Thus literacy is deemed to be necessary for abstract thought, and Goody (1968, cited in Street) argues particularly strongly that this leads to the development of logic, the distinction of myth from history, the emergence of scientific thought and the growth of democratic political processes. He argues that in oral societies, the cultural repertoire is held only in the memory and is subject to constant change, and ‘whatever parts of it have ceased to be of contemporary relevance are likely to be eliminated by the process of forgetting’. He views classical Greece as exemplary; highlighting the fact that ‘it was only in the days of the first widespread alphabetic culture that the idea of logic appears to have arisen’. He considers oral cultures as incapable of perceiving the past except in terms of the present, while written records ‘cannot but enforce’ a more objective view of the past. As an example, he points to the recording of the oral Homeric epic in written form, which ‘enabled’ the Greeks to question its validity as a tale of actual events. Thus Greek historians began to objectively scrutinise the past, distinguishing myth from history. Furthermore, the ability to compare utterances in written form led to the development of scepticism, as it fostered criticism and awareness of contradiction. In non-literate societies, scepticism is individual and ‘non-cumulative’, more easily forgotten and less likely to be acted upon. Thus literacy, according to Goody, enables the reinterpretation and rejection of social dogma. Restricted versus full realisation of the potentialities of literacy?
Part of the reason why non-literate societies are regarded as less cognitively competent is also that they have been regarded by many as lacking in literature (Finnegan 1973). Literature is regarded as a vital part of our intellectual heritage, and it is difficult for us to conceive of literature without the written word. As a result, oral ‘literature’ has been neglected in the ethnographies of non- or partially literate societies. Finnegan (1969) considers this to be particularly the case in Britain, and examines the reasons for this unwillingness to systematically collect and study oral prose. She shows how this view of oral traditions as insignificant is rooted in the theoretical framework of the subject. The study of tales and stories is associated with evolutionism, as nineteenth century folklorists such as Frazer and Gomme viewed folk tales as survivals of archaic beliefs and customs. Thus with the rejection of the evolutionist perspective in anthropology, the study of folklore also fell out of favour. Furthermore, the British school of anthropology was for a long time heavily influenced by the structural-functionalism of Radcliffe-Brown. Drawing on Malinowski, the view was that myths had a social function of validating or stabilising the social structure. As a result the analysis of any narratives centred on their function in the social order, with the collection and examination of oral literature for its own sake being regarded as superfluous. Those narratives regarded as having such a social function were classed as myths, while the rest were ‘mere’ folktales - fluid, changing, without deep or constant meaning. Little attention was paid to local interpretations of the narratives and the peoples’ own distinctions between different types of oral prose. Even those who have approached the study of oral traditions as literature, the perspective has been rather narrow. Lord (1960, cited in Smith 1977), for example, constructed an ‘oral theory’, distilling certain features of composition common to all oral epics. Although only studying Yugoslav epics, he generalised from these that all epics were improvised according to a strict formula. Since then, Smith points out, most work has been done on oral traditions that are already known to be formulaic and improvisatory, with little questioning of the theory.
The views presented above have been challenged by a range of academics, and I will deal with each claim about orality in turn, before illustrating this alternative perspective with ethnographic evidence from India. Firstly, as Street (1984) convincingly argues, the concept of literacy is not neutral, it cannot be viewed in isolation from its social context. The practices and concepts of reading and writing in a particular society depend on the context, they are embedded in an ideology. The skills and concepts that accompany literacy are not caused automatically by its inherent qualities, and there is no simple relationship between the advent of literacy and the development of logic, science, and ‘civilisation’. Thus the distinction between literate and non-literate societies rests is no more tenable than earlier versions of the ‘great divide’ theory, as it rests on the assumption that our particular social conventions regarding literacy are superior to those of other societies. The claims made by academics about the importance of literacy for cognitive development derive from their own social context, and serve to reinforce their practices and beliefs in relation to alternative practices in other cultures. Thus Street argues for the adoption of a more ‘ideological’ model of literacy, taking into account the social contexts and complexities of literacy and orality in each society.
