Oral Culture and Oral Preference

[Bernd Weber]

Gilbert,

What is the full Scale?

And which cultures would you see  as 'Oral(preferred) Cultures'?


I would suppose that mediterranean people are more 'oral(preferred)'
than the Germans (well, it's all also "average" thinking and there
are always others of course). Having a very rich body-language
acompanying the words seems to be an good indicator for
oral(preferred) or even oral(nearly-only).

Oral preferred would then mean, not a question of abilities, they
dominate both layers of world construction, but really a cultural
'decision'

Trying to explore your idea of getting differenciations into "Oral":

I met many people in ex-oral(only)-cultures who have learned to read
and write in school, but it stays a thin layer, sometimes looking
like a simulation.
A good indicator is, when people are absolutely unable to interprete
a text as orientation for action (e.g. a user manual). They may read:
"first you make a step forward" and then ask: What do I have to do?

(It is not only oral(preferred)

And I met lots of people who learned to read and write, even in my
very literate background culture (Austria/big city) but do really not
understand the possibilities of working with texts. Sometimes they
are very similar to the above category. Well there exists a term for
that: "secondary illiterates"

I want to come back to "oral (only)" in your definition. I am so
impressed about a thing that the definition by non-literate or
illiterate does not get:

Ex 1:
People here around me in Sofala/Mozambique dominate from their early
years 4-5 languages and do not think they are something special. But
they could not understand, that I am not able to speak Italien,
Czech, Hungarian, Croatian, Slowenian: "How can you be a good
neighbour, without speaking their language?" (Very good question, I
think)

Ex 2:
Dona Helena, who worked as cook and cleaning person in our house, she
is from the people of Mandao, and absolutely non-literate, came back
from the market and was regularly able to tell the-whole-story:
Whom she met, how their family situation is, what she bought, how
much, which money(notes or coins) she gave), which ones she received,
what the current "fofoca/rumors" are...  and this resulted in giving
me incidentally the costs and the expenses for about 20 -50 articles
she bought.

That is one of the reasons, why I am so eager to work with them:
I do not really want to pay the full price we have to pay for being
members of the group of Gutenberg's heirs.

Bernd

-----
weberb at gmx.at, on 19.09.2002 at 16:15:11 (GMT/UT + 02:00)

On Thu, 19 Sep 2002 05:28:57 -0500, Gilbert Brenson-Lazan wrote:
>Kluckhohn-Strodtbeck Scale

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