Talk:Oral tradition

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[edit] Anecdote

Here's an anecdote you might be able to verify and add in: "No less impressive is the case of Iceland, where masses of verse have been preserved by no other means than that of oral tradition. William Craigie quotes a pertinent case. 'Another set of rimur composed by the same author (Sigurður Bjarnason) in 1862 has had a remarkable history. No manuscript of these has been preserved, but a younger brother learned them by heart at the age of fifteen, and at the same time noted the first line of each verse. Fifty-five years later, in Canada, and without having gone over them in his mind for thirty years, he dictated the whole of them, to the extent of 4000 lines, and they were printed at Winnipeg in 1919. This is not only significant for the history of Icelandic poetry but for that of some other literatures, where the possibility of such feats of memory has been gravely questioned by scholars of the present day.'"

Source: p117 of Chaytor, H. J (1974). From Script to Print; an Introduction to Medieval Vernacular Literature. Folcroft, Pa.: Folcroft Library Editions, 156. ISBN 0841435423.  , quoting p32 of Craigie, William (1937). The art of poetry in Iceland. Oxford: Clarendon Press. 

Jodi.a.schneider (talk) 16:47, 22 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] systematic hermeneutics

Can we have more on: "The theoretical development at present may be the construction of systematic hermeneutics and aesthetics specific to oral traditions." at least some references please Szczels 11:53, 8 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Unsourced

Can we get specifics on what needs sourcing/refs? Not helpful just to say "unsourced". DavidOaks 13:09, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

I wrote a bibliographical note meant to address the sourcing issue. The original account was not written fact-by-fact (which produces unreadable prose), but as a digest of the existing accounts; no specific proposition seems to have been found controversial in the time the article has been up. What do people think? DavidOaks 20:50, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Unclear reference

I have deleted the recent addition to the "Milman Parry and ALbert Lord" section --

"An excellent example of Parry’s work in recording oral tradition can be also be found in the recent (1998) book ‘Noah’s Flood – The New Scientific Discoveries about the Event that changed the World’ by William Ryan and Walter Pitman published by Simon & Schuster, New York, NY.."

The comment does not say what oral tradition is referenced, nor does it give a page number, nor yet is it the most obvious source for Parry's field recordings. But maybe with a solid citation and explanation of the relevance of the pages it should be restored. DavidOaks 03:17, 19 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Suggestion to merge oral history and oral literature

Oral history is certainly a distinct field with distinct methods -- very inappropriate to merge. Oral literature is a better candidate, but because it's organized by ethnic, linguistic and geographic divisions, and is not generally regarded (yet) as being primarily the province of oral traditional theory, a link under "see also" would seem more appropriate (same for oral history). —The preceding unsigned comment was added by DavidOaks (talk • contribs) 22:29, 1 February 2007 (UTC).

  • What? No. Merger of any of the three topics is a very bad idea. These are distinct topics. Just because they both include the word "oral" and relate to the past in (different) ways ... oral history is people's individual personal histories and recollections of the past. It's an academic discipline. Oral tradition or oral culture is the social tradition of transmission of cultural knowledge within a particular group of people. It's a social practice, not an academic discipline. Oral literature can include recitations of oral culture, but is also about performance art, the art of storytelling, etc. --lquilter 13:22, 14 February 2007 (UTC)
Removing the merge tag. Clearly distinct categories and merge-proposer never bothered to explain or articulate a proposal or justification. --lquilter 13:30, 14 February 2007 (UTC)
  • Oral history contained a lot of stuff about oral culture, presumably because "oral transmission of history" is one type of oral tradition and "oral history" is an old term for that. I deleted extraneous material from Oral history, moved it to Talk:Oral tradition, explained the distinction on Oral history and linked to Oral tradition.
  • Added a clarifying sentence to the top of Oral tradition that explained that it was different from oral history.
  • Oral literature seems fine to me; I don't see how it would be confused with oral tradition or oral history. The editor who suggested merger said "that's an oxymoron" but it's clearly explained in the brief entry. The article could do with some fleshing out, though.
(cross-posted to all 3 article talk pages) --lquilter 14:15, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] material from "oral history" article

There was some confusing material in the "oral history" article that really referred to "oral tradition", and was placed in the article based on the archaic usage of "oral history" to refer to "oral culture". I deleted it there and am pasting it here; if there is something useful it should be re-incorporated.

