Although questions concerning the effects of literacy on society, culture, and the mind remain problematic for anthropology and psychology, considerations of the role played by orality, literacy, or other media in creating different communicative potentials between writer and reader, should not seem out of place in the discipline of rhetoric. Hugh…

Spectographic analysis of speech calls into question two common assumptions of reading teachers: (1) that words are independent units of speech, and (2) that phonemes, the minimal speech sounds needed to change meaning, actually exist. Spectographs reproduce the physical sounds made in speech without any human or psychological interpretation. When…

Argues that the study of speech may present the characteristics of a "tao"--a path leading to an increase in humane being. Calls for speech teachers to profess the primacy of speech: "...the source of life of the human mind, the source of the compassion of the human spirit." (PD)

Communication scholars have dichotomized language into orality and literacy, with orality being the language of the "concrete" and literacy being the language of the "abstract." However, the human experience of language is not that simplistic. In daily linguistic patterns, written words and the "literal" are not…

Noting that scholars have too willingly accepted Plato's assumption that one could not successfully be both an actor and a rhapsode (reciter or singer of epic poetry), this paper suggests that placing the "mixed style" of the rhapsode's performance art within the context of the Homeric sensibility and the cultural shift into literacy…

The primary goal of the basic course in speech should be to investigate oral communication rather than public speaking. Fundamental to understanding oral communication is some understanding of the oral mind, that operates when orality is the primary means of expression. Since narrative invites action rather than leisurely analysis, the oral mind…

An organizing framework is presented that can help integrate the large mass of apparently disparate work on written language. The starting point of the paper was collections of articles of reading, writing, and literacy, which seemed not to have a conceptual framework. Ways are discussed that knowledge from linguistics as an academic discipline…

It is proposed that many students are unable to distinguish between unguarded writing patterns and literate or expository ones, and it is becoming increasingly necessary in writing instruction to clarify and impose the distinction between these patterns. This problem is confounded by current trends toward exclusively spoken language in the…

A discussion of classroom second language learning focuses on whether or not the concept of natural development in a target language is an appropriate research perspective. It is argued that the current psycholinguistic framework for such research should be replaced by the perspective that language learning is a social and contextual, not…

The oral interaction hypothesis, proposed by Long and investigated by Pica, in second language (L2) acquisition is critiqued. The interaction hypothesis advances two major claims about the role of interaction in L2 acquisition: (1) comprehensible input is necessary for L2 acquisition; and (2) modifications to the interactional structure of…

Language is both a reflection of the status quo and a factor in perpetuating the status quo. People use language to encode their own experiences; memories are the encoded versions of reality. People learn how to characterize their experience by seeing how others characterize their own and others' experiences. When asked to talk about successful…

After a review of the theoretical context to current research on literacy, consideration is given to aspects of the literacy practices of the Moroccan community in the Ladbroke Grover area of West London. Findings from a study of literacy in its social context in Morocco are cited in the discussion of the West London practices. Emphasis is on the…

The works of women African writers such as Bessie Head, Mariama Ba, Buchi Emecheta, and Flora Nwapa have become increasingly familiar to North American college students during the past decade, largely through their inclusion on feminist reading lists. Because the pedagogical value of these texts lies in their presumed ability to speak for African…

"Autonomous" and "ideological" models of literacy are discussed in the context of the literacy-culture-politics relationship. Assumptions underlying literacy, nationalism, assessment, and the links among them are questioned, and approaches to alternative assessment procedures are considered. Arguments about the formation and…

During the late 1970s, English studies journals began to include various versions of, and proposals built upon, the Great Leap theory of literacy. Advocates of this theory claimed that literacy itself actually caused a "great leap" in human cognition and that the language of literate persons was essentially different from the language of…