DOCSLIB.ORG

Developing Oral Proficiency Through Poem Recitation in Elementary English As a Second Language

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
Developing Oral Proficiency Through Poem Recitation in Elementary English As a Second Language California State University, San Bernardino CSUSB ScholarWorks Theses Digitization Project John M. Pfau Library 2005 Developing oral proficiency through poem recitation in elementary English as a second language Anne Picpican-Bell Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarworks.lib.csusb.edu/etd-project Part of the Bilingual, Multilingual, and Multicultural Education Commons Recommended Citation Picpican-Bell, Anne, "Developing oral proficiency through poem recitation in elementary English as a second language" (2005). Theses Digitization Project. 2932. https://scholarworks.lib.csusb.edu/etd-project/2932 This Project is brought to you for free and open access by the John M. Pfau Library at CSUSB ScholarWorks. It has been accepted for inclusion in Theses Digitization Project by an authorized administrator of CSUSB ScholarWorks. For more information, please contact [email protected]. DEVELOPING ORAL PROFICIENCY THROUGH POEM RECITATION IN ELEMENTARY ENGLISH AS A SECOND LANGUAGE A Project Presented to the Faculty of California State. University, San Bernardino In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Master of Arts in Education: Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages by Anne Picpican-Bell December 2005 DEVELOPING ORAL PROFICIENCY THROUGH POEM RECITATION IN ELEMENTARY ENGLISH AS A SECOND LANGUAGE A Project Presented to the Faculty of California State University, San Bernardino by Anne Picpican-Bell December 2005 Approved by: © 2005 Anne Picpican-Bell ABSTRACT The best way' to learh a language is' not by memorizing the rules but by continuously using it. It is upon use that language becomes meaningful and essential. People, as social beings, use language in variety of ways. It is through interaction that one becomes better at using the language. However, in spite of its importance, oral language development is one of the areas that has been given little attention in the curriculum. This project proposes the development of an oral language curriculum for immigrant students at the primary elementary level. The curriculum, which is both didactic and creative, provides both knowledge and its application in social settings. It emphasizes poetry recitation as the culminating activity, which will allow students to use language with control. The dynamic nature of poetry lends support to its integration into various content areas. This conception makes possible the development of oral proficiency among immigrant students who want to make an impact on the world that they now call "home." iii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I thank the following persons: Dr. Lynne Diaz-Rico, Dr. Bonnie Piller, and Mr. Tim Thelander; Lee and Alix for giving all the support and understanding throughout the completion of this project; and Claire for all her help. I also thank my friends for the moral support, and Phyllis and Tim who constantly make life easier for me. Above all, without God's intervention and guidance, nothing would have made sense. i iv DEDICATION To my family and to all ESL learners TABLE OF CONTENTS ABSTRACT............................................. iii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ...................................... iv LIST OF TABLES................................... ix LIST OF FIGURES.................................. x CHAPTER ONE: INTRODUCTION Background of the Project ...................... 1 The Filipino Immigrants ..................... 2 History of English Teaching in the Philippines ................................ 3 Education and the English Language ......... 5 Target Teaching Level: Primary Elementary................................. 7 Instructional Challenges and Problems in Teaching English to Second-Language Learners............................ 7 Purpose of the Project.......................... 10 Content of the Project.......................... 11 Significance of the Project..................... 12 CHAPTER TWO: REVIEW OF RELATED LITERATURE Phonological Awareness .............. 13 Introduction ............................... 13 o Definition of Phonological Awareness and Phonemic Awareness ......................... 14 Importance of PhonologicalA wareness ........ 19 Teaching of Phonics........................ 24 Phonological Awareness Instruction .......... 