As Street (1984) shows, the assumptions in the autonomous approach to the study of the impact of literacy render the ‘evidence’ that oral language prevents abstract thought useless. Rather than testing for some objective ability, that of being able to think abstractly, what is being tested in the studies cited by Hildyard and Olsen is explicitness. Street argues that the differences displayed in schooled and unschooled children in this has nothing to do with cognitive capacities but instead reflect the convention of explaining explicitly and ‘adopting a detached role’ that schools instil in its pupils. Thus Greenfield and Bernstein, without realising it, are testing for conformance to conventions, the conventions of their own system. Work by Labov (1973, cited in Street) supports this interpretation of the studies. He found that the unfamiliar and authoritarian test situation discouraged response in less well schooled children who were not used to such test situations. He repeated studies of the ‘cognitive capacities’ black working-class children, altering the test situation to make it more informal, and found that the results achieved were significantly better than in more formal tests. Clearly such tests are not neutral evaluations of cognitive capacity. Labov went on to show that the ‘deprived’ speech of black youths in the New York ghetto in fact had its own structure and grammatical rules, making it more appropriate to class it as a dialect rather than as failure to measure up to ‘standard’ English. Further, the ethnography by Evans-Pritchard has demonstrated that the witchcraft beliefs of the Azande were not in fact irrational, but instead, once one accepts the initial premises, the thought processes involved in determining whether something is a case of witchcraft are the same as those employed in scientific reasoning. Any use of language, furthermore, entails involvement in the higher orders of abstraction and symbolic thought, and I will demonstrate below how this is particularly evident in oral literature.
Moreover, there is no clear dichotomy between literate and oral societies. As Finnegan (1973) points out, most of historical and many contemporary societies have been exposed to partial literacy. Although there have been many societies without any literacy at all, such as the Australian aborigines, the Inuits and the Polynesians, who are all considered as having elaborate and complex cultures, most societies fall somewhere in between the supposed polarity of non-literate versus literate. In Medieval Europe and parts of North Africa, for example, there was a literate section of society, whose writings were transmitted orally to the masses. Furthermore, it is hardly the case that the written word is always abstract and removed from social context while the spoken is infused with interpersonal relations. Literate practices are often context-based, and most of its use both historically and in many contemporary societies has been that of limited, specific uses (such as writing lists of goods, recording of events), rather than as a ‘straightforward technique of secular action, [of] communication of unambiguous meanings in a variety of situations’. Similarly, oral language just as often abstract. It follows that literacy does not guarantee objectiveness and abstraction, as claimed, nor is it a prerequisite for such cognitive capacities. Street illustrates this with reference to ancient Greece, where the historians and philosophers praised by Goody were often motivated by political motives rather than a detached intention for critical questioning. Rather, arcane mystical practices or commercial gain have led to discoveries such as Pythagoras theorem and many of the scientific breakthroughs of the twentieth century. As Street points out, attention to the interpersonal, socially conditioned aspects of literacy is central to the understanding of the form it takes in a particular society.
Furthermore, many oral societies do have literary tradition, and literature is by no means dependent literacy. In an attempt to demonstrate this, Finnegan (1973) presents a selection of poetry, love songs and prose narratives that these do indeed conform to our concept of literature. We view literature as conveying some insight, some truth about the world intelligible to the reader. This is clearly evident in a range of oral narratives, including the famous example of the Homeric epics. As Finnegan said in the 1992 Pubaji epic documentary, epics are ‘clothing human experience in words’ - and these can be written or spoken words. Another aspect that we view as crucial to literature is detachment, the ability of the author to present the universality of a particular topic, to present it apart from any immediate context. This has been argued as impossible in oral traditions, due to the ‘lack of abstraction’ argument presented above - the words of a story-teller telling stories in his own village must needs be permeated by the social context and dependent on the audience. However, Finnegan points to a range of examples, such as the Tatar saga-tellers of far Asian steppes, where professional reciters or poets travel from village to village, performing their tales in front of unfamiliar audiences. In addition, African stories are often fables, the main characters being animals attributed with thoughts and feelings. This obviously involves abstraction and the removal of the narrative from the immediate social context. Evans-Pritchard (1967, cited in Finnegan) even likened the role of the spiders in Azande tales to the ‘masks in Greek or Medieval drama’. Evidently, the contention that oral narratives cannot be literature does not seem tenable, and is furthermore not a fruitful approach to the study of such prose. In societies where oral narratives appear to play the role that literature does in our society, it ought to be analysed as such and not dismissed as insignificant folktales.
