Oral Style Research Articles

The Narrativization of Experience in the Oral Style

While acknowledging that the distinction between oral and literate styles of communication is not in reality a dichotomy, but a continuum of styles, this paper focuses on the oral style. Many children, often from middle-class mainstream homes, bring to school the foundations of literate styles of speech even before they can write. Other children, often minority children, do not. This paper gives a detailed linguistic-stylistic analysis of a seven year old black child's “sharing time” narrative, a narrative that is clearly in the oral style. “Sharing time” (sometimes called “show and tell”) is a school exercise that is meant to develop literate style communication, though it in fact assumes for success that child already shares aspects of this style with the teacher. Thus, oral style children often appear incoherent to the teacher and end up being given less (and less quality) instructional time and attention than literate style children. The stylistic analysis given here seeks to explicate how the child makes sense of her experience through narrative (the primary role of narrative in human life). I take the position that narrativizing experience is a basic human trait and that, like language, it is not something that children should in any significant sense be better or worse at. Rather, barring the attenuation of this ability by cultural practices or by the school itself, all children make sense of their experiences and do so in a masterful way. Of course, cross-cultural differences also exist, some of them perhaps related to patterns and types of literacy. In fact, the narrative of the young girl studied here shares many features with narratives found throughout the world in oral cultures. I also briefly discuss the role of cultural stereotypes both in the construction of narratives and in the view schools take of communication (linguistics, anthropology, education, stylistics, narrative, and discourse).

Una interpretación del «estilo καὶ» de Jenofonte de Éfeso

In Xenophon's romance there are many examples of parataxis with καὶ instead of other paratactic particles or dependent clauses. Statistic analysis shows that καὶ is the most frequent particle in the romance, and that its use is constant in it: this fact renders difficult the usual theory of epitome. This feature, which is characteristic of oral style, is examined along with other marks peculiar of oral style, and the conclusion is that parataxis is a consequence of rhetoric ἀφέλeια: it is a feature of archaism by which the romance is attached to tradition of archaic Ionic prose.

Atavistic Postgraduate Courses

It is hard to escape an unsettling impression given by the prominent-lecturer format used in postgraduate medical courses: this form of teaching is a throw-back to the preliterate mode of communication of ideas. Anthropologists point out the emotional force that can be harnessed by the spoken word in societies that depend on the oral tradition. Authoritative figures who transmit information in this way exert considerable power over groups of listeners; the oral style of communication by leaders encourages group feeling and keeps alive in the individual listener the childhood sense of dependence.

Repetition and aesthetic function in the "Poema de mio Cid" and South-Slavic oral and literary epic

The problem of oral style and the related question of the mode of composition of the Poema de mio Cid have attracted considerable critical attention during recent years, as noted in a number of sur...

The Continuation of the Odyssey: Some Formulaic Evidence

Previous articleNext article No AccessThe Continuation of the Odyssey: Some Formulaic EvidenceN. PostlethwaiteN. Postlethwaite Search for more articles by this author PDFPDF PLUS Add to favoritesDownload CitationTrack CitationsPermissionsReprints Share onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditEmail SectionsMoreDetailsFiguresReferencesCited by Classical Philology Volume 76, Number 3Jul., 1981 Article DOIhttps://doi.org/10.1086/366634 Views: 2Total views on this site Copyright 1981 The University of ChicagoPDF download Crossref reports no articles citing this article.

Aspects of Oral Style: Russian Traditional Oral Lament

Aspects of Oral Style: Russian Traditional Oral Lament

Oral and written style: An examination of differences

This study confirms the long‐held belief that language intended for the ear differs from language intended for the eye. Seven stylistic features were tested for ten pairs of formal, persuasive public addresses and published writings of major figures from the last fifty years. It was found that in comparison to written style, oral style uses significantly more personal references, more personal pronouns of the first‐ and second‐person singular and plural, shorter thought units, more repetition of words, more monosyllabic words, and more familiar words. No significant difference was found for variety of thought unit length.

Aspects of Oral Style in the "Romances Juglarescos" of the Carolingian Cycle

Aspects of Oral Style in the "Romances Juglarescos" of the Carolingian Cycle

The Best Is Yet To Be

Stories from the world of sports illustrate Richards' highly inspirational presentation. Each and every one of us, he argues, must strive for greatness. The address remains essentially as presented to pre serve the oral style of its author.

The role of the political cartoonist in image making

The editorial cartoon delineates the features of a popular image. The treatments by selected cartoonists of Abraham Lincoln, James G. Blaine and Robert F. Kennedy demonstrate that the cartoonist, using graphic counterparts of effective oral style, can bring obscure values and images into sharp focus.

A Preliminary Study of Verbal Style among Normal and Speech Defective Children

This study was concerned with oral language style of children. The Columbia Mental Maturity Scale (CMMS) was administered to three matched groups of 16 Ss who varied in their ability to articulate phonemes correctly. Utilizing Jakobson’s similarity-contiguity model, each child’s explanations for his nonverbal choices were classified. The 48 children showed a marked preference for nominative-type rationale when presented with the “easier” items (1–50) and for contiguity when the more difficult cards (51–80) were given. Although speech handicapped children used a higher percentage of contiguity utterances, the differences between groups were not significant. The Ss who scored in the lower 50th percentile of the CMMS made significantly greater use of contiguity than those children who were in the upper 50th percentile. An alternate system for classifying children diagnosed as having functional articulation defects was suggested.

Effect of oral style on intelligibility of speech

Effect of oral style on intelligibility of speech

An approach to the problem of oral style

An approach to the problem of oral style

Folk Speech in the Kentucky Mountain Cycle of Percy Mackaye

OR the purposes of a literary dialect (which is always a modification of a popular dialect as the latter is a modification of a language2) it is sufficient the poet of the Kentucky Mountain Cycle to have full precedent at first hand, as he assures us, every usage employed, in addition to having woven into his pages many locutions actually heard in the mountains. But the purposes of literature (which has to do with style rather than language) it is more important that these literal data serve as a guide to intelligent selection of the most distinctive forms and as models for creative, not imitative purposes, so that without violating the spirit of the original the poet has yet transcended the letter, transforming whatever he borrows. Most interesting of all, however, to the student of the Kentucky Mountain Cycle is the development of mountain speech within the Cycle itself from a state of solution, as it were, in the earlier works, to the crystallized forms of the later. In Weathergoose-Woo!, which represents the perfection of the poet's handling of his medium, dialect (too often the master rather than the servant of the folk-writer) has been fully assimilated to the rhythmic and emotional texture of the poet's imagination, caught up and absorbed by a powerful, unbounded spiritual stream which (like the Musketaquit of Emerson's Two Rivers) flows not only in a pent river-shut up in the banks of actual speech custom-but also, sentient and creative, rocks and through the air and through rays of light, as well, and through darkness, and through men and women. Directly related to Mr. MacKaye's bardic and dramatic ideal of sung, or chanted,3 speech is his oral style embodying oral imagina-