Ordinary Oralities

Ordinary Oralities PDF Author: Josephine Hoegaerts
Publisher: Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG
ISBN: 3111079430
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 227

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Book Description
Histories of voice are often written as accounts of greatness: great statesmen, notable rebels, grands discours, and famous exceptional speakers and singers populate our shelves. This focus on the great and exceptional has not only led to disproportionate attention to a small subset of historical actors (powerful, white, western men and the occasional token woman), but also obscures the broad range of vocal practices that have informed, co-created and given meaning to human lives and interactions in the past. For most historical actors, life did not consist of grand public speeches, but of private conversations, intimate whispers, hot gossip or interminable quarrels. This volume suggests an extended practice of eavesdropping: rather than listening out for exceptional voices, it listens in on the more mundane aspects of vocality, including speech and song, but also less formalized shouts, hisses, noises and silences. Ranging from the Scottish highlands to China, from the bedroom to the platform, and from the 18th until the 20th century, contributions to this volume seek out spaces and moments that have been documented idiosyncratically or with difficulty, and where the voice and its sounds can be of particular salience. In doing so, the volume argues for a heightened attention to who speaks, and whose voices resound in history, but refuses to take the modern equation between speech and presence/representation for granted.

Ordinary Oralities

Ordinary Oralities PDF Author: Josephine Hoegaerts
Publisher: Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG
ISBN: 3111079430
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 227

Get Book

Book Description
Histories of voice are often written as accounts of greatness: great statesmen, notable rebels, grands discours, and famous exceptional speakers and singers populate our shelves. This focus on the great and exceptional has not only led to disproportionate attention to a small subset of historical actors (powerful, white, western men and the occasional token woman), but also obscures the broad range of vocal practices that have informed, co-created and given meaning to human lives and interactions in the past. For most historical actors, life did not consist of grand public speeches, but of private conversations, intimate whispers, hot gossip or interminable quarrels. This volume suggests an extended practice of eavesdropping: rather than listening out for exceptional voices, it listens in on the more mundane aspects of vocality, including speech and song, but also less formalized shouts, hisses, noises and silences. Ranging from the Scottish highlands to China, from the bedroom to the platform, and from the 18th until the 20th century, contributions to this volume seek out spaces and moments that have been documented idiosyncratically or with difficulty, and where the voice and its sounds can be of particular salience. In doing so, the volume argues for a heightened attention to who speaks, and whose voices resound in history, but refuses to take the modern equation between speech and presence/representation for granted.

Voices and Texts in Early Modern Italian Society

Voices and Texts in Early Modern Italian Society PDF Author: Stefano Dall'Aglio
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317000994
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 262

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Book Description
This book studies the uses of orality in Italian society, across all classes, from the fifteenth to the seventeenth century, with an emphasis on the interrelationships between oral communication and the written word. The Introduction provides an overview of the topic as a whole and links the chapters together. Part 1 concerns public life in the states of northern, central, and southern Italy. The chapters examine a range of performances that used the spoken word or song: concerted shouts that expressed the feelings of the lower classes and were then recorded in writing; the proclamation of state policy by town criers; songs that gave news of executions; the exercise of power relations in society as recorded in trial records; and diplomatic orations and interactions. Part 2 centres on private entertainments. It considers the practices of the performance of poetry sung in social gatherings and on stage with and without improvisation; the extent to which lyric poets anticipated the singing of their verse and collaborated with composers; performances of comedies given as dinner entertainments for the governing body of republican Florence; and a reading of a prose work in a house in Venice, subsequently made famous through a printed account. Part 3 concerns collective religious practices. Its chapters study sermons in their own right and in relation to written texts, the battle to control spaces for public performance by civic and religious authorities, and singing texts in sacred spaces.

