Orality and Literacy: The Technologizing of the Word

“The subject of this book is the differences between orality and literacy. Or, rather, since readers of this or any book by definition are acquainted with literate culture from the inside, the subject is, first, thought and its verbal expression in oral culture, which is strange and at times bizarre to us, and, second, literate thought and expression in terms of their emergence from and relation to orality.”

Ong’s Introduction provides a simple overview of the book’s subject, introducing key concepts in simple and accessible language. Ong acknowledges the readers’ potential biases by himself describing the alternative perspective as ‘bizarre,’ and in doing so he encourages alignment with his perspectives and conveys the importance of moving beyond preconceived notions about this topic.

“Almost all the work thus far contrasting oral cultures and chirographic cultures has contrasted orality with alphabetic writing rather than with other writing systems (cuneiform, Chinese characters, the Japanese syllabary, Mayan script and so on) and has been concerned with the alphabet as used in the west (the alphabet is also at home in the east, as in India, Southeast Asia or Korea). Here discussion will follow the major lines of extant scholarship, although some attention will also be given, at relevant points, to scripts other than the alphabet and to cultures other than just those of the west.”

Ong notes the limited Anglo-American focus of his work as a major flaw, but justifies it as the result of a lack of internationally focused prior scholarship. This defangs potential criticism of this aspect of the work and mitigates the potential ramifications of the bias by drawing awareness to it in advance.

“But, in all the wonderful worlds that writing opens, the spoken word still resides and lives. Written texts all have to be related somehow, directly or indirectly, to the world of sound, the natural habitat of language, to yield their meanings.”

Ong uses rhetorical flourishes, such as the alliteration of ‘w’ in the opening phrase, and expressive language, such as the personification of ‘the spoken word.’ These stylistic choices convey information in a memorable, interesting, and evocative way that is more appealing than a dry recitation of textbook facts.

“Written words are residue. Oral tradition has no such residue or deposit. When an often-told oral story is not actually being told, all that exists of it is the potential in certain human beings to tell it.”

This quote opens with a metaphor that immediately associates writing with the visceral sensory concept of a ‘residue.’ The simple phrasing and short sentences contrasting ‘oral tradition’ with ‘written words’ strengthens the metaphor and adds impact to the alleged primacy but ephemerality of speech.

“From the beginning, deep inhibitions have interfered with our seeing the Homeric poems for what they in fact are. The Iliad and the Odyssey have been commonly regarded from antiquity to the present as the most exemplary, the truest and the most inspired secular poems in the western heritage. To account for their received excellence, each age has been inclined to interpret them as doing better what it conceived its poets to be doing or aiming at.”

Ong uses the superlatives ‘truest,’ ‘most inspired,’ ‘most exemplary’ to describe the Iliad and Odyssey, thereby showing the esteem in which they are held. The exaggerated and redundant use of positive vocabulary in extolling the poems’ virtues emphasizes their quality and importance in traditional academic circles.

“Careful study of the sort Milman Parry was doing showed that he repeated formula after formula. The meaning of the Greek term ‘rhapsodize,’ rhapsoidein, ‘to stitch song together’ (rhaptein, to stitch; dide, song), became ominous: Homer stitched together prefabricated parts. Instead of a creator, you had an assembly-line worker.”

Ong discusses the etymology and origin of the word ‘rhapsodize’ to foreshadow revelations about the true nature of oral poetry and lend authority to Parry’s analysis of Homer. The semantic history of the word also provides a figurative illustration of the process of composition as ‘stitching.’ Ong juxtaposes the high status mantle of ‘creator’ with the low-brow position of ‘assembly-line worker’ to show the extent of the prejudice opposing this view of oral composition.

“However, if attention to sophisticated orality-literacy contrasts is growing in some circles, it is still relatively rare in many fields where it could be helpful. For example, the early and late stages of consciousness which Julian Jaynes (1977) describes and relates to neurophysiological changes in the bicameral mind would also appear to lend themselves largely to much simpler and more verifiable description in terms of a shift from orality to literacy.”

Ong follows the common rhetorical strategy of stating a broad and general point, followed by a very specific example in support of the statement, thereby making the point more persuasive and impactful. Referencing Jayne’s work in particular shows how theories of orality can be applied beyond the bounds of the humanities. Ong uses comparative descriptors ‘simpler and more verifiable’ to promote the orality-based interpretation.

“[O]ral peoples commonly, and probably universally, consider words to have great power. Sound cannot be sounding without the use of power. A hunter can see a buffalo, smell, taste, and touch a buffalo when the buffalo is completely inert, even dead, but if he hears a buffalo, he had better watch out: something is going on. In this sense, all sound, and especially oral utterance, which comes from inside living organisms, is ‘dynamic.’

The fact that oral peoples commonly and in all likelihood universally consider words to have magical potency is clearly tied in, at least unconsciously, with their sense of the word as necessarily spoken, sounded, and hence power-driven.”

