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Pub Date: |
1981-01-00 |
Pub Type(s): |
Information Analyses; Opinion Papers; Speeches/Meeting Papers |
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Descriptors:
Cultural Background; Cultural Context; Cultural Differences; Diachronic Linguistics; Language Usage; Language Variation; Non Western Civilization; Oral Language; Sociolinguistics; Western Civilization; Written Language
Abstract:
The development of literacy is traced in this paper to promote the thesis that dependence on literacy education naturally leads to two competing cultures, one oral and one literate. Events in the development of the Greek alphabet are traced to advance the argument, and the differences between cultures dependent on Greek and non-Greek writing systems are presented as evidence of the conflicts that can result between the competing dynamics of oral and written communication. The paper stresses the idea that the capacity for acoustic communication has been programed into human genes, making oral communication a fact of evolutionary history, while alphabetic communication enjoys no such programing and is a learned faculty in the sense in which a language is not. The recent events in Iran, the problems associated with the Chinese symbol system, and the "mind set" created by Western civilization's dependence on written language are discussed to illustrate the tension that has developed and is developing between the modes of oral language and the modes of literacy. From this discussion comes the conclusion that in any modern society some kind of partnership must evolve between oral language and literacy and that this partnership should be accepted and accomodated. (RL)
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Pub Date: |
1978-11-20 |
Pub Type(s): |
Books |
Peer Reviewed: |
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Descriptors:
Alphabets; Ancient History; Classical Literature; Communication (Thought Transfer); Epics; Greek Civilization; Literacy; Persuasive Discourse; Propaganda; Rhetoric; Speech Communication; Visual Arts; Western Civilization; Writing (Composition); Written Language
Abstract:
Intended for both classicists and nonclassicists, this volume explores the beginnings of literacy in ancient Greece and Rome and examines the effects of written communication on these cultures. The nine articles, written by classical scholars and educators in the field of communication, discuss the following: the superiority of the alphabet over previous writing systems and its impact on the Homeric epics; a comparative study of the earliest Greek and Phoenician inscriptions and a contrast of Greek and Semitic poetry; the composition of the Homeric epics, their communicative function and special type of language; the origins of propaganda in Aristotelian persuasion; literary evidence of how the Greeks and Romans learned to write; the ancient telegraph--its use for military purposes and the connection between its development and the spread of literacy; the ways in which the visual arts, temples, and sculpture of Greece communicated the ideas of the semiliterate early Greeks; and the effect of literacy on Greek historical writing, particularly the conflict between the aims of oral narration and those of written communication in the reconstruction of the past. (MAI)
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Pub Date: |
1976-00-00 |
Pub Type(s): |
Reports - Research |
Peer Reviewed: |
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Descriptors:
Alphabets; Classical Languages; Cultural Influences; Cultural Interrelationships; Greek Civilization; Literacy; Symbolic Language; Western Civilization; Written Language
Abstract:
The four essays in this book are concerned with the cultural consequences of literacy in that they demonstrate that some forms of competence, highly valued in society, developed in large part as an unintended consequence of the Greek alphabetic writing system. The first essay, entitled "Spoken Sound and Inscribed Sign," discusses the preliteracy of the Greeks, symbols of numbers versus symbols of language, speaking versus reading, diverse meanings of the word "write," and the priority of reading over writing. "The Pre-Greek Syllabaries" defines the act of recognition and discusses the alphabet versus syllabary, literacy and literature, and the control of technology over content. The third essay is concerned with "The Greek Alphabet" and the results of its invention. The final essay, "Aftermath of the Alphabet," discusses the law of residual ambiguity, the Roman version, literate culture in the classical age, readership before the printing press, politics and the alphabet, arithmetical "literacy" and musical "literacy," and the alphabetic cultures of the modern world. (MAI)
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