Oral Culture and Oral Preference

[Chris Corrigan]

I remember years ago reading Edward T. Hall, the anthropologist who
wrote "Understanding Culture" in the 1950s.  If I recall correctly, he
used the terms "high context" and "low context" to describe a continuum
of cultures.  High context cultures are those in which there is a
tremendous amount of information in a shared "field," meaning that
explicit communication is somewhat redundant.  These are cultures in
which subtle body language and knowing looks are all that is needed to
communicate.  "Low context" cultures require a great deal of elaboration
to get messages across, because there is little in the way of shared and
common context in which to embed every day communication.

I always thought of this as an interesting counterpoint to the
"Oral/Written" designation.  It seems to me anyway, that writing,
talking and sensing are all communication strategies, and while certain
cultural contexts will select some strategies over others, all
strategies are available to everyone, even if reading is a skill that
has not yet been learned by individuals.

What put me in mind of this was my exposure to the
Visual/Auditory/Kinesthetic learning styles work (more at:
http://www.nwlink.com/~donclark/hrd/learning/styles.html) as well as the
fact that most Aboriginal people I know claim to be part of an oral
tradition, but tend to describe themselves as visual learners.  When I
work with Aboriginal folks, I always set my default note taking style
towards the visual, and I use mind maps, pictures, flow charts and
squiggles to record and order information.  So how is it that self
described "oral" cultures in North America tend to rely so heavily on
visual learning strategies?

Well, in fact here on the West Coast, you probably have heard of totem
poles and potlatches, which are elaborate ceremonies and cultural
products that are as much about the visual pageantry as they are about
the content.  And within these things is a message that is transmitted
orally, although the reminders are all visual and kinesthetic: dances,
masks, carvings, and so on.  All of these things "carry" the story with
them.

What is happening here in fact, is that there is a very high context, in
which the culture operates, and relatively small numbers of
representations are able to animate the entire culture.  Nothing happens
in a potlatch that doesn't have about 5 or 6 meanings, and everyone nods
knowingly when certain dances are danced and certain foods are served.

So this has some interesting implications for being culturally sensitive
when working with information.  A high context culture may require
little more than reminders to help people recall all that has been
talked about and dealt with over the day, what Bernd gets at by asking
people to "recall in mind" rather than "reading the news."  Low context
cultures, in my opinion, tend to be less comfortable with the limited
information that sometimes comes out of Open Space small groups, where
people have been too engaged in the process of conversation to write
down much of what was said.  This can lead to some people expressing
absolute joy at the conclusion of an OST meeting while others will
appear to be completely flummoxed by what just happened, and reading the
reports in no way helps to explain to them why it was such a high for so
many people.

Of course this is a somewhat tangential discussion to the one about
literacy.  Very often, illiterate learners will compensate for their
inability to read by being strong in other areas, but it is often true
that illiterate learners are very visual people too, and able to employ
their right brains phenomenally.  A friend I work with, Brent Cameron,
(http://www.wondertree.org) has had a lot of success facilitating these
kinds of folks to learn read by helping them to see words as pictures
and encouraging them to become elaborate with the language.  Other
learners who are more kinesthetic can learn to read by making letters
and words out of tactile substances like wood or metal and actually
manipulating them into words.

In designing any kinds of process, attention to learning styles is a
huge part of my preparatory work.  It's not that I try to guess who
learns in what way, but by covering lots of bases and having lots of
options available to people, I try to make sure that everyone is able to
find a comfortable way of learning and contributing.

The recent discussions about ways of recording OST events are marvelous,
and contribute a lot to my own learning and thinking about how to do
this.

Chris


---
CHRIS CORRIGAN
Consultation - Facilitation
Open Space Technology

Bowen Island, BC, Canada
http://www.chriscorrigan.com
chris at chriscorrigan.com

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