Ong uses the dual meaning of the word ‘power’ (as both physical force and perceived mystical energy) to link the aural characteristic of speech with its supposed magical connotations. Ong illustrates the unique importance and ephemerality of sound through the striking situational analogy of a buffalo wherein sound is the only sense that inherently warns of activity and life.

“An oral culture has no texts. How does it get together organized material for recall? This is the same as asking, ‘What does it or can it know in an organized fashion?’ […] How could you ever call back to mind what you had so laboriously worked out? The only answer is: Think memorable thoughts.”

In this quote, Ong uses repeated hypophora, a type of rhetorical question that is immediately answered by the questioner. The rapid-fire rephrasing and repeating of the questions encourages reflection and underlines the complexity of the issue at hand. Ong’s final, decisive answer to the question is lent immediate authority by this format, as well as by the simplicity of the three word assertion and his own forceful presentation of it as the ‘only’ answer.

“Sight isolates, sound incorporates. […] Vision comes to a human being from one direction at a time: to look at a room or a landscape, I must move my eyes around from one part to another. When I hear, however, I gather sound simultaneously from every direction at once: I am at the center of my auditory world, which envelopes me, establishing me at a kind of core of sensation and existence. This centering effect of sound is what high-fidelity sound reproduction exploits with intense sophistication. You can immerse yourself in hearing, in sound. There is no way to immerse yourself similarly in sight.”

The use of first and second person in this quote emphasizes the universality of the described sensory experiences. Ong contrasts the immersive experience of listening with the attentive experience of seeing in order to illustrate the difference between oral and visual communication methods.

“Most persons are surprised, and many distressed, to learn that essentially the same objections commonly urged today against computers were urged by Plato in the Phaedrus (274-7) and in the Seventh Letter against writing […] Those who are disturbed by Plato’s misgivings about writing will be even more disturbed to find that print created similar misgivings when it was first introduced.”

Ong creates a sense of historical continuity by showing similarities in reactive attitudes against new communication technologies throughout the ages. His acknowledgement of common reflexive ‘misgivings’ and emotional responses validates any objections felt by the reader. However, by aligning current objections with other outdated oppositions to now accepted technology Ong simultaneously undermines them.

“Such a script is basically time-consuming and elitist. There can be no doubt that the characters will be replaced by the roman alphabet as soon as all the people in the People’s Republic of China master the same Chinese language (‘dialect’), the Mandarin now being taught everywhere. The loss to literature will be enormous, but not so enormous as a Chinese typewriter using over 40,000 characters.”

Ong’s perspective here is a product of his social and historical context as an American scholar during the late 20th century. Anglo-American centralism in academic discourse led to the proliferation of broad—and, many critics would say, offensive—assumptions such as these. His ironic, mocking association between the extent of the loss to literature with the size of a classic Chinese typewriter is dismissive and trivializing of the subject of non-Western literary traditions. The fact that the Chinese script persists in the modern era, aided by digital communication technologies unanticipated by Ong, undermines Ong’s claims here.

“In a text even the words that are there lack their full phonetic qualities. In oral speech, a word must have one or another intonation or tone of voice—lively, excited, quiet, incensed, resigned, or whatever. It is impossible to speak a word orally without any intonation.”

The long list of potential intonations serves to highlight the extent and diversity of the information with is provided by paralanguage—nonverbal cues and features of speech. This listing, along with the reinforcement of asserting the ‘impossibility’ of eschewing intonation juxtaposes the ‘lack’ of any equivalent in written communication. Thus one of the major differences between oral and written communication is made clear.

“The development of the vast rhetorical tradition was distinctive of the west and was related, whether as cause or effect or both, to the tendency among the Greeks and their cultural epigoni to maximize oppositions, in the mental as in the extramental world: this by contrast with Indians and Chinese, who programmatically minimized them.”

Here, Ong briefly acknowledges the differences in the manifestation of the orality-literacy shift and its impact across cultures. He makes broad, sweeping statements and generalizations without supporting evidence or elaboration. This is characteristic of the Anglo-American centric view common among scholars of his background, and it underlines one of the greatest criticisms of the work, namely, its preoccupation with Western culture to the exclusion of other global cultures.

“[N]o one ever consciously launched a program to give this new direction to rhetoric: the ‘art’ simply followed the drift of consciousness away from an oral to a writing economy. […] education could no longer be described as fundamentally rhetorical as it could be in past ages. The three Rs—reading, ’riting, and ’rithmetic […] gradually took over.”

Ong uses the switch from a rhetoric-focused pedagogy to a ‘3 Rs’ pedagogy as a milestone marking the shift from orality-based education to literacy-based education. Identifying a single turning point as representation of a larger cultural and pedagogical shift makes the rate and manner of this progression more accessible.