25 v Instructional Guidelines in Introducing Phonological Awareness Activities .......... 27 Summary . ,................................. 31 Software Programs for Phonemic Awareness ........ 31 Introduction........ 31 Phonological Awareness Software . .......... 32 Choosing a Software Program ................ 33 Available Software Programs ................ 35 Summary........................ ............ 44 Oral Poetry as a New Popular Poetry............. 44 Introduction ............................... 44 Oral Poetry as a New Popular Poetry........ 45 Forms of Oral Poetry....................... 4 7 Contemporary Poetry Versus New Popular Poetry..................................... 54 Comparison between Spoken Word Movement and The Beats.............................. 56 Poetry Slam in the National Level......... 57 Summary............................... : ... 59 Poetry across the Curriculum .................... 59 Introduction ............................... 59 Definition of Poetry ....................... 60 Elements of Poetry......................... 62 Figures of Speech.......................... 65 Forms of Poetry............................ 6 9 The Integration of Poetry into the Curriculum............................. 72 vi ■ Poetry and Social Studies 78 Summary.................................... 7 9 Oral Proficiency................................ 80 Introduction ............................... 80 Definition of Oral Proficiency............. 81 Variables Related to OralP roficiency ....... 82 Levels of Proficiency.................... 87 Oral Language Development..... •............ 94 Teaching Methods and Strategies that Promote Oral Language Development ......... 96 Classroom Activities that Promote Oral Language Development ....................... 100 Summary..................................... 102 CHAPTER THREE: THE THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK Oral Proficiency--An Integrated Teaching Approach........................................ 104 The Interrelationship of Phonological Awareness, Software Use in Teaching Phonological Awareness, Oral Poetry, and Poetry across the Curriculum with Oral Proficiency.... ..................................104 Oral Proficiency as a Goal.................. 107 Integrated Teaching Approach . ..............107 Prior Knowledge............................. 109 Methods and Strategies ..................... 110 Fun Activities.............................. Ill Technology.................................. Ill Summary..................................... 113 vii CHAPTER FOUR: CURRICULUM DESIGN Sequence of the Unit Plan.... ................ 115 CHAPTER FIVE: ASSESSMENT Types of Assessment Used in the Curriculum Unit............. .. ............................ 119 Informal Assessment ......................... 119 Formal Assessment .......................... 121 Summary..................................... 123 Conclusion........................... 123 APPENDIX A: CHARTS INDICATING ASIAN POPULATION, LANGUAGES SPOKEN AT HOME AND EDUCATIONAL ATTAINMENT ................... 125 APPENDIX B: SOFTWARE INTERNET RESOURCES .............. 128 APPENDIX C: LIST OF BOOKS INTEGRATING POETRY WITH VARIOUS CONTENT AREAS .................... 130 APPENDIX D: NATIONAL ASSESSMENT OF EDUCATIONAL PROGRESS ORAL READING FLUENCY SCALE ...... 135 APPENDIX E: STUDENT ORAL LANGUAGE OBSERVATION MATRIX.................................... 137 APPENDIX F: POEMS--POEM RECITATION TO PROMOTE ORAL PROFICIENCY............................... 140 APPENDIX G: LESSON PLAN-ORAL POETRY TO PROMOTE ORAL PROFICIENCY.......................... 143 REFERENCES............................................ 188 viii LIST OF TABLES Table 1 Types of Poetic Meter....................... 68 Table 2 Fluency Rates for Developing Readers ........ 86 Table 3 Fluency Increase across the Grade Levels .... 87 Table 4 Integration of Key Concepts in the Lesson Plans....................................... 116 ix LIST OF FIGURES Figure 1. Related Terms .............................. 17 Figure 2. Stages of Phonological Awareness Abilities.................................. 19 Figure 3. Hierarchy of Skills inR eading............. 39 Figure 4. Results of Validation Study for WiggleWorks Software ....................... 42 Figure 5. Triangle.................................. 73 Figure 6. Model for Oral Proficiency................. 