It was a lot harder to read and it was assumed that it would be read aloud.
| The list, the diagram and the syllogism |
| Statements, when written, can be placed alongside one another. Consider for example
the syllogism, the form of argument fundamental to Western classical logic, in which two propositions are combined to produce a conclusion. Although syllogistic thinking occurs also in non-literate cultures, the expression of the syllogism is nonetheless dependent on the technology of writing. It is impossible to express a general statement such as 'All p's are q' without reference to writing. In the oral context, specific cases may be considered, and their logic discussed at great depth. However, in practice, the move to the generalization seems rare. Without the mustering of many cases, each demonstrating the same style of argument, then there seems no point in attempting the summary that is expressed in the syllogism 'All p's are q'. Without the impetus of writing the motivation for that style of generalization is greatly reduced. So, the argument goes, externality allows comparisons to be made across cases. This in turn leads to styles of argument being apparent, independent of their content. This is the foundation of logic. |
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| The most important qualification to this argument lies in the suggestion that printing
is as important a factor as writing, since printing extends so vastly the numbers of documents manufactured, and hence also the readership. Consider Eisenstein on the sixteenth century revolution which followed the invention of printing: |
| 'Much as maps from different regions were brought into contact in the course of preparing editions of atlases, so too were technical texts brought together in certain physicians' and astronomers' libraries. Contradictions became more visible; divergent traditions more difficult to reconcile' (1979:74). |
| Eisenstein also emphasizes the effects of standardization, the implications of editions
of identical books instead of copyists' books, each with unique scribal errors: |
| 'In suggesting that the implications of standardization may be underestimated, however, I am not thinking only about textual emendation and errors, but also about calendars, dictionaries, ephemerides and other reference guides; about maps, charts, diagrams and other visual aids. The capacity to produce uniform spatio-temporal images is often assigned to the invention of writing without adequate allowance being made for the difficulty of multiplying individual images by hand. The same point applies to systems of notation whether musical or mathematical' (1979:81). |
| The development of geometry, mathematics and the precise sciences is closely connected
to the development of printing and the wide scale printing and distribution of texts. Here Eisenstein detects a clear change from the mediaeval world, and charts some of the differences which follow. Goody argues that 'preservation leads to accumulation, and accumulation to the increased possibility of incremental knowledge. Writing, being in effect the first stage of this process of preserving the past in the present, had the most far-reaching effects'(1988: 54). However, Eisenstein1 again links this to printing rather than to writing per se. Editions of handwritten books, because of the small numbers produced, lack durability in the long term. Only with the wide distribution of multiple identical copies was preservation achieved. Eisenstein's arguments are important, since if the differences claimed to follow from writing are actually attributable to printing, then the role of technology seems not less but more important. This suggests that similar radical changes may result from the introduction of computers as a new writing technology. I shall criticize the claims that have been made for one sort of computer writing (hypertext) below. |
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| Lists |
| Goody has written persuasively of the influence of lists on the way we think (1978:
