Cause and Effectin

Orality and Literacy

Somayeh Pedram

Orality and Literacy

• All societies grade members on verbal skills, either oral or written.

Verbal skills

• Every social group grants high status to members with good verbal skills.

• Reading bookd

Literate

Oral

• Book learning is not important to some people, but we shouldn’t consider them as nonverbal, because they, too, have their tests which are SPOKEN. Such cultures are considered to be ORAL.

• People lacking formal education and formal high status use such oral displays as a way of gaining status.

Literacy

• In the modern world, literacy has become not only an educational concern, but a political one; and those who are illiterate are severely handicapped.

• Literacy is not inborn in humans the way spoken language is, therefore, it’s easy to blame lack of success on the government and the schools.

• Labove and Abrahams: Those from oral cultures are as intelligent and

logical as those from literate ones. What is different is what they are intelligent about.

• Ong ( 1982-44-45 ) : Oral cultures develop a “celebration of physical

behavior” and that they are more violent than the literate cultures.

• Ong (78-108) declares that literacy reconstructs consciousness. Because writing transfers speech to the visual plane and the literate are capable of more abstraction and distancing.

One great advantage of literacy is that one can learn a great deal not attainable by one’s immediate physical and cultural environment.

Literacy and Spelling

• Are you going to be likely to get a job, if you have sent your letter of application with some misspellings?

• I got my digree in English Literachure in 2004…. !

Spelling as Rebellion

• African American Vernacular English

AAVE• waZ, • boyZ, • gangsta,

Communicating by Computer

A: Hi B: HiA: How r u?B: I’m ok. U?A: Fine :D Sup? B: w8. brbA: ok

Communicating by Computer

• In electronic discourse we see writing used for the kinds of social interaction formerly believed to be served only by oral communication.

• Many scholars fear that computerese will be the death of literacy.

* Wat I am sayin iz dat I don wanna ….* He went 2 jail 4 drug dealin??????!!!!!!! :O

Communicating by Computer

• To sum up, electronic discourse such as emails, sms, and chat, aims for an informal , friendly tone as close to face-to-face communication as one can get in writing.

It also simplifies the mechanics of writing.

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