Information Technologies and Social Orders

Information Technologies and Social Orders PDF Author: Carl J. Couch
Publisher: Transaction Publishers
ISBN: 9780202366845
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 302

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Book Description
The history of human society, as Carl Couch recounts it in his speculative final book, is a history of successive, sometimes overlapping information technologies used to process the varied symbolic representations that inform particular social contexts. Couch departs from earlier "media" theorists who ignored these contexts in order to concentrate on the technologies themselves. Here, instead, he adopts a consistent theory of interpersonal and intergroup relations to depict the essential interface between the technologies and the social contexts. He emphasizes the dynamic and formative capacities of such technologies, and places them within the major institutional relations of societies of any size. Social orders are viewed in these pages as inherently and reflexively shaped by the information technologies that participants in the institutions use to carry out their work. The manuscript was nearly complete in draft at the time of Couch's death. He has left a bold, synthetic statement, reclaiming the common ground of sociology and communication studies and articulating the indispensability of each for the other. With admirable scope, across historical epochs and cultures, he shows in detail the transformative power of information technologies. While the author hopes that a humane vision comes with each technological advance, he nonetheless describes the numerous instances of mass brutality and oppression that have resulted from the oligarchic control of those technologies. Couch's theory and substantive analysis speak directly to the interests of historians, sociologists, and communication scholars. In its review, Contemporary Sociology said: "The volume is full of smart insights and valuable information, a fitting final effort for a scholar of great distinction." Carl J. Couch was professor of sociology at the University of Iowa and was president of the Society for the Study of Symbolic Interaction which he helped to establish, and is known as the creator of the New Iowa School of Symbolic Interaction. He died in 1994. The Carl Couch Center for Social and Internet Research was established in his memory. David R. Maines is chairperson at the Department of Sociology and Anthropology, Oakland University, and editor of the Communication and Social Order series. Shing- Ling Chen is assistant professor of mass communication at the University of Northern Iowa.

African Literacies and Western Oralities?

African Literacies and Western Oralities? PDF Author: William A. Coppedge
Publisher: Wipf and Stock Publishers
ISBN: 1725290391
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 305

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Book Description
How do twenty-first century Christians communicate the Bible and their faith in today's mediascape? Members of the International Orality Network (ION) believe that the answer to that paramount question is: orality. For too long, they argue, presentations of Christianity have operated on a printed (literate) register, hindering many from receiving and growing in the Christian faith. Instead, they champion the spoken word and narrative presentations of the gospel message. In light of the church's shift to the Global South, how have such communication approaches been received by majority world Christians? This book explores the responses and reactions of local Ugandan Christians to this "oral renaissance." The investigation, grounded in ethnographic research, uncovers the complex relationships between local and international culture brokers--all of whom are seeking to establish particular "modern" identities. The research conclusions challenge static Western categorizations and point towards an integrated understanding of communication that appreciates the role of materiality and embodiment in a broader religious socioeconomic discourse as well as taking into account societal anticipations of a flourishing "modern" African Church. This book promises to stimulate dialogue for those concerned about the communication complexities that are facing the global church in the twenty-first century.

Diachronic Pragmatics

Diachronic Pragmatics PDF Author: Leslie K. Arnovick
Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing
ISBN: 9027299021
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 208

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Book Description
The purpose of Diachronic Pragmatics is to exemplify historical pragmatics in its twofold sense of constituting both a subject matter and a methodology. This book demonstrates how diachronic pragmatics, with its complementary diachronic function-to-form mapping and diachronic form-to-function mapping, can be used to trace pragmatic developments within the English language. Through a set of case studies it explores the evolution of such speech acts as promises, curses, blessings, and greetings and such speech events as flyting and sounding. Collectively these “illocutionary biographies” manifest the workings of several important pragmatic processes and trends: increased epistemicity, subjectification, and discursization (a special kind of pragmaticalization). It also establishes the centrality of cultural traditions in diachronic reconstruction, examining various de-institutionalizations of extra-linguistic context and their affect on speech act performance. Taken together, the case studies presented in Diachronic Pragmatics highlight the complex interactions of formal, semantic, and pragmatic processes over time. Illustrating the possibilities of historical pragmatic pursuit, this book stands as an invitation to further research in a new and important discipline.