105 x CHAPTER ONE INTRODUCTION Background of the Project California, a multicultural state, has seen its fair share of immigrants from non-English speaking countries like Asia. Chinese, Filipino, Japanese, Asian Indian, Korean, Vietnamese, Cambodian, Hmong, Laotian, Thai, Singaporeans are collectively referred to as Asians. The Asian population in the United States has increased from seven million in 1990 to twelve million in 2000. Reeves and Bennett (2004) reported that California has 4.2 million Asians making it the state with the largest Asian population. The report also conveyed that 24 percent of the Asian population had earned at least a bachelor's degree. As a result "almost four fifths of Asians speak a language other than English at home, but about three fifths speak English very well" (p. 11). (See Appendix A) Some Asians, especially those newcomers in the country, are not proficient English speakers. Oftentimes, they feel inadequate to express their feelings, opinions, and even
Load more

Recommended publications
  • Analysis of Creativity and Creative Context in Oral Poetry
    Journal of Language and Culture Vol. 4(1), pp. 1-9, March, 2013 Available online http://www.academicjournals.org/JLC DOI: 10.5897/JLC11.039 ISSN 2141-6540 ©2013 Academic Journals Full Length Research Paper Analysis of creativity and creative context in oral poetry Dereje Fufa Bidu Department of Oromoo Folklore and Literature, Jimma University, Ethiopia. E-mail: [email protected]. Accepted 25 February, 2013 This study aims to analyse creativity in oral poetry. The focal points are mainly three: the way oral created and /or poetry is produced, the purpose it serves and the research methods employed to diagnose these. It begins with brief introductory analysis of the study of oral poetry in general and proceeds to a descriptive analysis of a sub-genre of Oromoo Oral Poetry. The analysis is a descriptive presentation to show the characteristics of the genre in Oromoo culture. The personality, the scene, the manner and the poems are selected to give better hint about the drawbacks of previous approaches. In fact Ruth Finnegan has initiated it in: I hope ... this preliminary book … will serve to introduce others to this rich field and perhaps encourage specialist scholars to take the subject for further through detailed study of particular oral poetries in their own languages (Finnegan, 1977: xii). Key words: Oral poetry, creativity, creative scene, creative context, contextual analysis, genre, Oromoo, geerarsa, yeelala. INTRODUCTION Oral poetry results from mental processes to serve imme- audiences and their interactions and emotional intensity diate personal, social or cultural purposes, which enforce reveal purpose. Texts possess language patterns and its creativities.
    [Show full text]
  • Orality in Writing: Its Cultural and Political Function in Anglophone African, African-Caribbean, and African-Canadian Poetry
    ORALITY IN WRITING: ITS CULTURAL AND POLITICAL FUNCTION IN ANGLOPHONE AFRICAN, AFRICAN-CARIBBEAN, AND AFRICAN-CANADIAN POETRY A Thesis submitted to the College of Graduate Studies and Research in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the Department of English University of Saskatchewan Saskatoon By Yaw Adu-Gyamfi Spring 1999 © Copyright Yaw Adu-Gyamfi, 1999. All rights reserved. National Ubrary Bib!iotheque nationale 1+1 of Canada du Canada Acquisitions and Acquisitions et Bibliographic Services services bibliographiques 395 Wellington Street 395. rue Wellington Ottawa ON K1A ON4 Ottawa ON K1 A ON4 Canada Canada Your file Vol", ,eferet1C8 Our file Not,e ,life,encs The author has granted a non­ L' auteur a accorde une licence non exclusive licence allowing the exclusive permettant a la National Library of Canada to Bibliotheque nationale du Canada de reproduce, loan, distribute or sell reproduire, preter, distribuer ou copies of this thesis in microform, vendre des copies de cette these sous paper or electronic formats. la forme de microfiche/film, de reproduction sur papier ou sur format electronique. The author retains ownership of the L' auteur conserve la propriete du copyright in this thesis. Neither the droit d'auteur qui protege cette these. thesis nor substantial extracts from it Ni la these ni des extraits substantiels may be printed or otherwise de celle-ci ne doivent etre imprimes reproduced without the author's ou autrement reproduits sans son permISSlOn. autorisation. 0-612-37868-3 Canada UNIVERSITY OF SASKATCHEWAN College of Graduate Studies and Research SUMMARY OF DISSERTATION Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY by Yaw Adu-Gyamfi Department of English Spring 1999 -EXAMINING COMMITTEE: Dr.
