San Antonio College English Department | O/L Home Page

Orality/Literacy Hallmarks - Chart

This chart draws on the 1982 book, Orality and Literacy: The Technologizing of the Word, by Walter J. Ong. It is developed by the webmaster. Any errors are entirely her own. The numbers in parentheses refer to the page in the 2003 reprint of the book.

  • The chart is not meant to foster any kind of elitism. Consistent with Dr. Ong's own caveat, neither orality nor literacy is in any way superior to the other. Rather, literacy is indebted to orality and may reflect residual effects. The chart serves only to clarify the predominant characteristics of each.
  • The absence of qualifiers does not mean that 100% of the members of a group behave in the ways described 100% of the time. Each description should be understood in the sense of "For the most part . . ." because there may be exceptions.
  • For each situation in which literacy seems predominant, any event triggering strong emotions makes everyone involved instinctively and immediately default to the oral mode. Strong precautions and strength of mind must be invoked to control the potential damage. When they are not, the oral mode becomes operative.

Top
Feature or element

Compositions from an
Oral Culture

Compositions from a Literate Culture

1. The number of words in vocabulary (8) Vocabulary is limited. Access to vocabulary consists of the few thousand words held in operating memory.

Vocabulary is more extensive, consisting of the 1.5 million words or more accessible in print and electronic dictionaries.
2. Words' past meanings (8) 0 (because the irrelevant fades from operating memory) Hundreds of thousands accessible in print and electronic dictionaries.
3. The skills used in learning (8-9)

Facts and beliefs are taught as complete and accurate truth, so the learning activities rarely go beyond the knowledge/comprehension and non-academic application levels.

  • So not only is there no need to question - questions are unwelcome
  • The only test is, "How well can the student repeat it back?" to the teacher.

Higher order thinking skills (analysis, application, evaluation, and synthesis) engage both students and teachers in the discovery of knowledge.

  • Extended abstractedly sequential analysis, (classificatory, explanatory examination of phenomena or stated truths)
  • Interaction between people and print
  • Learning is mediated through print and electronics
4. How people learn (8)

Education consists of the information transfer model. Members of society:

  • Study with masters and/or imitate great leaders
  • Employ apprentice/mentor or disciple/leader relationship to learn
  • Learning activities consist of listening, repeating, invoking proverbs, assimilating formulary materials, telling stories, engaging in corporate retrospection.

Education consists of the information transfer model until the critical thinking model arises - the practice of

  • examining the thinking process carefully to clarify and improve understanding
  • appraising alternative courses of action realistically
  • discussing them in an organized way
  • implementing one
  • monitoring the result for effectiveness
  • making changes until one achieves the desired outcome or changes the goal.

Top
5. The expectations for poets and other composers regarding the language (21-23)

The language of oral work consists of standardized formulas stitched together from cultural phrase book in poet's head: clichés

  • Set phrase
  • Formula
  • Expected qualifier.
 The language is varied and is expected to be original. Writers and other creators of communication art may break conventions.

6. The themes (23)

[Here, "themes" may be taken as a synonym for structure and plot elements.]

The themes are standardized and the basic plots limited:

  • Council
  • Gathering of army
  • Challenge
  • Rallying cry
  • Despoiling of the vanquished
  • Hero's shield
  • Assembly
  • Meal
  • Hero's helper.
 The themes are varied and less obtrusive.
7. The persona of the main characters (30, 69-70)

Characters seem uncomplicated:

  • Unselfconscious
  • Unaware of power one has to project an image in others’ minds and manipulate it
  • Spontaneous
  • Not analytic
  • Lack of concern with the power of the will
  • Unaware of the sense of a difference between past and future.
  • Heroic figures
  • Bizarre, larger than life

Characters seem more complex:

  • Conscious of projected image
  • Aware of power one has to project an image in others' minds and manipulate it
  • Introspective, reflective
  • Analytic
  • Aware of the power of the will
  • Aware of the sense of difference between the past and future.
  • Everyman and antihero
  • Life-sized characters

Top
9. The power inherent in the word (32-33)

Spoken language is a mode of action, an event, occurrence.

Spoken words have great power and are associated with magic.

Spoken language is a countersign of thought.

