Josh,
Great job on your first podcast. In terms of formal elements, you have a natural ease with your speech which generates a conversational atmosphere. This worked particularly well for the topic at hand because you were able to equate your speech with you, rather than a representation or artifice, like writing. Content wise, I particularly liked your point about the dangerous conflation of writing and speech or the thinking behind writing as “natural.” In terms of composition pedagogy, both students and professors alike would be stunted from such a line of thinking. If writing is natural, then the only thing we can teach is craft. Furthermore, the shift from thinking about writing as natural to writing as representational might ease the move from writing as private to writing as public. Students might fail to grasp the difference between what they intended to say and what they actually wrote (i.e. – how it was received in the public domain) because they still hang onto the “writing as natural” logic that contains a seamless transition from thought to expression.
On a final note you continue to refer to language as natural and writing as a technology. However, I am wondering if language is not also a technology that we have so deeply integrated into our thinking (indeed without language we lack consciousness), that we fail to notice it as artifice. You suggest that children adopt language naturally as if it is a homogeneous phenomenon or as Derrida might suggest, that it instead adopts us.
I also agree that this is a very nice podcast! Your oral communication makes it very easy to follow your argument, in addition to the fact that you have a clear/concise message upon which you want to draw. I have to agree with your point that writing is in many ways “unnatural,” in that we have to follow a structure of grammar, diction, and letters (these are just to name a few) to make our sentence, or written form communicable. In that respect, we have to work within a structure outside ourselves (unnatural) to make the written dialogue work. I think that you are also right to examine the relationship between writing and it being an extension of “nature.” For there are plenty of writers – for instance, the surreal poets – who work to shatter the structures of nature (see Artaud for more information). The only contention I would make with your argument is: why does writing have to be our voice that is on the page? Perhaps if we think in this manner we would have to substitute what we define as the “speaker” in a book, novel, or poem with the author itself. For instance, we would have to say it is not the speaker in Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales who is doing the speaking but Chaucer himself. Above all, though, I think that I agree with more of what you are saying, and I was very interested in who you examined the difference between oral/written communication, in addition to how we learn to speak as compared to write.
I would like to springboard off of Rhetorama's comment because I think there's more to explore here. I've listened to your podcast a couple times and I would like to focus specifically on your claim that writing "takes a conscious effort to/.../ hone." Like Rhetorama, I think we need to be careful here in terms of implying that writing is "craft" (and thus unnatural and distinct from orality) and that speaking is "subconscious[ly] acquired (and thus more natural).
I would argue that oral communication (words, generally) is also something that we must hone. I think it's easy to say that writing is unnatural and speaking is natural, because writing involves a set of tools (i.e. pens, paper, keyboards) separate from our biological ones--i.e. larynx, tongue, etc. But as you intimate, especially toward the end, speaking, too, is a set of signifiers and requires a set of culturally learned cues in order to proceed.
I think that you might be unintentionally conflating two things here: the difference between first learning how to write (i.e. learning a technology) and what happens to that "skill" once it is learned (you call this "second nature"). This is complicated-- The best analogy I can think of, to show what I mean, is "speech." While learning to speak might be subconcious, as you and Ong point out, it does, in fact, become a conscious technology, once learned. Not to get all "meta" here, but, for instance, let's use your podcast as an example of where this nature/technology distinction gets hairy. In your podcast, you are making (speaking) an argument and that is an oral representation of thought. (You learned how to speak as an infant, it naturally occurred for you, and progressed from words like "mama" to complex sentences, yada yada) In terms of that word "hone" which you use to describe the way writing is a learned skill: I am assuming you have planned out what you were going to say, perhaps you've even rehearsed a few times. I am also sure you have employed some element of audience awareness into your podcast as well. And as Steve Urkel and Rhetorama have said, you present a well-spoken, logical argument. So, while initial utterances like an infant's call to his mother ("mama") and casual conversation might seem "natural" in reality, orality, too, is as natural and unnatural as anything else. I think all we're talking about here is degrees: How much more removed from us one technology is than another.
Phew! Alright, Josh, great job condensing difficult material and sparking a really interesting discussion. I've got a lot of ideas bouncing around in my head now.
One of the trickiest things about bringing this podcast format to a scholarly discussion is making complex ideas sound and feel conversational. You've mastered that. Could you just speak up a little next time? Or sit a little closer to the speaker? I had to crank the volume to hear you. [In fairness, this might be more of a problem with my ears than with your recording.]
I'd like to respond to you, as well as to Maddie [Rhetorama] and Allison [ajs248] regarding this issue of the relative "naturalness" of both speech and writing. I think it was Kyle [Kylesaurus Rex] who first pointed out that Ong is dealing with Saussurian terms when he talks about speech, language, and writing. Ong and de Saussure both give preferential treatment to speech as "original" or "natural," but this distinction, as the others have said can be a problem. It leaves us with a [relatively unsolvable] "chicken or egg" scenario. Does spoken communication precede written communication? Of course. But does the utterance of sounds to relay a message [speech] precede the mental processes required to compose that message [writing]?
