Orality and Literacy, Part II

After reading Orality and Literacy, I must admit to experiencing an overwhelming number of thoughts running through my head. In very few pages, Ong covers a vast number of topics and explanations that I may never have come to realize or consider had I not read this novel. But perhaps the most intriguing idea brought up for me is how we express our written thoughts in a form that attempts to represent the emotion and gestures that naturally come with oral conversation.

This concept portrays a glaring disadvantage of writing. As Ong shares, "To make yourself clear without gesture, without facial expression, without intonation, without a real hearer, you have to foresee circumspectly all possible situation, and you have to make your language work so as to come clear all by itself, with no existential context. The need for this exquisite circumspection makes writing the agonizing work it commonly is." Obviously our attempts to achieve clarity consist of effective punctuation, placing content in an orderly format and matching our writing style to the character of our intended audience. Yet I have found that a conversation through text is far less effective than speaking regardless. Usually I become frustrated and resort to a phone call, or better yet, schedule a time to meet  in person.

There is a reason why we use all of our senses in oral conversation and why words in a space will never meet that standard. Most of communication comes from subconscious bodily gestures and while writing tends to be a pain more often than not, thanks to work related or school assignments, I find it to be remarkably helpful when I am in the process of organizing my thoughts and usually prefer it to giving speeches.

"With writing, words once "uttered", outered, put down on the surface, can be eliminated, erased, changed. There is no equivalent for this in an oral performance. Corrections in oral performance tend to be counterproductive, to render the speaker unconvincing." Through writing, I find further confidence in my opinion due to the structure text brings and my ability to constantly move information in order to strengthen an argument. Although the full potential of personal meaning is only met in oral conversation, I believe this opportunity cost is low enough to remain fully appreciative of writing and the benefits it brings.

If I learned anything from Ong, it would be encapsulated in this quote, "What functionally literate human beings really are: beings whose thought processes do not grow out of simply natural powers but out of these powers as structured, directly or indirectly, by the technology of writing. Without writing, the literate mind would not and could not think as it does, not only when engaged in writing but normally even when it is composing its thoughts in oral form. More than any other single invention, writing has transformed human consciousness." Without writing, we would never reach the full potential of language and overall, I believe writing is a key reason for our remarkable progression in society today.