    [Show full text]
  • POETRY in SPEECH a Volume in the Series
    POETRY IN SPEECH A volume in the series MYTH AND POETICS edited by GREGORY NAGY A fu lllist of tides in the series appears at the end of the book. POETRY IN SPEECH Orality and Homeric Discourse EGBERT J. BAKKER CORNELL UNIVERSITY PRESS ITHACA AND LONDON Open access edition funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities/ Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Humanities Open Book Program. Copyright © 1997 by Cornell University All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations in a review, this book, or parts thereof, must not be reproduced in any form without permission in writing from the publisher. For information, address Cornell University Press, Sage House, 512 East State Street, Ithaca, New York 14850, or visit our website at cornellpress.cornell.edu. First published 1997 by Cornell University Press Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Bakker, Egbert J. Poetry in speech : orality and Homeric discourse / Egbert J. Bakker. p. cm. — (Myth and poetics) Includes bibliographical references and indexes. ISBN-13: 978-0-8014-3295-8 (cloth) — ISBN-13: 978-1-5017-2276-9 (pbk.) 1. Homer—Criticism and interpretation. 2. Epic poetry, Greek—History and criticism. 3. Discourse analysis, Literary. 4. Oral formulaic analysis. 5. Oral tradition—Greece. 6. Speech in literature. 7. Poetics. I. Title. PA4037.B33 1996 883'.01—dc20 96-31979 The text of this book is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/ Contents Foreword, by Gregory Nagy
    [Show full text]
  • Towards a Taxonomy of Modern Oral Litterature
    TOWARDS A TAXONOMY FOR BASQUE ORAL POETRY BERTSOLARITZA by Xabier Fidel Paya Ruiz A thesis submitted to the University of Birmingham for the degree of MPhil (B) Modern European Studies Department of Modern Languages College of Arts and Law University of Birmingham October 2012 University of Birmingham Research Archive e-theses repository This unpublished thesis/dissertation is copyright of the author and/or third parties. The intellectual property rights of the author or third parties in respect of this work are as defined by The Copyright Designs and Patents Act 1988 or as modified by any successor legislation. Any use made of information contained in this thesis/dissertation must be in accordance with that legislation and must be properly acknowledged. Further distribution or reproduction in any format is prohibited without the permission of the copyright holder. Word count: 19,999 Student ID Number: 1144151 INDEX Introduction 5 1. The art of Bertsolaritza: oral sung improvisation in the Basque Country 9 1.1. The study of Bertsolaritza 12 2. The taxonomy: structure, framework and classification 17 2.1. The structure of the taxonomy 18 2.1.1. A polyhedral approach: the faceted analysis 18 2.2. The theoretical framework of the taxonomy 19 2.2.1. Theoretical framework 20 2.2.2. The communication unit 24 2.2.3. The main axes of the taxonomy 25 2.2.4. Description of the taxa 29 2.2.4.1. Identification 29 2.2.4.2. Content 31 2.2.4.2.1. Theme 31 2.2.4.2.2. Melody 35 2.2.4.2.3.
    [Show full text]
  • Rediscovering Cumulative Creativity from the Oral Formulaic Tradition to Digital Remix: Can I Get a Witness?