“In a work of this scope there is no way even to enumerate all the effects of print. Even a cursory glance at Elizabeth Eisenstein’s two volumes, The Printing Press as an Agent of Change (1979), makes abundantly evident how diversified and vast the particular effects of print have been.”

Here Ong acknowledges again the limited scope of this book, undermining any potential criticism of its brevity. His referencing of external texts functions similarly to a bibliography, encouraging the reader to seek out such supplementary material should they find the information in Ong’s text lacking. Ong’s authoritative and definite statements use emphatic language such as ‘no way’, ‘even’ and ‘abundantly’ to emphasize and support his assertions and make them more persuasive.

“Manuscript culture is producer-oriented, since every individual copy of a work represents great expenditure of an individual copyist’s time. Medieval manuscripts are turgid with abbreviations, which favor the copyist although they inconvenience the reader. Print is consumer-oriented, since the individual copies of a work represent a much smaller investment of time: a few hours spent in producing a more readable text will immediately improve thousands upon thousands of copies.”

Ong uses a simple juxtaposition of producer versus consumer orientation to account for many of the differences in manuscript and print culture, as well as in the physical characteristics of chirographic and printed books. His use of the repetitive set phrase ‘thousands upon thousands’ reiterates and emphasizes the difference in the output of handwritten and printed books, creating a more dramatic sense of scale and difference.

“This new orality has striking resemblances to the old in its participatory mystique, its fostering of a communal sense, its concentration on the present moment, and even its use of formulas […] But it is essentially a more deliberate and self-conscious orality, based permanently on the use of writing and print, which are essential for the manufacture and operation of the equipment and for its use as well. Secondary orality is both remarkably like and remarkably unlike primary orality.”

Ong presents the similarities between primary and secondary orality, followed by the major differences. He then summarizes both aspects in a simple but memorable phrase. This final sentence makes use of the literary techniques of parallelism (the repetition of elements within a sentence to create linguistic balance) and antithesis (the juxtaposition of absolute opposites) to create impact.

“Obviously, other developments in society besides the orality-literacy shift help determine the development of narrative over the ages—changing political organization, religious development, intercultural exchanges, and much else, including developments in the other verbal genres. This treatment of narrative is not intended to reduce all causality to the orality-literacy shift but only to show some of the effects which this shift produces.”

Ong lists other potential influences affecting society outside of the orality-literacy shift. This is a key acknowledgement relevant to the theme of The Cognitive and Social Effects of Literacy, which adds to the credibility of Ong’s claims by making them less drastic.

“What made a good epic poet was, among other things of course, first, tacit acceptance of the fact that episodic structure was the only way and the totally natural way of imagining and handling lengthy narrative, and, second, possession of supreme skill in managing flashbacks and other episodic techniques. Starting in ‘the middle of things’ is not a consciously contrived ploy but the original, natural, inevitable way to proceed for an oral poet approaching a lengthy narrative.”

Ong clearly and obviously identifies characteristics of a good epic poet through use of listing and the demonstrative adverbs ‘first’ and ‘second.’ He also uses tripling, the listing of three successive adjectives ‘original, natural, inevitable’ to give a memorable and impactful way description of working in this way.

“Basically, the singer is remembering in a curiously public way—remembering not a memorized text, for there is no such thing, nor any verbatim succession of words, but the themes and formulas that he has heard other singers sing. He remembers these always differently, as rhapsodized or stitched together in his own way on this particular occasion for this particular audience.”

Ong uses the repetition of certain words, like ‘remembering’ and ‘particular,’ in quick succession but as part of slightly altered, parallel phrases in order to mimic and illustrate the characteristics of oral memory and recitation. Just as Ong describes themes and formulas being reconstituted into new recitations, so too does he rephrase his sentences with repeated words in order to express and clarify his ideas.

“Levi-Strauss’s much quoted statement (1966, p. 245) that ‘the savage mind totalizes’ would be rendered ‘the oral mind totalizes.’”

Ong rewrites the highly recognizable and famous statement by Levi-Strauss so that the quote is stripped of the offensive colonialist language ‘savage’ while still retaining its meaning. In this way, Ong illustrates how prior research and philosophy can be modernized and illuminated through combining it with new theories on orality.

“I have to know the tradition—the intertextuality, if you wish—in which I am working so that I can create for real readers fictional roles that they are able and willing to play. It is not easy to get inside the minds of absent persons most of whom you will never know. But it is not impossible if you and they are familiar with the literary tradition they work in. I hope that I have somewhat succeeded in laying hold on tradition sufficiently to get inside the minds of readers of this present book.”

Ong writes this section in the first person singular, when discussing his own struggles with writing, and also in the second person in order to connect with his readers. He connects his personal experience writing with the general academic discussion of a fictionalized audience so that the passage functions as a meta exploration of the writer-reader dynamic in print.