Oral history is considered by some historians to be an unreliable source for the study of history. However, other historians consider it to be a valid means for preserving history. Experience within literate cultures indicates that each time anyone reconstructs a memory, there are changes in the memory, but the core of the story is usually retained. Over time, however, minor changes can accumulate until the story becomes unrecognizable.
A person within a literate culture thus has presuppositions that may falsely affect his judgment of the validity of oral history within preliterate cultures. In these cultures children are usually selected and specially trained for the role of historian, and develop extraordinary memory skills known as eidetic or photographic memory.
==Usage==
Before the development of written language in a given society, oral history is the primary means of conveying information from one generation to the next. The most common form of this transmission is through storytelling and the recitation of epic poetry, with the stories and poems collectively known as the oral tradition of a people. The combination of this oral tradition with morals and rituals passed down by word of mouth is known as the folklore of a society. Although not as prevalent now as in the past, oral history is still very much alive among many North American native groups.
The information passed on has occasionally shown a surprising accuracy over long periods of time. For example, the Iliad, an epic poem of Homer describing the conquest of Troy, was passed down as oral history from perhaps the 8th century BC, until being recorded in writing by Pisistratos. Nonetheless, factual elements of the Iliad were at least partially validated by the discovery of ruins discovered by Heinrich Schliemann in 1870, thought to be those of the city described in the poem.
A famous example of oral history comes from the works of several authors who have, over the span of many hundreds of years, collected folklore which was ultimately put together in a collection of books known as the Old Testament. The New Testament Gospels were created by several different original authors whose slightly differing versions of many biblical events were combined. The Bible was therefore nearly entirely created using oral history.

lquilter 14:24, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] tag removed

Nannus removed the tag on March 5, noting in edit summary: "Removed merge tag, since oral literature forms only part of oral tradition (e.g. oral law is not oral history)". A very good point. --lquilter 21:45, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Link to Psychodynamics

I am currently attempting to establish the relevance of our current articles on Psychodynamics and the supposed subordinate field Psychodynamic psychotherapy. In that context I am investigating the links to the Psychodynamics article. One of them originates with the current article. At first glance the term appears to denote something different from what the Psychodynamics article details. Could someone more abreast with the current subject verify whether this link is relevant? __meco 15:59, 15 May 2007 (UTC)

Hard to tell how much weight Ong would have put on the term, as far as suggesting that psychodynamics -- as a field -- would help to explain the contasts between oral and literate societies. Yet it was indeed his chosen term, and it was certainly an informed choice; his meaning in the passage certainly foregrounds the interrelatedness of various cognitive operations for individuals and societies, and how there are regular contrasts between the cognitive complexes characteristic of cultures with, and without, alphabets. In sum, I think Ong was talking about psychodynamics as it was understood at the time of his writing, but not as the more more systematized field which the psychodynamics article describes. I would leave the link, but perhaps find some way of conveying the fact that the term has a range of specificity? DavidOaks 19:25, 15 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Removing the 'Unsourced' Tag?

I have added a few specific citations, mostly those already implied by the existing text. I have also made a few small elaborations that help to justify a couple of the citations.

