Clusters for a Theory of Concepts of Communications. Historical
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
View metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk brought to you by CORE provided by Research Papers in Economics MPRA Munich Personal RePEc Archive \Parallel Worlds\. Clusters for a Theory of Concepts of Communications. Historical Intercultural and Cultural Comparative Studies in Perspectives of National and Transnational Constitutions, Values, Concepts, and Terms of `Communication' - `Orality' - `Literacy' - `Rhetoric' - `Media'. Haase, Fee-Alexandra 01. January 2008 Online at http://mpra.ub.uni-muenchen.de/6534/ MPRA Paper No. 6534, posted 02. January 2008 / 17:24 Fee-Alexandra Haase “Parallel Worlds“ Clusters for a Theory of Concepts of Communications. Historical Intercultural and Cultural Comparative Studies in Perspectives of National and Transnational Constitutions, Values, Concepts, and Terms of ‘Communication’ - ‘Orality’ - ‘Literacy’ - ‘Rhetoric’ - ‘Media’ 1 Communication is Health; Communication is Truth; Communication is Happiness. To share is our Duty; Virginia Woolf The Common Reader, Chapter 6 2 - Index - 0. Introduction: Communications and Cultural Heritage – Facing the Post-Postmodern Condition 4 1. Diachronic European Perspectives on Communications 28 1.1. The Perspective of Ancient Greece on Communications 28 1.2. The Roman Perspective on Communications 43 1.3. The Perspective of Communications in the Middle Ages and Early Modern Time 56 1.4. The Perspective of Communications in the Renaissance 79 1.5. The Perspective of Communications in Europe in the 16th and 17th Century 94 1.6. The Perspective of Communications in Europe in the 18th Century 112 1.7. The Perspective of Communications in Europe in the 19th Century 123 1.8. The Perspective of Communications in Europe in the 20th Century 134 1.9. The Perspective of Communications in Europe in the 21st Century 157 II. Synchronic Perspectives of Communications in Global Areas 179 2. The Perspective of Communications in Africa and the East 179 2.1. The Perspective of Communications in tbe Near and Middle East and Central Asia 179 2.2. The Perspective of Communications in India and Asia 219 2.3. The Perspective of Communications in Africa 245 3. The Perspective of Communications in the West and in the Pacific Zone 268 3.1. The Perspective of Communications in North America 268 3.2. The Perspective of Communications in South America 290 3.3. The Perspective of Communications in Australia and the Pacific Zone 315 3 0. Introduction – Communications and Cultural Heritage – Facing the Post-Postmodern Condition – I Fields, Terms, and Marks of Communications – Figuring out the Point of View – When doing research into communications, it is first of all necessary to be aware of the contemporary situation and standpoint. Research about this theme is immense and clustered into schemata the predominant situation of communication sciences and political conditions. The contemporary linguistic concept of communication implies a specific inheritage of political conditions that are implemented into it. The contemporary idea of communication implies the associations of 'democracy', 'globalisation', and a worldwide community that can be separated into diverse regional groups. Its predominant idea is deliberative communication as an element of democracy and a worldview that is constructed by antagonistic principles (East/West, Democracy/dictatorship, Freedom/not free etc.). This condition is fostered by a structure of non-governmental organizations and conglomerates (See also chapter on European communication traditions in the 21st century). Traditionally and from a theoretical standpoint communication is supposed to run in fixed given systems communicators share. All members of social groups transmit information. In these intercultural and cultural comparative studies for concepts and terms of specific systems of communication we will cover the cluster regarding ‘communication’, ‘orality’, ‘literacy’, ‘rhetoric’, and ‘media’ as our field of interest. Culture can be defined as a system of communicative actions in a social system including all specific kinds, Types, and media of communication. We will take a look at human communication systems such as orality, literacy, and techniques in different cultures serving as ways to deliver information. For major cultures on the five continents in a historical review starting from early time of humanity going to epochs until present time of the 21st century we will demonstrate the main features characterizing communication systems. This book focuses on the thesis that in different cultures not only e.g. one typical oral tradition exists, but overlapping systems of communications once adsorbed or modified by another culture stand in permanent exchange. The basic definition of communication in this study defines communication as the ‘transfer process of any data from one entity to another’. In this study we will look at the exchange between the entities in a local area and in-between different areas, e.g. in global communication. Main tools of communication are languages. Languages changes like other tools and techniques of communication. Some of these linguistic communication systems even got lost in history, e.g. extinct languages or changed. Through communication per se the main pathways of communication, languages, extended or were geographically reduced in terms of their influence. In every culture more or less the same basic communication means exist: Oral, literal, and medial means. We can divide and classify any communication this way: Oral communication Any message delivered mouth to mouth Literary communication Any message delivered in a literary way Medial communication Any message delivered by a medium In other words: The aim of this work is to demonstrate the main ways of communication. On all continents we find more or less these three main ways of communication. Communication embraces always a body of knowledge, the information. The information is stored in verbal and nonverbal messages. A specific body of knowledge/information is for example scholarly 4 information presented and explained in textbooks, electronic publications, and academic journals. In journals researchers report the results of studies that are the basis for theories how we communicate. First of all, communication is subject to the languages it is practiced in. Communication serves in general as a process in order to forward information between entities. Documentation is the storage of information available for later purposes of communication. Languages possess both facilities making them able to process and to store information. We will use the term ‘communication’ in order to follow the definition given above. But we also demonstrate that this term and related terminology changed their meanings historically. When speaking of traditions of communication, we will focus on the continuing use and continuity of a means for communication or a medium. A change of a tradition serves as a criterion for a new kind of communication and also –metaphorically spoken- a first door into a new pathway of communication. As a survey this review looks back into the history in different cultures and times showing the traditional heritage of means for communication. We will start our investigation into communication on the theoretical level asking for the communicative faculties of languages themselves. Therefore, we will look at the main branches of languages in the world and their main developments that are highly diverse: Some languages are extending, while others do not increase neither regarding the number of speakers nor in terms of their vocabulary/thesaurus. Some languages involve a high level of included cultural assets and are productive in terms of their use in media, tools, and other aspects of communication. This book is not meant to be an introduction into a comparative history of language linguistics – but the circumstances for the development of languages in terms of historical and local changes are a conditio sine qua non in terms of the conditions of communication and its basic tool, languages. Languages here we can also see as a technology of communication. Shifting to the esoteric meaning of communication, Friedrich Kittler stated about the end of ‘communication technologies’ that they would be exchanged by an ‘artificial intelligence’: “This absolute limit is where the history of communication technologies will literally come to an end. Theoretically there remains only the question as to what logic this completion will have obeyed. From Freud to McLuhan the classic answer to this was a generic subject - humanity which before of an indifferent natural world would have externalised first its motor and sensory interface, and finally its intelligence, in technical prosthetics. [...] Without reference to the individual or to mankind, communication technologies will have overhauled each other until finally an artificial intelligence proceeds to the interception of possible intelligences in space.”1 As a technological tool of rhetoric languages are not neuter. Literacy is applied rhetoric. In this sense Warschauer mentioned: “Literacy is frequently viewed as a set of context-neutral, value-free skills that can be imparted to individuals. A study of history, though, shows this model of literacy to be off the mark. Rather, being literate has always depended on mastering processes which are deemed valuable in particular societies, cultures, and contexts.” 2 1 Kittler, Friedrich. “The History of Communication Media”. In: CTheory. 114. 1969. [1.7.2007]. <Http://www.ctheory.net/text_file.asp?pick=45>