    THE JOHN MARSHALL REVIEW OF INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY LAW REDISCOVERING CUMULATIVE CREATIVITY FROM THE ORAL FORMULAIC TRADITION TO DIGITAL REMIX: CAN I GET A WITNESS? GIANCARLO F. FROSIO ABSTRACT For most of human history, the essential nature of creativity was understood to be cumulative and collective. This notion has been largely forgotten by modern policies that regulate creativity and speech. As hard as it may be to believe, the most valuable components of our immortal culture were created under a fully open regime with regard to access to pre-existing expressions and re-use. From the Platonic mimesis to Shakespeare’s “borrowed feathers,” the largest part of our culture has been produced under a paradigm in which imitation—even plagiarism—and social authorship formed constitutive elements of the creative moment. Pre-modern creativity spread from a continuous line of re-use and juxtaposition of pre-existing expressive content, transitioning from orality to textuality and then melding the two traditions. The cumulative and collaborative character of the oral- formulaic tradition dominated the development of epic literature. The literary pillars of Western culture, the Iliad and the Odyssey, were fully forged in the furnace of that tradition. Later, under the aegis of Macrobius’ art of rewriting and the Latin principles of imitatio, medieval epics grew out of similar dynamics of sharing and recombination of formulas and traditional patterns. Continuations, free re-use, and the re-modeling of iconic figures and characters, such as King Arthur and Roland, made chansons de geste and romance literature powerful vehicles in propelling cross- country circulation of culture.
    [Show full text]
  • POETRY, MEMORY, and IDENTITY in SAHRAWI COMMUNITIES by Tara Flynn Deubel
    Between Homeland and Exile: Poetry, Memory, and Identity in Sahrawi Communities Item Type text; Electronic Dissertation Authors Deubel, Tara Flynn Publisher The University of Arizona. Rights Copyright © is held by the author. Digital access to this material is made possible by the University Libraries, University of Arizona. Further transmission, reproduction or presentation (such as public display or performance) of protected items is prohibited except with permission of the author. Download date 10/10/2021 22:47:24 Link to Item http://hdl.handle.net/10150/146067 BETWEEN HOMELAND AND EXILE: POETRY, MEMORY, AND IDENTITY IN SAHRAWI COMMUNITIES by Tara Flynn Deubel __________________________ Copyright © Tara Flynn Deubel 2010 A Dissertation Submitted to the Faculty of the SCHOOL OF ANTHROPOLOGY In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements For the Degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY In the Graduate College THE UNIVERSITY OF ARIZONA 2 0 1 0 2 THE UNIVERSITY OF ARIZONA GRADUATE COLLEGE As members of the Dissertation Committee, we certify that we have read the dissertation prepared by Tara Flynn Deubel entitled Between Homeland and Exile: Poetry, Memory, and Identity in Sahrawi Communities and recommend that it be accepted as fulfilling the dissertation requirement for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy. _______________________________________________________________________ Date: 11/10/09 Thomas K. Park _______________________________________________________________________ Date: 11/10/09 Mamadou A. Baro _______________________________________________________________________ Date: 11/10/09 Ana M. Alonso _______________________________________________________________________ Date: 11/10/09 Anne H. Betteridge _______________________________________________________________________ Date: 11/10/09 Aomar Boum _______________________________________________________________________ Date: 11/10/09 Julia A. Clancy-Smith Final approval and acceptance of this dissertation is contingent upon the candidate’s submission of the final copies of the dissertation to the Graduate College.
    [Show full text]
  • Introduction; Or, Why the Comparativist Should Take Account of the South Pacifi C
    Oral Tradition, 5/2-3 (1990): 159-184 Introduction; or, Why the Comparativist Should Take Account of the South Pacifi c Ruth Finnegan This issue of Oral Tradition is devoted to oral traditions in the South Pacifi c and reports the results of a series of twentieth-century and mainly fi eld-based studies. Since this region may be unfamiliar to some readers, these opening comments give a very brief introduction to this vast area, followed by some discussion of the signifi cance of its oral traditions and their study for the wider comparative study of oral tradition.1 The Cultural Background and Central Theoretical Issues The scattered islands and land masses within the huge Pacifi c Ocean make up a fascinating and too little known portion of the globe—and of our human culture. It is one that, with its evocation of the noble savage and the life of nature, has for long had a romantic appeal for Westerners. But despite this (or even perhaps because of it?), the international scholarly literature outside the Pacifi c has taken surprisingly little account of the study of Pacifi c cultural forms. In particular, informed references to Pacifi c oral tradition are rare in comparative literary analyses or in theories of oral literature and tradition. This relative neglect of the Pacifi c in the comparative literature is both unfortunate and paradoxical, for as will become clear from the papers that follow this region is rich in oral literature and tradition. There is a great deal already available in the voluminous collections—both published 1 Although I am responsible for this Introduction (and therefore for all its deficiencies), I would like to express my sincere gratitude to Margaret Orbell both for all her constructive suggestions and for saving me from many errors, also for her valuable comments reproduced in the next note.
