thought was foundational for both Innis and McLuhan Walter Ong was a graduate student of Marshall McLuhan s focused on what he called the technologization of the word shift from the world of sound to the world of sight 1) Orality (oral cultures) 2) Literacy (the alphabet) Key Points/Concepts 1) Orality Without writing, words have no visual presence, even when the objects they represent are visual. Characteristics of orality Memorization Mnemonics Recitation Rhetoric Ong is a humanist (in contrast to structuralism)

3 thus his focus is on the human as opposed to structuralism, which emphasizes structural factors which enable and constrain human agency That is, he was interested in the effect of media on humans and their experience of things Phenomenology emphasis on our experience of things or phenomena Existentialism asks questions about the nature of our existence Ong was interested in two aspects of orality i) the shift from primary orality to literacy (i.e. Ancient Greece) ii) the more contemporary condition of secondary orality Primary orality When there is no form of written language and all communication is oral Key characteristics as follows: No alphabet thus there can be no literacy indeed, the concept of literacy would be nonsensical No writing thus there can be no systematic representation of words No visual presence to words thus there can be no trace of thought or ideas Secondary orality Ong theorized that even literate societies retained traces of orality which he called secondary orality Aspects of orality that remain w/ us today phones, radio, etc. This is a more deliberate and self-conscious form of orality amidst literacy The Phenomenology of orality Ong makes a fascinating observation about a phenomenological aspect of orality that becomes self-evident the moment it is pointed out Sound only exists when it is going out of existence. That is, there is a particular temporality of sound Words are occurrences or events Thus sound is evanescent from the Latin evanescere disappearing

4 Sound is unique among the senses it totally resists a holding action, or stabilization when it is stopped it becomes silence The important ramification of this is that under orality a word has its existence only in sound no visual reference whatsoever For Ong, this phenomenology of sound was fundamental to human existence For many oral cultures, word = event language as a mode of action Words do not represent The power of words comes in their expression not as permanent representational categories Thus words have magical powers; names convey power over things Mnemonics and formulas You only know what you can recall If you cannot remember something then you do not know it no alphabet no books to store knowledge How can lengthy, complex solutions to things be: a) assembled in the first place and b) remembered (reproduced)? N.B. Sustained thought depends upon oral communication Think Memorable Thoughts In the absence of any writing, there is nothing outside the thinker, no text, to enable him or her to produce the same line of thought again or even to verify whether he or she has done so or not. This is done thru. the use of mnemonic patterns rhythm, balance, repetition, antitheses, alliteration, formulas Thus syntax is determined by mnemonic needs in oral cultures

5 Anyone familiar with Homer s The Iliad or any epic poetry knows of its heavily rhythmic, balanced patterns This is not because of a random aesthetic or syntactic choice In orality, there is no point to thinking through a difficult issue in nonformulaic, non-patterned, non-mnemonic term such thought could never be recovered only a passing thought In short, mnemonic devices structures thought Experience is intellectualised mnemonically hence the syntax of epic poetry Society is also organized mnemonically e.g. laws are enshrined in formulaic sayings and proverbs Sound and vision Ong relates the interiority of sound to the interiority of human consciousness and thus communication itself a running interior monologue each person s consciousness is totally interiorised Sight isolates, sound incorporates. Whereas sight situates the observer outside what he views, at a distance, sound pours into the hearer. Sound establishes us as the core of sensation and existence You can immerse yourself in hearing, in sound. There is no way to immerse yourself in sight. Sight isolated; vision dissects vision comes form one direction at a time Sound unified; sound incorporates sound travels from every direction simultaneously Visual ideal: clarity and distinction Auditory ideal: harmony and composition Now let s briefly consider sound and vision vis-à-vis oral and literate knowledge

