From Orality To Literacy

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the deep implications of each. An oral culture is one in which all communication is by talking and listening.

The fact that there is no means of writing anything down means that all values and morals of the given society are stored in the minds of the people.

As cultural knowledge is so deeply embedded into stories and ritual the concept of knowledge actually existing as a separate entity is non-existent in an oral society. Walter Ong (1982) says that in these kinds of societies knowledge is performed through the telling of stories and the carrying out of rituals.

There is no separation of the 'knower from the known' (Havelock 1976). The myths and folktales of the village storyteller do not have a script, this would be an oral version of literacy, they are recreated anew with each performance. There simply is no 'text' apart from each individual incarnation of each tale.

The performer of a tale is combining an act of creation with an act of transmission. His primary ...

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and events and many hundreds of pictures are needed to record a lot of information. It was the invention of the Greek alphabet in the fifth century BC that marks the beginnings of literate society in Europe. This is because the Greek alphabet uses twenty six meaningless symbols to reproduce the sounds of words on a page, meaning anything that can be spoken can be easily written down and recorded forever. According to some observers (Mcluhan 1962, Havelock 1976 and Ong 1982) the invention of the phonetic alphabet has incredibly significant effects on the creation and communication of knowledge in the society that possesses this tool. As things can now be written down and recorded ...

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