Walter Ong, Orality, Literacy, And Modern Culture

Back in ancient times, the development of the first urban cultures was due to gradual changes and advancements that contributed to a communal society. As agriculture and specialized jobs started to become the norm in early cities, citizens began to realize that they were missing something that was crucial to their productivity and organization: a system of writing and recordkeeping. While most ancient civilizations created a form of writing, Mesopotamian and Egyptian societies utilized them for more than just recordkeeping. These advancements serve as ancient origins of how we use written language in the present day. While there are currently countless forms of writing in the modern age, the concept of writing and literacy is treasured

In recent years, the rushing tide of typing has overwhelmed the once necessary skill of handwriting. As the days pass by computers and other 21st century electronics are becoming more and more a part human lives. Gone are the constant needs for pen and paper, often times all that is needed for notetaking is a laptop and working fingers. A recent article published by Anne Trubek titled “Handwriting Just Doesn’t Matter” analyzes the importance of handwriting in the computerized world that is lived in today, as well as through a discussion on the teaching of cursive and other handwriting exercises in schools. Using a mix of pathos, logos, and minor amounts of ethos, Trubek is able to comprehensively convince her audience that handwriting is not as important or useful a skill as it used to be.

Not So Fast,” Andrea Lunsford argues that rather than leading to a new illiteracy, the digital technologies in the modern world help students to develop their ability of writing. Not only that students are daferrors than 25 years ago, actually with less spelling errors. In order to help students with the challenges, the teacher should offer solid instructions and encouragement rather than derision.

In the beginning of chapter four, The Typographic Mind, Neil Postman delivers an impressive narrative argument about the impact of print information culture on 17th and 19th century minds. Postman makes a few claims with respect to the contrasts between the written and spoken word. In this essay, there are four qualities of the typographic mind: attention span, listening ability, knowledge of issues, and literary language.

In his essay, “Thought,” Louis H. Sullivan illustrates the importance of real thinking and creative thinking. He asserts that words are not really necessary to use to express our thoughts. He presents other wordless forms of communication to translate our thoughts into loud expressions. Music, painting, images and other wordless forms are the solution the author suggest, as better forms of communication. “Real thinking is better done without words” Sullivan argues. “Words” cut off the inspiration of creative thinking, and disturbs the imagination when someone tries to translate their thoughts into spoken language. According to the author, images are the best way to translate our creative thoughts without the interruption of finding the perfect word to describe an idea. Sullivan attempts to persuade his audience to avoid reading because it deprives them from real thinking: asserting that it must be only done in the present. He discusses that writing is a slow process: many thoughts dissipates as one struggles to put their thoughts into words. Another point that Sullivan argues is that one should only think in the present, and focus in the present alone because the present is the only thing that matters. Sullivan explains, “You cannot think in the past, you can only think of the past… you cannot think in the future, you can only think of the future” … “One is dead and the other is yet to be born.” The author argues that it is not good idea to expand our imagination onward and

Yet and still, technology has given us many advances over the years. From the typewriter to the printing press, technological advances have made life easier and convenient. We might not see the benefit in the present moment, but eventually it’ll all become clear. For example, objectors of Gutenberg’s 15th century printing press argued that the easily accessibility

Great job! Just to think about the culture and people before the spread of literacy is fascinating. To imagine the information and the way the mind would have been able to work to pass on information orally without writing. Actually that sound really nice to me as I am a much better speaker than writer... Anyway it reminds me of the more recent change maybe some of you can relate or understand. Discussing the changes in phone numbers and memorization recently. It seemed not that long ago we could memorize all of our friends and families phone numbers. Then the little black book, and now many people I know do not memorize any numbers as the phones just have contacts to choose the name of the person you are trying to call. Imagine what it will

Developments in digital technology are expanding our understanding of “writing.” To the extent that technology is available and appropriate, by the end of their first

According to Tiffany O’Callaghan, author of “The Writing’s on the Screen” published in the New Scientist, digital technology impacts not just what we read

Online media is pushing literacy in different and cool directions. Kids and teenagers today are coming up with new ways of writing. Clive tells us in The New Literacy,¨The brevity of texting, and status updating, teaches young people to develop haiku-like concision.¨ When kids text they write short and fast things and don't go into much detail. Since we are changing the way we write, in four years from now when we have even more new technology imagine how many more ways of writing there will be. He also says that, ¨For Lunsford, technology isn't killing our ability to write. It's reviving it—and pushing our literacy in bold new directions.¨ But still most people think

Technology has made a huge difference in the world since history, and it has been a reason why people are more social. In the old times since the 1960’s to the 1980’s many people didn't knew where many things came from or they didn't knew how it was made or know anything about technology. Until, in the year 1440 printing press came as a form of technology to people that allowed them to write news on newspapers and inform the people many things about what was going on in the world and how many things were created.

ONG in chapter five “ Print, Space and Closure”talks about printing press and its effects .Through the chapter I found some interesting points connected to literacy. First,the idea of persons in a primary oral culture can entertain some sense of proprietary rights to a poem but with writing resentment at plagiarism begins to develop . We struggle in a copy right world and with removing words from the sound world , print encouraged us to think about mental held possessions as we express ourselves in narrative discourse."Writing is not necessarily the mirror-image and destroyer of orality, but reacts or interacts with oral communication in a variety of ways. Sometimes the line between written and oral even in a single activity cannot actually be drawn very clearly, as in the characteristic Athenian contract which involved witnesses and an often rather slight written document, or the relation between the performance of a play and the written and published text.” (Rosalind Thomas, Literacy and Orality in Ancient Greece. Cambridge Univ. Press, 1992). As a future literacy specialist , I gained new understanding about the line between oral and written and the way writing interacts with oral.

Problems often arise when we consider the use of verbal stories as a means of passing down knowledge due to the fact that over time we lose bits and pieces of a story. It definitely calls into question the reliability of the stories as accurate accounts of history and has caused many researchers to regard oral history as biased accounts compared with the presumed accuracy of the written word. The high regard given to writers also ignores the fact that writers can also be prejudiced in their writings. Though spoken word is much older than written word, the two methods complement each other with their unique attributes. For example emotions, gesticulations and intonations conveyed through the performance of spoken word is lost when converted to written word, but while spoken word changes over time, written word remains the same.

In the year 1440, Johannes Gutenberg created the printing press, and his effect on society and the way information was spread can never be overstated in the slightest. This device allowed for more opportunities for literacy and learning to take place. But exactly how much of an impact did Johannes Gutenberg have on the modern world and its technology? Johannes Gutenberg’s printing press was perhaps the most influential device of its time, and changed the modern world as we know it. Gutenberg’s machine allowed for books to be printed and distributed quickly, and mistakes could be fixed in the blink of an eye. We will be looking at the biggest changes Gutenberg’s printing press brought to society.

How has writing and the way we read changed in the last fifty years? Technology, reading, and writing has changed greatly over the last five decades, but how much has it affected our culture? Technology has become our culture, we are cyber culture. We need everything as fast as we can get it, somehow we’ve lost the time through the years to read and write as we once did.