114). Lists and labelled diagrams are clear examples of new techniques resulting from the use of writing. The claim is that writing lists invites questions. If one is writing a two-column list of words, then each word must be placed in the correct column, and not written down in both columns. If it is in one column, then having been written once it need not be repeated. It is suggested that this simple procedure lies behind many of our classificatory concerns. Is a tomato a fruit or a vegetable? In an oral society the item 'tomato' may occur on both lists, or neither, and in either case, no one may notice. It is not claimed that an oral society would be unable to answer this question, but rather that this particular question is less likely to be posed. Without writing there are fewer contexts in which a choice of category or class becomes an issue. Moreover, in an oral society it is quite possible for the assignment to change and for no one to notice. This can have useful results; consider for example the problems inherent in correlating a lunar and a solar calendar. If the months are named for the seasonal activity, as is often the case, then after a few years the moons will be loose their correlation with the seasons. For example, when it is nominally the harvest month, the grain has not yet ripened. When this is noticed it is easy, in an oral society, to re-adjust. We must have been wrong about the month; it is clearly the weeding month and not the harvesting month. Shrug your shoulders and get on with it. Problems only arise when a written record exists(Q.v. Bohnhoff and the Di calendar). On a calendar, months can be crossed off but the discrepancy becomes a double one. Not only do you call this month the harvest month when the crops are unripe, but there is a further visible problem on your calendar: you have already marked the weeding month as having passed. This raises the new and extra problem of systematization. Without writing these questions did not arise so forcefully. Consequences that can be traced to the invention of writing therefore include disembodied or abstract classification, and the possibility of classificatory completeness. |
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| Illustration: Classifying and writing tables. Take a sheet of paper. At the top write The world and its contents. Next, draw a line vertically down. Now begin to write some of the objects in the world. Do you put them to the left or to the right of the line? Should apples be best placed on the same side or opposite from snakes, trees and god? |
| Or: Draw a circle in the middle. Write The earth inside it and The heavens outside. Now begin to write down some of the objects in the world. |
| How is this version different? |
| There are many ways of playing this game. |
| We have seen that writing can sharpen contrasts by juxtaposition. Indeed, writing
may actually operate to create contrasts. The consideration of written items, particularly of different and incompatible versions, serves to prompt questions about them. Only when writing is it necessary to decide in a literal sense where to put things on a 'page' (of whatever sort). So, for example, are rain and dew to be listed with things of the earth, or with things of the heavens 1? This is not to suggest that classification only occurs with writing: |
| 'I do not wish to argue that the system itself is created by writing: classification
is an obvious condition of language and of knowing. But it is clear that the oral situations, the conditions of utterance, in which individuals, in most societies would formulate an exhaustive classification of terms for, say, trees or kin, are few, and certainly extra- ordinary' (Goody (1977: 102) my emphasis). |
| Rather, what I am suggesting is that a consequence of literacy is the process of
'over- generalization'. Writing leads to the issue of whether a tomato is a fruit or a vegetable. A further result of the move from oral to written communication is that more must be made explicit; there are no back-channels to check understanding. Writing tends to be more complete, and to be more explicit than speech. There is less indirection. What philosophers call 'indirect speech acts' often fail when transmitted in a written medium. When put into writing their very indirectness enables too wide a range of interpretation. In writing, things must be (literally and metaphorically) spelled out. From another point of view, consider, the differences between conversational speech, writing to another person and writing computer code (writing for a machine). There is an increasing degree of explicitness, and of formality. In speech we have interchanges such as: |
| About that thing... Yes. Well, I've sorted it out. |
| A letter can also be contextual: 'Re your letter of the 15th, I agree with what Smith
said about Jones', but the context needs to be expressly evoked ('Re yours'). In conversation the context can remain implicit; the use of the back channel ('Yes') confirms that this is no barrier to 1 Goody . |
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| understanding. In the computer program, however, nothing can be left to be inferred.