    [Show full text]
  • Traditional Poetry in Contemporary Senegal: a Case Study of Wolof Kasak Songs
    Oral Tradition, 30/1 (2016):27-52 Traditional Poetry in Contemporary Senegal: A Case Study of Wolof Kasak Songs Cheikh Tidiane Lo Introduction This essay examines the contextual frame in which Wolof kasak songs are performed, the system of values they convey, and the artistic quality embedded within this poetic genre. It goes on to examine the change of the form as well as the factors that have contributed to the disappearance of the poetic genre in contemporary Wolof society. I claim that this traditional poetic culture, in spite of the disappearance of the cultural institution that birthed it, is being transformed, revived, and recuperated in novel forms in accordance with modern, urban realities. Kasak is a poetic genre performed by Wolof and other Senegalese ethnic groups in the framework of circumcision initiation (Tandia 1999; Faye 2006). The choice of kasak songs may be justified by the desire to contribute to the exploration and preservation of a poetic form hardly known because of its esoteric features. In order to ground our work on a corpus collected from authentic sources, I have traveled to various villages to meet different people who were able to supply original oral texts. I used participant observation in one kasak performance and relied on my personal recollections as a former young initiate in a semi-urban setting. I watched video recordings of urban-based kasak events in Dakar and Thies, Senegal. This method has been adopted to analyze patterns of change from the rural to urban setting. My corpus, however, is composed of kasak songs essentially collected in the Saloum region, particularly in the Kaffrine Department where the Saloum-Saloum dialect is predominant throughout the songs.
    [Show full text]
  • Oral Poetry in a Literate Culture: a Performance Ethnography of Poetry Slams
    Louisiana State University LSU Digital Commons LSU Historical Dissertations and Theses Graduate School 2001 Oral Poetry in a Literate Culture: a Performance Ethnography of Poetry Slams. Ramon Lavelle Sibley Jr Louisiana State University and Agricultural & Mechanical College Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.lsu.edu/gradschool_disstheses Recommended Citation Sibley, Ramon Lavelle Jr, "Oral Poetry in a Literate Culture: a Performance Ethnography of Poetry Slams." (2001). LSU Historical Dissertations and Theses. 363. https://digitalcommons.lsu.edu/gradschool_disstheses/363 This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the Graduate School at LSU Digital Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in LSU Historical Dissertations and Theses by an authorized administrator of LSU Digital Commons. For more information, please contact [email protected]. INFORMATION TO USERS This manuscript has been reproduced from the microfilm master. UMI films the text directly from the original or copy submitted. Thus, some thesis and dissertation copies are in typewriter face, while others may be from any type of computer printer. The quality of this reproduction is dependent upon the quality of the copy submitted. Broken or indistinct print, colored or poor quality illustrations and photographs, print bleedthrough, substandard margins, and improper alignment can adversely affect reproduction. In the unlikely event that the author did not send UMI a complete manuscript and there are missing pages, these will be noted. Also, if unauthorized copyright material had to be removed, a note will indicate the deletion. Oversize materials (e.g., maps, drawings, charts) are reproduced by sectioning the original, beginning at the upper left-hand comer and continuing from left to right in equal sections with small overlaps.
