Talk:Orality

Encyclopedia or Commentary?
I have removed the phrase "Have they heard the warning of Socrates?" from the title of the main picture--What is this? A commentary? Anapologetos (talk) —Preceding comment was added at 23:10, 23 January 2008 (UTC)
 * The caption now reads "An oral community in Cambodia confronts writing." What does this mean?  From a Western perspective it means that they need to find the money to go to school.  From the perspective of the concept of 'orality' it means that there is more to it than that.  And it was Socrates who first pointed out just how much more.  Removing the question leaves the caption devoid of context.Brett epic (talk) 15:15, 24 January 2008 (UTC)
 * I agree that it leaves it with little/no context, but is it really appropriate to have such a commentary-like caption in an encyclopedia? Do we need a different picture? Or how can we caption the current way appropriately?Anapologetos (talk) 02:47, 28 January 2008 (UTC)
 * The phrase you removed was a question. It was not a commentary.  It provokes the reader to begin thinking about the issues that are presented in the article.  The picture, like the caption, refers directly to the article.  In my personal view, the article is encyclopaedic.  Don't you agree?Brett epic (talk) 03:35, 28 January 2008 (UTC)
 * I understand what your saying, but I would disagree--An encyclopedia article is not a place to "provokes the reader to begin thinking about the issues that are presented in the article." It is a place to present the relevant data to the reader, and let the reader draw his own conclusions--According to what wikipedia's own definition of an encyclopedia is, "provoking the reader to the begin thinking about the issues presented in the article" is not part of it. Don't get me wrong-I think it is good to get people thinking critically, but I don't believe that this is an appropriate place. Thoughts? Anapologetos (talk) 00:14, 29 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Very well. I have replaced the question we have been discussing with an explicit statement of fact that offers the same context.  Stylistically not as interesting, but as you say, Wiki is an encyclopedia.  Does this address your concern?Brett epic (talk) 04:05, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

Should we be debating Ong's Characteristics of Oral Culture?
Ong's characteristic #2 -- Additive rather than Subordinative -- cites Ong's reference to the Douay-Rheims translation of Genesis. Someone added a different translation, demonstrating that the multiple appearances of "and" do not occur in the new one, thus challenging Ong's example. Should this be included? The article already mentions that "these are subject to continuing debate" and it seems to me therefore that the debate doesn't belong in this section; rather, what Ong contributed to the debate (or perhaps how he sparked a debate) belongs here.

Not to mention that the second translation was not provided in Ong's works (as far as I am aware), nor is it cited to be from any other published critique of Ong (which might be helpful, I suppose, in clarifying the "continuing debate" while not actually debating).

I suggest we remove the second [agonistic, as it were] translation of the Bible in this section. - Begeun (talk) 17:01, 31 May 2008 (UTC)


 * Actually Ong cited the second example alongside the first in his book, intending to show how oral modes of communication evolve into literate ones. In the nearly four centuries between the publication of the Douay-Rheims version and the Modern American one, residual orality in the English speaking world had declined dramatically, and that was impacting even something as supposedly objective as a 'translation' in fundamental and highly predictable ways.  While the first example certainly depicts orality, the second should be retained because it highlights the contrast with literate culture.Brett epic (talk) 18:18, 2 June 2008 (UTC)


 * Thanks for the correction. Would it be appropriate to make this connection more clear in the article?  Presently it reads "The New American Bible (1970) offers a translation that is grammatically far more complex." Perhaps it should read (paraphrasing Brett epic's comments above) "Demonstrating how oral modes of communication tend to evolve into literate ones, Ong additionally cites The New American Bible (1970), which offers a translation that is grammatically far more complex." - Begeun (talk) 02:45, 7 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Sounds good to me!Brett epic (talk) 14:37, 8 June 2008 (UTC)

Material removed from the article as too remote from topic
I have just deleted the following statements from the article because even though they are probably true, they seem to me too remote from the subject of the article:


 * In a benchmark study on rural poverty the World Bank estimated that about 1.2 billion people earn less than US $1 a day (adjusted for Purchasing power parity), and that about 70% of them live in rural areas.


 * “More than half a century of persistent efforts … has not altered the stubborn reality of rural poverty, and the gap between rich and poor is widening. The likelihood of achieving the Millennium Development Goals without a focus on improving the livelihoods and service accessibility of rural dwellers is low.”

Dear A Lot to Learn: I'm not sure why you consider this remote from the topic. A major goal of development practice is to teach villagers to hold governments and private sector institutions accountable for service delivery. Their inability to do so is considered an important obstacle to rural development. This inability is a direct result of the oral-literate gulf between villagers on the hand, and the service providers on the other.

Kindly return this to the orality page. Best regardsBrett epic (talk) 11:37, 9 February 2009 (UTC)

--AlotToLearn (talk) 06:43, 9 February 2009 (UTC)

'Dubious' Tag
A 'dubious tag' was placed on the text below.

"While literacy extends human possibilities in both thought and action, all literate technologies ultimately depend on the ability of humans to learn oral languages.[dubious – discuss]" The tag was posted by Succubus MacAstaroth, who wrote "What of the deaf-mute? What oral languages do they know? And yet they read, write and produce literature just like everyone else."

The text does not dispute the remarkable capacities of many deaf and mute people. It refers not to the capacities of individuals to use communications technologies, but to the capacities of societies to develop them. Our modern system of writing is based on the phonetic alphabet. A phonetic alphabet could not have been developed by a deaf-mute, because the letters unpack sound and represent it as text. A deaf-mute cannot access sound directly. This takes away absolutely nothing from their capacity to use text once it has been developed.

To make the point clearer, I have edited the text as follows. "While literacy extends human possibilities in both thought and action, all literate technologies ultimately depend on the ability of humans to learn oral languages and then translate sound into symbolic imagery."Brett epic (talk) 16:07, 18 September 2010 (UTC)

Don't understand...
I don't understand. That it is the
 * ...thought and verbal expression in societies where the technologies of literacy (especially writing and print) are unfamiliar to most of the population...

is self evident from the word (with a little thinking), but what is characterizing orality? Is it folks etymologies, special conventions, reliance on knowledge authorities or ... ? Rursus dixit. ( m bork3 !) 06:02, 14 May 2012 (UTC)

Article seems awfully reliant on Ong
And yet no page for Orality and Literacy. I know that's not his only book on the subject but it seems strange to have this page, which seems pretty well developed, and not that one. Any particular reason? --&mdash;  Rhododendrites talk  |  16:31, 5 January 2014 (UTC)

Secondary orality
Ong's concept of secondary orality is mentioned three or four times in the intro but not linked to the separate Secondary orality article that exists. It is finally linked from the one other mention in this article, at the end of the residual orality section, although prefaced with "a kind of" qualifier that seems to imply it is not a solid concept in its own right. That is in contrast to "primary orality" and "residual orality" having their own sections in this article while secondary orality does not. I guess I'm confused about what this seemingly inconsistent handling is indicating and how to best rectify it. My thought would be to add links in the intro, plus to make the current last ¶ of the Residual orality section into its own new Secondary orality section that, after that existing text, refers readers to the separate existing article. But I defer to those of you with more knowledge in this area. Newsplexer (talk) 20:08, 29 January 2017 (UTC)