Both the objects and the procedures that will operate on those objects must be defined. Moreover, writing opens up possibilities of criticism. Distance allows licence to subordinates. Consider Nelson holding his telescope to his blind eye. A new class of excuses is created: 'the letter was lost in the post', rather than 'I read your letter and didn't agree so I have disregarded its contents'. |
| Law |
| Recording laws in writing leads to codification, which in turn enables such idealized
concepts as 'the rule of law'. In order to achieve this ideal, it is necessary first to abstract and to objectify in order to establish a policy or policies from the mass of particular cases. These principles must then be exercised consistently. In the absence of a written context, while it may still be possible to exercise justice both fairly and consistently, this is not only less likely to occur, but much more difficult to demonstrate. While justice may be done, it will not so clearly be seen to be done. The written record is more persuasive than the fallible memories of interested parties. This allows for the usual case in which literacy is restricted and literate experts have to read, interpret or explain the text to others most of whom are illiterate. The point is to see the difference between this case and one in which the experts simply speak with no possibility of external corroboration (or challenge). By pointing or otherwise referring to the written source the expert has an extremely effective rhetorical device! It is, however, a two-edged sword – the same texts can be used to challenge what in an oral society is uncontestable authority. Again, reference to external objects (written documents) can be a strategy to displace the real location of power. |
| Grammar |
| It has been suggested that writing results in new concepts of language, focusing
upon words rather than phrases (clauses). The study of grammar, and the idea of language as an object of study, are enabled by writing. This argument works best for syllabic or alphabetic writing systems. It is less convincing for logographic writing (which I will discuss later), although there is a long tradition of Chinese grammarians. Moreover, it should be remembered that early alphabetic writing lacked the spaces we now use to demarcate words. |
| When writing lacked spaces |
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| itwasalothardertoreadanditwasassumedthatitwouldbereadaloud. It was a lot harder to read and it was assumed that it would be read aloud. |
| 'Literacy represents a range of abilities or skills that may or may not lead to a
distinctive personal, social-psychological condition or orientation. Its meaning is established only in precise historical contexts; it is not universally given or proscribed. It need not connote dimensions of the liberal, the polished, or the literary, and may not even contrast strongly with illiteracy. Changing terminology will not solve the problem. A more difficult task is called for: a revision and reconceptualisation of the ways in which we think about literacy and illiteracy. Literacy must be seen as symbol and symptom as well as fact; that is one of the consequences of historical development.' (Graff 1987: 374). |
| Finnegan discusses some oral techniques of transmission which differ markedly from
the stereotype of the troubadour poet who creates a new variant of a common theme at each 1 E.g. 1988. 2 E.g. 1987. |
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| stereotype of the troubadour poet who creates a new variant of a common theme at
each performance, by the use of a stock of phrases and plots). There are other types of oral composition and transmission. She cites Somali oral poetry (1988: 166) and Pacific island song composition (1988: 86-109) as examples of other oral cultures in which fixity of composition is achieved and transmitted. A further case may be found in Indian Vedic literature which although written is transmitted from one generation of monk to another in a purely oral medium Staal (1961). The monks employ various means to ensure that the texts are learned perfectly. The more formal techniques are the chanting of the texts in sequences, starting from one word and building up a word at a time, rather in the fashion of the playground song One man went to mow. Further complications were added: reciting alternate words and the whole text backwards. Two of the most important techniques are chanting in unison and the belief that the texts are holy. Impetus to learn them perfectly follows from this belief, and chanting in unison gives immediate feedback (as did, apparently, the liberal use of corporal punishment). Chanting in unison is crucial since it allows errors to be detected. The multiple voices, just as the multiple copies made by the printing press (see Eisenstein (1979:115-6), ensure that the text is safely and accurately transmitted. Finnegan points out the complexities of the actual situation, which may be overlooked if we blindly apply an orality versus literacy template. For just as there are probably no societies in the world today untouched by writing in some form, direct or otherwise, so too in our own world orality is alive and well. (University lectures notwithstanding). An intriguing example is the extent to which large corporate organizations function as oral societies, albeit with writing as a talisman and icon. Executives are far too busy to read all the paper that crosses their desks. So reports begin with a one page executive summary, a summary written for executives without the time for leisured, thorough reading. In some cases managers do not have time even to read the summaries. The author of a report gives a verbal summary: This paper shows that... Such occurrences remind us that the influence of powerful rhetoric on decision-making should not be underestimated, even where the decisions are ostensibly based on written arguments. Perhaps in the executive summary and in the unread minutes of countless |
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| committees we have the contemporary counterparts of a world that Eisenstein (1979:
11) believes was lost with the advent of printing: a world which is partly oral and partly literate. Finnegan also stresses the complexity of the different divisions of labour made in the world. Some read and write, others read, some do neither. There are many worlds in the one world. But she plays down the pervasiveness of the idea of literacy. Once the example has been given, then people can think like literates while remaining oral. The oratory taught in American high schools, and fostered in university debating clubs and in the British Houses of Parliament is a highly literate one. It is not necessary actually to write a list in order to think with lists in mind. |
| A case study: the Vai of Liberia |
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