Words are associated with print and in effect dead until one resurrects them.
10. The way names are perceived (33) Names are seen as giving human beings power over what is named. Names are seen as labels.
11. The way thoughts are formed (34)

Thoughts are formed to be remembered to preserve group identity.

  • Rhythmic
  • Balanced patterns
  • Repetition
  • Antitheses
  • Alliterations
  • Assonances
  • Proverbs patterned for retention and ready recall
 Thoughts are linear, analytic and memorable mainly for aesthetic purposes.
12. The style of sentence structures (28, 36-38)

Compound - Additive rather than subordinative sentence structures.

Paratactic - The sentences also often accumulate in paratactic style without the use of coordinating or subordinating conjunctions, as in, "It was cold; the snows came."

Sentences structures vary to include both compound and complex sentences, coordinate as well as subordinate sentence patterns.

 

Top

13. For whose convenience the discourse is organized (37-38)

See chiastic structure discussion from Dorsey's book.

Performance is structured for the speaker's convenience. Discourse is organized for the reader's convenience.
14. Discourse features and elements (38-57)
  1. Aggregative formulas, epithets and proverbs
  2. Redundant
  3. Conservative or traditionalist
    --Appreciate the figures of the wise old man and wise old woman
    --And others who can tell the old stories
  4. Structures knowledge closely to the human life world
  5. Agonistically toned / high praise
    --People are seen as enemies or friends, with no in-between --"Different" means "enemy"
    -- Physical violence is seen as a suitable strategy for dealing with difference
    -- Opponents receive verbal tongue-lashings
    -- Violence is enthusiastically and graphically described

    --Fulsome praise is heaped on the good guys
  6. Empathetic and participatory
  7. Homeostatic - slough off memories that have no present relevance
  8. Concepts used in situational, operational frames of reference that are minimally abstract
  1. Analytic
  2. Sparsely linear
  3. Liberal progressive
    --Appreciate the younger discoverers of something new
    --Downgrade the figures of the wise old man and wise old woman
  4. Some knowledge is abstract, removed from the human life world
  5. Detached, disengaged, neutral
    --In addition to friends and enemies, there are acquaintances, VIPs, and non-entities.
    --It is politically correct to view differences as something to be celebrated.
    --Physical violence and war are seen mostly as strategies of last resort, if not totally contemptible.
    -- Verbal hostility is seen as counterproductive.
    --Violence is kept to a minimum.
    --Excessive praise is seen as gushing and viewed negatively.
  6. Objectively distanced
  7. Truth is more fixed. Keep even memories that have no present relevance alive.
  8. Concepts used in visualist, immobile world of ideas
15. The purpose for riddles and questions (39)

The riddles question the adjectives to affirm the known.

 Riddles and questions explore options or challenge current theory.
16. Learning retention (48-49) Learning is forgotten as soon as it is no longer needed. Learning is retained because it is seen as cumulative.
17. Identity (54-55)

Members

  • derive identity from the group.
  • act with the group, not as individuals.
  • Follow a leader

Members

  • derive some identity consciously from the influence of significant individuals and
  • teachings in the literary and artistic canon.

Top
18. On what courses of action and attitudes depend (68) Courses of action and attitudes toward issues depend significantly more on sound - the effective use of words, and thus, on human interaction Courses of action and attitudes toward issues depend significantly more on non-verbal, visual input.
19. The handling of requests for information (68-69) Requests for information are interpreted as invitations to a contest of wits or polite duel. Requests for information are handled routinely as simple transactions.
20. Valid testimony (96-7) Assume that oral testimony has more force than written records. Give weight to genealogies. Assume that written records carry just as much or more force than collective oral testimony. Discount genealogies.
21. Time markers (97-98)

Time markers are not strictly observed.

The past is not perceived as itemized terrain.

People orient themselves more strictly according to time markers

They track the past as itemized terrain.
22. Plot structure (142) Plot develops in medias res. Poet reports being in the middle of a situation, and then explains in detail how it came to be in episodic time order. Narrative plot develops with a beginning,build-up, middle, and end in a systematic time sequence, a climactic linear plot.
23. How persuasion works People respond most readily to emotional (pathos) and power (ethos) appeals. Although emotional and power appeals are recognized, intellectual appeals (logos) are most compelling

 

Updated 3/19/09 . | English Dept. | SAC | Top