    [Show full text]
  • The Oral-Formulaic Theory in Middle English Studies
    Oral Tradition, 1/3 (1986): 636-94 The Oral-Formulaic Theory in Middle English Studies Ward Parks Since it was fi rst brought into modern critical consciousness by Milman Parry over half a century ago, the recognition of a distinctly oral mode of verbal artistry has sponsored a broadening interdisciplinary movement that now encompasses oral “literary” traditions from many parts of the world.1 In the course of such a development it was no doubt inevitable that the categorical distinction between “oral” and “literate,” axiomatic in the early stages of the evolution of oral theory, should increasingly fall into jeopardy. For on the most obvious level, the existence of some kind of text—whether a medieval codex or a cassette tape—is a precondition for literary study on any but the most limited of scales; one might well argue that poems and narratives so recorded have been made literate at least to the degree that literate consciousness has participated in the process of their preservation and dissemination. Yet when one turns to Middle English literature, one is confronted with a greater complexity of orality-literacy interactions, fi gured in literary works themselves composed in writing yet indebted to oral traditions that underlie and inform them on many levels. Defi ning the parameters of the relationship between this burgeoning, vernacular chirographic tradition and its oral progenitor will comprise a central task for many scholars working in this branch of Middle English studies. My present enterprise, to review Middle English scholarship vitally relevant to the oral-formulaic approach, meets with diffi culties that should be elucidated from the outset.
    [Show full text]
  • Orality, Literacy, and the Making of 13Th Century Eddic Poetry May May
    Orality, Literacy, and the making of 13 th century Eddic Poetry May May Natalie Holstad Nordic Viking and Medieval Culture Submitted to the department of Linguistics and Scandinavian Studies University of Oslo Master of Philosophy Spring 2007 Acknowledgement My gratitude to Professor Karl G. Johansson for his time, patience, inspiring enthusiasm for this field of research and faith in the rebellious few. To my mum, for her encouragement, and finally, to my father for always seeing the bright side. 1 Table of Contents Introduction..............................................................................................................................3 Chapter 1: Understanding Old Norse Oral Culture.............................................................6 What is Orality?......................................................................................................................8 Some Problems with Studying Medieval Oral Culture..........................................................9 How might an Oral Culture Function?.................................................................................11 Modern Oral Cultures and Old Norse Orality......................................................................15 Literacy and Illiteracy ..........................................................................................................17 The Implications of Literacy ................................................................................................19 The Literate Mentality..........................................................................................................20
    [Show full text]
  • The Mnemonic Oral Tradition with Special Reference to the Management and Expression of Conflict in Zulu-Speaking Communities
    The mnemonic oral tradition with special reference to the management and expression of conflict in Zulu-speaking communities N.S. Turner School of IsiZulu Studies University of KwaZulu Natal DURBAN E-mail: [email protected] Abstract The mnemonic oral tradition with special reference to the management and expression of conflict in Zulu-speaking communities The identification of features of oral studies and especially the issue of conflict and their terms of reference, have recently become a topic of increasing interest among researchers in Southern Africa. The National Research Foundation is nowa- days encouraging academics to focus on the area of indigenous knowledge systems. Included in that focus area is the recom- mendation that research should be done on the impact that indigenous knowledge has on lifestyles and the ways in which societies operate. The study of ways in which specific societies articulate issues of conflict is inextricably linked with the way in which language is used in particular communities. This study deals with African and specifically Zulu communities, and how the mnemonic oral tradition plays an essential role in the oral strategies used as a means of dealing with issues of conflict. These strategies are based on an age-old mnemonic oral tradition which is socialised and used as an acceptable norm of group behaviour. Furthermore it is an acceptable way of managing and expressing conflict in social situations where direct verbal confrontation is frowned upon and deemed un- acceptable. Literator 28(2) Aug. 2007:75-99 ISSN 0258-2279 75 The mnemonic oral tradition ... in Zulu-speaking communities Opsomming Die mnemoniese orale tradisie met spesifieke verwysing na die bestuur en uitdrukking van konflik in Zulu-sprekende gemeenskappe Die identifisering van die kenmerke van orale studies en veral die kwessie van konflik en sodanige verwysingsterme, is dees- dae ’n onderwerp wat al hoe meer aandag onder navorsers in Suidelike Afrika geniet.
    [Show full text]