Having established that non-literate societies do have literature, if judged according to our own criteria for the term, we can next turn to the question of Lord’s oral theory. Smith (1977) considers Lord to have generalised without taking into account the range of different oral traditions in existence. As an example of oral epics that are formulaic but not improvised, he presents the epic of Pabuji from Rajastan in northern India. This is performed by bhopas, travelling priests, who all elaborate on a standard memorised narrative, which exists as a single unitary form memorised by all performers. It is difficult to recognise as such, however, because each pair of lines is expanded to fit the music, and this involves each bhopa adding words that do not alter the content. Thus the plot remains the same, but there is some variation in the order, grammar, and use of synonyms. Yet it is clearly composed formulaically, (nearly) identical phrases recur frequently and the narratives of different bhopas are clearly too similar to be wholly improvised. Finnegan (1973) points out that oral literature is neither all improvised nor all communally created. Among the Mbiti (1966, cited in Finnegan) of Kenya, the story-teller is ‘not only a repeater but also a creative originator of each story’ and as in the epic of Pujabi, the basic plot remains the same but choice or words, gestures, speed, and imagery varies. The narrator puts his personality into the story, thus making it uniquely his own creation. Nor is all oral narrative continual improvisation, different cultures use different styles and a range of complex techniques exist, such as the rhythmic patterns and tonal techniques of Yoruba, and the alliterations of the Zulu.
Just as oral traditions are more varied and complex than perhaps initially assumed, literacy too takes on a range of different forms and meanings. As mentioned above, it is rarely always in the context-less form envisaged by advocates of the autonomous literacy model. Not only are there a range of applications of the written word, but some of these do not hinge on the meaning of the words themselves. An example of such a use are the sacred texts of the Jains, the agamas. These derive their meaning from the oral, ritual context they are presented in, and less value is placed on their actual content. As Dundas (1992) emphasises, the agamas are not taken to be the literal words of the Mahavira (one of the founders of the Jain tradition), but as existing without human or divine origin, as fixed truths without beginning or end. Thus the original religious texts are not the sole component of the agamas, but the commentaries on these texts are also revered as sacred. The study of these texts is not recommended, it is dangerous and unwarranted if not done in the right context. The language they are written in, ardhamagadhi, furthermore, is understood only by few, which increases their inaccessibility, and maintains their exclusivity. Rather than texts to be studied, they are seen as sacred objects, and performed as spectacle. When the Kalpasutra texts are performed, for example, they are told at such speed that it is impossible to follow the narrative. Altogether, it is clear that the actual content of the texts is not so relevant. Fuller (1984) further stresses that in the rare cases that the agamas are taught to priests, this is done orally, and it is not thought that learning from books can give any deep understanding. This illustrates the complexity of the relationship between written and spoken word and shows how culturally specific their uses are.
Literacy and orality are thus both context-dependent and variable. Their uses differ depending on the society under study, and thus literacy has a range of different meanings and consequences. It is therefore of greater use to look at these practices as part of a whole, rather than attempting to extract the practice of writing as a neutral technology that separates some societies from others. Reality is more nuanced and complex than such a dichotomy and simplistic perspective would suggest.
Bibliography
Dundas (1992) The Jains
Finnegan (1969) Attitudes to the study of oral literature in British social anthropology Man 4
Finnegan (1973) Literacy versus non-literacy: the great divide? In Finnegan Modes of Thought
Fuller (1984) Servants of the Goddess
Nazareth (1992) The epic of Pabuji [film]
Smith (1977) The singer or the song? A reassessment of Lord’s oral theory. Man 12
Street (1984) Literacy in theory and pracice