Does anyone know how an 'Unsourced' tag can be removed?Brett epic 16:27, 12 August 2007 (UTC)

I've removed the 'unsourced' tag as there seems no longer any reason to keep it.Brett epic 03:55, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Continuing Debates

To add balance to this article, there needs to a section that acknowledges serious criticisms of the Parry thesis and subsequent elaboration of it, and important splits within the emerging discipline. At present it still reads too much like a personal essay advocating a single POV.Brett epic 17:22, 12 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Tags

Please never remove maintenance tags without discussing/resolving the issue. It is good that you added quite a few references. Of course, an ideal case is that each piece of information is referenced, but wikipedia:Verifiability rule is not absolutely strict: plausible, easily verifiable information may stay unreferenced until some other wikipedian/reader questions it. Regardless, the following things must always be referenced:

  • basic definitions
  • opinions
  • Statements of non-trivial facts.

In your case,

  • the intro is unreferenced
  • opinions:
    • "but as part of the same scholarly moment, the turcologist Vasily Radlov" who says he was part of this movement?
    • "The idea met with immediate resistance"
    • "Ong's works also made possible an integrated theory of oral tradition"
    • "Foley effectively consolidated oral tradition"
    • etc.

In addition, wikipedia's tradition is to keep a neutral tone, so please remove all exalted epithets, such as "brilliant", "prominent", "provocative", "massive", etc. `'Míkka>t 18:34, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

I strongly suggest you to learn to be "devil's advocate" and not only enjoy your own written text, but also try to guess which pieces may cause doubt by people not so familiar with the subject: wikipedia is written for them. Experts don't reach wikipedia to gain more wisdom (yet). `'Míkka>t 18:40, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

Hmm, didn't find any "etc." but I'm sure when you put an inline tag on it, we'll find a cite or remove. Now, anything else you want referenced? I'd say it's time for the general tag to go (again) and I strongly suggest you continue to be specific about exactly what it is you find fault with. DavidOaks (talk) 21:12, 13 May 2008 (UTC)
That's the whole point. When an article is sufficiently "saturated" with references, then we can start nitpicking. When big chunks of text are unreferenced, then a common tag on top of the page is far less ugly than text peppered with {{fact}} tags. I am done here. Good luck. `'Míkka>t 23:06, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Current state of the theory

In trying to generalize about the current state of the theory's acceptance, I added this:

While a number of individual scholars in many areas continue to have misgivings about the applicability of the theory or the aptness of the South Slavic comparison,[67] and particularly what they regard as its implications for the creativity which may legitimately be attributed to the individual artist.[68] However, at present, there seems to be little systematic or theoretically coordinated challenge to the fundamental tenets of the theory.

Now, I'm not sure if that requires documentaiton (I will try), but it presents the problem of documenting an absence. DavidOaks (talk) 13:24, 14 May 2008 (UTC)

" there seems to be little" is an opinion which must be referenced. Sorry, colleague, it is the policy of wikipedia that a wikipedian's word does not count. I see you have some trouble in understanding this fundamental difference of wikipedia from, say, Encyclopedia Britannica. Please read ath think about the rules summarized in wikipedia:Attribution. `'Míkka>t 14:47, 14 May 2008 (UTC)
Will seek a ref. DavidOaks (talk) 16:16, 14 May 2008 (UTC)
OK, did it. Thanks for the kind words; it was hard enough to get you to follow simple requests to be specific, so I guess we can't hope for manners too.DavidOaks (talk) 16:38, 14 May 2008 (UTC)
It was not so hard, if you keep in mind that in wikipedia time flows differently compared to "real world". I started to write a detailed explanation immediately after your second deletion of tags, but meanwhile you beat me with your "hello again". As I see, you are not exactly a newcomer in wikipedia, so I am a bit surprized you did not run into strong requests to always provide references to whatever you write. I guess, in your areas of interest either there are too few wikipedians or all of them basically agree with each other and don't see possibly questionable phrases. My apologies to my manners, whatever it worth. I guess I was lucky to run into a patient and reasonable person. `'Míkka>t 17:36, 14 May 2008 (UTC)
I have been impatient and testy, for which, sincere apologies. Your requests for references have improved the article, for which, thanks. DavidOaks (talk) 17:56, 14 May 2008 (UTC)