6 Orality tendency toward aggregate, harmonizing knowledge conservative holism maintaining a homeostatic present Mnemonic preservation statements memorized Literary tendency for abstract, analytic, dissecting knowledge possibility of the new and change abstract thinking Written preservation statements are artefacts 2) Literacy Eric Havelock who was formerly a colleague of Harold Innis makes three key points about the alphabet i) the full dynamic energy of the alphabet was not fully realized until much later technological advancements (paper, the book, and the printing press) ii) it facilitated not just new forms of thinking, but novel thought in general (unlike the conservative holism of oral thought) iii) it is potentially democratizing The Greeks dvlpd the first alphabet in 700 BCE This marks the first dividing line b/n oral and literate societies [Literacy] altered the character of human culture [Literacy] changes somewhat the content of the human mind For Havelock, the real significance of literacy is its impact upon thought how thought is organized the content of thought Regarding the content of thought, think back to the documentary clip we saw writing as the exteriorization of thought thought becomes something separate from the interiority of the human For Havelock, Greek oral culture understood the human as a fundamental part of the cosmos or a unified universe (the entirety of existence)

7 Thus the reality of the self is as part of a larger phenomenon the result of sentient, conscious and spiritual coexistence with the world around us This pre-platonic worldview is similar to that of many indigenous and African cultures non-european For Havelock, the decisive change came with literacy external marks that leave an enduring trace of thought The exteriorization of thought fragmented this holistic relationship The human began to consider itself as separate form the cosmos emergence of the idea of a psyche that is, of an isolated, thinking self This highlights basic philosophical issues that we will be considering in coming weeks Two caveats 1) Havelock is intoxicated w/ the superiority of the Green system other contemporary scholars suggest that his Eurocentric bias blinds him to the importance of other writing systems i.e. Chinese symbols 2) Havelock undervalues the different qualities of oral cultures judges them only via the paradigm of literacy It is no accident that the pre-alphabetic cultures of the world were also in a large sense the pre-scientific cultures, prephilosophical and per-literary. Phenomenology of Literacy Havelock and other Medium Theorists examine the particular qualities of the technologies of literacy i.e. the alphabet, syllabary, pictographs and their effects on thought and perception Written script has an acoustic efficiency w/ psychological effects once learned, you do not have to think about them words become a visible thing (no longer a mnemonic object) letters are interposed b/n the reader and the recollection of the spoken tongue thus, there is no need to think mnemonically

8 Written script is an abstraction w/ no intrinsic value unambiguous; each represents a sound Thus learning a language depends upon fluency of recognition Abstract vs. mnemonic scripts Havelock makes an important distinction b/n written scripts Wholly abstract alphabets and syllabaries (written abstractions of syllables i.e. Japanese kana) abstract visible representations of sounds carry no intrinsic meaning whatsoever beyond representing a sound Representative script the first forms of literacy (i.e. Sumerian cuneiforms) were pictographs visible symbols that represented something called pictographs For Havelock, it is wholly abstract script that has the inherent qualities which will facilitate the full potential of literacy functions as an automatic mnemonic device Democratizing possibilities of literacy One of the great benefits of literacy is its democratizing possibilities the new skill of reading is placed w/n the reach of children while they are still learning the sounds of their oral vocabulary once we become functionally literate, our minds remain literate this powerful new tool for knowledge production is theoretically accessible to all in practice however, it remained outside the reach of the majority of society for millennia With an abstract written script, anything stated could n now be permanently recorded automatic mnemonic technology Epistemological effects of literacy Becoming liberated from mnemonic demands on thought has myriad effects i) Translation eases the process of translation allows any communication to be translated first the Geeks translated oral epic poetry into script then the Romans construct their own new literature on the basis of Greek translations

9 this represented a wholly new cultural practice ii) Economy of memory w/ a visual record of thought, the mind is freed of mnemonic burdens thus mental energies are preserved and free to pursue other thoughts instead of thinking memorable thoughts one could now think new thoughts or one could think abstract thoughts In short, it becomes easier to think novel thoughts because they can easily be preserved The alphabet, by encouraging the production of unfamiliar statements, stimulated the thinking of novel thought, which could lie around in inscribed form, be recognized, be read and re-read, and so spread its influence among readers. Thought is no longer limited by the evanescence of sound