I’m fascinated by Walter Ong’s idea that writing has changed how people think, and has therefore changed culture. One of the main differences between writing and speaking is that writing can be revised, while speech can never be taken back once it has been heard. Speakers live in the moment, and it is unlikely that one will be made to answer for each and every word that was spoken. On the other hand, writing could be around for longer than the writer lives, so the writer will always be responsible for what has been written.
The speaker’s advantage has disappeared with the advent of technology to record the spoken word and the ability to share it. These technologies are like writing – they forever capture speech, removing it from time and putting it into history.
Gerd Baumann, interpreting Walter Ong’s Orality and Literacy, says, “Writing takes language out of the evanescent act of speaking and fixes oral utterance, an event in time, to written signs, objects in space. It thus removes language, and with it, thought, from an immediate personal, social, and cultural contingency.” (Introduction. The Written Word: Literacy in Transition. Ed. Gerd Baumann. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1986. 1-22.)
Writing is a brave act. It is a way of committing to a particular thought and to a particular way of expression. The writer has no way to know how the writing will be received, while the speaker knows immediately if a misstep has occurred, and may take corrective action. Writers can be barking up the wrong tree and not know until the piece is published.
My grandmother hated talking on the phone because she couldn't see the person - she didn't feel sure she was getting her point across and couldn't be sure they were really paying attention to the conversation. When I first began to use email, I was uncomfortable with not being able to hear people's voices and judge how the conversation was going. In time, I felt more able to pick up a person's tone or mood - although email communications often seem very bland to me -trying very hard not to offend. I don't own a cell phone, so I don't text and don't get texts, but I imagine it is even more difficult to know how a conversation is going when texting is the means of communication.
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Cathy,
ReplyDeleteWhat I love most about your reading of Ong’s theories is the parallel you have drawn between the written word and speech as it relates to the growing presence of technology. Where once, as you put it, a speaker lived in the moment, the rise in recordings have made speeches a more permanent rather than ephemeral thing, akin to writing. What someone says is now being forever documented thanks to things like television and the internet, namely Youtube. However, unlike a written text, there is no revision for a recorded statement. In fact, it’s a frightening idea to think that, where once a spoken comment would fade with time, now it is permanently catalogued somewhere. Beneficially, though, the recording of speeches and statements means, like printed texts, that their permanency will insure their presence for generations to come. Centuries from now civilization can still here Roosevelt’s fireside chats or Ong’s explications of his own theories.
Also, I see exactly where you are coming from as far as conversations via e-mail and text messages. One of the things that I hate most about corresponding through e-mail and texts is the constant misinterpretations people have about certain parts of the conversation, especially when it’s with a stranger or a minor acquaintance who does not understand your personality as well as a close friend. One of the many joys of language is that a sentence can be read in multiple ways depending upon how it is used. The rise and fall of intonations, the placement of stress on one word over another, and the emphasis of one phrase rather than another all result in a multitude of different meanings for such a simple sentence as “You look nice toady.” With e-mail and other forms of written communication, especially text messages, those stresses and intonations are lost, resulting in misunderstood readings.
Thomas
I wonder if our use of email is depriving future generations of an authentic connection to the past. I have promised myself for the last ten years that I would take a shotgun to my computer and start writing letters by hand again. I used to write gloriously enormous letters to my friends. These are documents that might mean something to someone one day. Unless the FBI has been monitoring my email (which wouldn't surprise me), I can all but guarantee that 99.9% of my electronic correspondence in the past decade has been flushed down the cyber-toilet. Email is notorious for facilitating misunderstanding. And it's easily disposable. Technology is helping us to communicate nothing to no one faster and more efficiently.
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