Ong Chapter 4

Writing Restructures Consciousness
oral discourse cannot be detached from author
text doesn't change/has authority
Plato - writing destroys memory - rely on text v. memory
Plato only thought that way via writing
Plato- writing is dead/inhuman
Dead text survives generations v. orality

Writing is a technology
alien technology
no way to write naturally v. speaking
speech lives in unconscious even grammar rules
technology enhances human life

What is writing or script
first script Sumeria 3500 bc
notch marking and symbols were precursors
Even an alphabet sometimes needs context "read"

Many Scripts, one alphabet
tokens have been used in lieu of alphabet
rebus writing = mill+walk+key
Most scripts are hybrid/symbols and letters
Hebrew & Arabic have no vowels
Greek alphabet is utilitarian
Chinese alphabet elitist requires leisur time to learn
Korean alphabet liberated itself from Chinese characters

Onset of Literacy
Writing is seen as magic to orals
First stage of literacy is craft literacy - hired reader/writer
in writing, "the whole body labors" - Orderic Vitalis
Early literates were mindful of how the text would sound if spoken

From Memory to Written Records
live witness can defend testimony as opposed to text
Texts were not dated
ppl didn't understand relevance of what number of calendar year
they did not track their own exact age
orality knows no charts/lists/figures
Genesis begat records use oral strategies
texts never written from bottom to top

Some Dynamics of Textuality
No intonations available/subtleties of meaning lost
Writers and readers are fictional
writing can be communication with dead source
Diaries particularly difficult - fictionalizing
A reader must situate himself
Authors like Joyce demand impossible audience
Finnegan's Wake reads well aloud

Distance, Precision, Grapholects, Magnavocabularies
writing = precise / oral=human/proverbial
writing can be erased- words once spoken are there
oral=avoids correction/ruins credibility
writing=corrections very helpful
Plato benefitted from analysis of writing & oral structure
Writing allows introspection - religious texts
writing effects speech dialects bt literate & non-literate
writing expresses unfamiliar precisely
lower class = oralbased
upper class=textbased
oral-contextbased
writing-languagemeaningbased
dialect to written language takes on changes=grapholect
grapholect bears marks of milions of minds which have used it to share their consciousness with one another
grapholect vocabulary exponentially larger than oral
Dictionaries = good example of writing altering consciousness
many more resources available in a grapholect v. dialect

Interactions: Rhetoric and the Places
rhetorical-oral philosophical-chirographic
loci communes used in rhetoric provided arguments and proverb formulae
Some poetry was created to show of orator skills
Women authors were less influenced by rhetoric-educated in vernacular schools

Interactions: Learned Languages
latin formed thousands of dialects via speech/regions
written latin evolved differently/school language
Learned Latin male rite of passage from school
mother tongues live in unconscious, not learned latin
Classical education aimed to produce orators v. writers
Learned Latin=language devoid of orality
mother tongues=used by mothers raising kids
now all written languages are mother tongues

Tenaciousness of Orality
modern doctoral dissertation defense proves oration skills
rhetoric education now means effective writing