The Yezidi Oral Tradition in Iraqi Kurdistan

The Yezidi Oral Tradition in Iraqi Kurdistan PDF Author: Christine Allison
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1136746552
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 313

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Book Description
The Yezidis are a Kurdish-speaking religious minority, neither Muslim, Christian nor Jewish. Their ethnicity has been disputed, but most now claim Kurdish identity. Their heartland, including their holiest shrine, is in the Badinan province of Northern Iraq, and it is the communities in this area which are the main focus of this book. Their highly eclectic religion appears to contain many elements of 'the religions of the book', especially Sufism, upon a foundation of ancient Iranian belief and practice.

The Nation That Fears God Prospers

The Nation That Fears God Prospers PDF Author: Chammah J. Kaunda
Publisher: Fortress Press
ISBN: 1506447074
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 150

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Book Description
Through its strength in numbers and remarkable presence in politics, Pentecostalism has become a force to reckon with in twenty-first-century Zambian society. Yet, some fundamental questions in the study of Zambian Pentecostalism and politics remain largely unaddressed by African scholars. Situated within an interdisciplinary perspective, this unique volume explores the challenge of continuity in the Zambian Pentecostal understanding and practice of spiritual power in relation to political engagement. Chammah J. Kaunda argues that the challenge of Pentecostal political imagination is found in the inculturation of spiritual power with political praxis. The result of this inculturation is that Zambian Pentecostals sacralize the political authority of state power through the charisma of the national president and other major political personalities. It has also contributed to the construction of Zambian Pentecostal leadership that is deified rather than leadership that is formed through the struggles and experiences of the marginalized and powerless. Kaunda argues that the solution does not lie either in desacralization of powers or the separation between the church and the state, but rather in rethinking the Christ event as a paradigm for the recovery of Pentecostalism's sociopolitical prophetic dynamism.

Oral Traditions and the Verbal Arts

Oral Traditions and the Verbal Arts PDF Author: Ruth Finnegan
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1134945388
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 304

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Book Description
The study of oral traditions and verbal arts leads into an area of human culture to which anthropologists are increasingly turning their attention. Oral Traditions and the Verbal Arts provides up-to-date guidance on how to approach the study of oral form and their performances, treating both the practicalities of fieldwork and the methods by which oral texts and performances can be observed, collected or analysed. It also relates to those current controversies about the nature of performance and of 'text'. Designed as a practical and systematic introduction to the processes and problems of researching in this area, this is an invaluable guide for students, and lecturers of anthropology and cultural studies and also for general readers who are interested in enjoying oral literature for its own sake.

The American Indian Oral History Manual

The American Indian Oral History Manual PDF Author: Charles E Trimble
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1315419246
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 161

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Book Description
Oral history is a widespread and well-developed research method in many fields—but the conduct of oral histories of and by American Indian peoples has unique issues and concerns that are too rarely addressed. This essential guide begins by differentiating between the practice of oral history and the ancient oral traditions of Indian cultures, detailing ethical and legal parameters, and addressing the different motivations for and uses of oral histories in tribal, community, and academic settings. Within that crucial context, the authors provide a practical, step-by-step guide to project planning, equipment and budgets, and the conduct and processing of interviews, followed by a set of examples from a variety of successful projects, key forms ready for duplication, and the Oral History Association Evaluation Guidelines. This manual is the go-to text for everyone involved with oral history related to American Indians.

The Native American Oral Tradition

The Native American Oral Tradition PDF Author: Lois J. Einhorn
Publisher: Praeger
ISBN:
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 192

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Book Description
Einhorn, a rhetorical scholar, explores the rich history of the Native American oral tradition, focusing on stories, orations, prayers, and songs. Because American Indians existed without written language for many generations, their culture was strongly dependent on an oral tradition for continuity and preservation. Not surprisingly, they spent many hours perfecting the art of oral communication and learning methods for committing their messages to memory. Einhorn thoroughly examines the important aspects of this unique oral tradition from a rhetorical perspective, covering individual speakers, nations, and time periods. In the first half of the book, the author examines how the Native American oral tradition has affected their cultural assumptions, principles, values, beliefs, and experiences. These chapters focus primarily on characteristics of the Native American oral tradition that transcend individual nations. The second half of the book includes translated transcripts of representative speeches, stories, prayers, and songs. In accessible and compelling prose, Einhorn discusses the sanctity of the spoken word to Native Americans, concluding that their oral tradition helps to account for the survival of their people and their culture.