Orality and literacy 25 years later

Communication Research Trends, Dec, 2007 by Paul A. Soukup

C. The Great Divide and Other Criticism

One part of Ong's presentation--the contrast between oral cultures and literate ones--has perhaps received more attention than other parts of the book. The status of this thesis, particularly what Blom calls primitivism and others have regarded as a "great divide" theory, has triggered debate over the years. Ong's need to generalize in the presentation of so much prior work allowed critics to read into the text, particularly in terms of a long-standing anthropological debate about the development of cultures.

In reviewing Havelock (1986), Connors (1988) notes the criticism after remarking how Ong had brought Havelock's work to bear on any number of literary and cultural issues. "Goody and Ong have in their turn been strongly criticized by other students of literacy, most notably Brian Street, for their equation of an autonomous and monistic 'literacy' with rationality, logic, and meaningful cultural development" (p. 380). He goes on to write that Street "makes the point that there are numerous literacies, and that to believe that reading-writing abilities in contemporary culture create cognitive abilities or constitute the only meaningful sort of literacy is narrow and discriminatory" (p. 380). Connors defends Havelock as taking a more narrow view, one restricted to his work as a classicist, but does not address the larger criticism he reports about studies of orality and literacy.

In his review of the same book by Havelock (1986), Enos (1987) sees Havelock's book as a companion piece to Orality and Literacy and notes that "Ong impresses by breadth, Havelock by his depth" (p. 209). However, he adds a word of caution to those who might conclude that Ong supports a "great divide" theory:

   So enticing are their insights that both tempt the reader to
   over-extend, and over-estimate, the impact of literacy. Perhaps,
   however, that is a fault resting with the reader rather than with
   these two authors. In our eagerness to (at last) offer the
   scholarly world a clearly stated concept that makes speaking and
   writing relationships apparent, we have taken the observations of
   these two men more as definitive claims rather than cogently
   articulated descriptive frameworks waiting for research that will
   sharpen understanding further. Ong and Havelock have not answered
   the questions surrounding orality and literacy, they have shown
   that valid and important questions exist, ones that need to be
   answered. (pp. 209-210)

These two views (Connors and Enos) sketch out in a very rough fashion how readers have evaluated this one disputed reaction to Orality and Literacy.

The reaction gathered fuel from the publication within a few years of Orality and Literacy of a number of studies about the relationship of oral cultures to those with writing. Connors mentions Street (1984). Ruth Finnegan in Literacy and Orality (1988) sketches the argument against a "great divide," noting that the ethnographic and historical data do not support such a strict division. The next year Schousboe and Larsen in Literacy and Society (1989) support Finnegan's position by, like Street, emphasizing the uses of literacy, while other contributors to their collection criticize a focus on technologies in addressing the basic questions. (For more on this debate, see Collins, 1990.) The collection edited by Olson and Torrance (1991) attempts to present both sides of the debate, drawing on cognitive or psychological evidence as well as examining ethnographic case studies.