My definition of writing here is broader than Ong would have it, and the idea of writing that includes any act of composition is taken from Derrida's _Of Grammatology_. If we take writing to be an original compositional act, an operation of mind that allows us to construct speech, music, the written word, html code, film clips, etc., then "writing" so conceived is no more or less natural than "speech." Both exist largely in the mind, both are crucial to our ability to communicate, both develop almost unconsciously.
You and Ong both reveal your [perhaps unknown] adherence to this idea by making the analogy between writing and music. Both have outward forms [print/notation], both give rise to audio components [speech/song], and both are reliant on the process of the human mind required to create [writing/composition].
Like you, I was very attracted to Ong's turn of phrase. Writing is an art, and it has become second nature. But it is also artifice, and artifact. Writing is the process by which we develop the thing, the thing itself, and a record or preservation of the thing. In this view it actually includes and encompasses speech. The two are less distinct than one might realize, and neither are as "inherent" as anyone might expect at first glance.
I don't mean to refute you or anyone else, but I find Ong's clear-cut distinctions to be deeply problematic. Your podcast made me think in new ways about this issue. Awesome job.
Comments
Representational Capacity
Josh,
Great job on your first podcast. In terms of formal elements, you have a natural ease with your speech which generates a conversational atmosphere. This worked particularly well for the topic at hand because you were able to equate your speech with you, rather than a representation or artifice, like writing. Content wise, I particularly liked your point about the dangerous conflation of writing and speech or the thinking behind writing as “natural.” In terms of composition pedagogy, both students and professors alike would be stunted from such a line of thinking. If writing is natural, then the only thing we can teach is craft. Furthermore, the shift from thinking about writing as natural to writing as representational might ease the move from writing as private to writing as public. Students might fail to grasp the difference between what they intended to say and what they actually wrote (i.e. – how it was received in the public domain) because they still hang onto the “writing as natural” logic that contains a seamless transition from thought to expression.
On a final note you continue to refer to language as natural and writing as a technology. However, I am wondering if language is not also a technology that we have so deeply integrated into our thinking (indeed without language we lack consciousness), that we fail to notice it as artifice. You suggest that children adopt language naturally as if it is a homogeneous phenomenon or as Derrida might suggest, that it instead adopts us.
Josh, I also agree that this
Josh,
I also agree that this is a very nice podcast! Your oral communication makes it very easy to follow your argument, in addition to the fact that you have a clear/concise message upon which you want to draw. I have to agree with your point that writing is in many ways “unnatural,” in that we have to follow a structure of grammar, diction, and letters (these are just to name a few) to make our sentence, or written form communicable. In that respect, we have to work within a structure outside ourselves (unnatural) to make the written dialogue work. I think that you are also right to examine the relationship between writing and it being an extension of “nature.” For there are plenty of writers – for instance, the surreal poets – who work to shatter the structures of nature (see Artaud for more information). The only contention I would make with your argument is: why does writing have to be our voice that is on the page? Perhaps if we think in this manner we would have to substitute what we define as the “speaker” in a book, novel, or poem with the author itself. For instance, we would have to say it is not the speaker in Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales who is doing the speaking but Chaucer himself. Above all, though, I think that I agree with more of what you are saying, and I was very interested in who you examined the difference between oral/written communication, in addition to how we learn to speak as compared to write.
What came first: the word or the argument?
Josh,
I would like to springboard off of Rhetorama's comment because I think there's more to explore here. I've listened to your podcast a couple times and I would like to focus specifically on your claim that writing "takes a conscious effort to/.../ hone." Like Rhetorama, I think we need to be careful here in terms of implying that writing is "craft" (and thus unnatural and distinct from orality) and that speaking is "subconscious[ly] acquired (and thus more natural).
I would argue that oral communication (words, generally) is also something that we must hone. I think it's easy to say that writing is unnatural and speaking is natural, because writing involves a set of tools (i.e. pens, paper, keyboards) separate from our biological ones--i.e. larynx, tongue, etc. But as you intimate, especially toward the end, speaking, too, is a set of signifiers and requires a set of culturally learned cues in order to proceed.
I think that you might be unintentionally conflating two things here: the difference between first learning how to write (i.e. learning a technology) and what happens to that "skill" once it is learned (you call this "second nature"). This is complicated-- The best analogy I can think of, to show what I mean, is "speech." While learning to speak might be subconcious, as you and Ong point out, it does, in fact, become a conscious technology, once learned. Not to get all "meta" here, but, for instance, let's use your podcast as an example of where this nature/technology distinction gets hairy. In your podcast, you are making (speaking) an argument and that is an oral representation of thought. (You learned how to speak as an infant, it naturally occurred for you, and progressed from words like "mama" to complex sentences, yada yada) In terms of that word "hone" which you use to describe the way writing is a learned skill: I am assuming you have planned out what you were going to say, perhaps you've even rehearsed a few times. I am also sure you have employed some element of audience awareness into your podcast as well. And as Steve Urkel and Rhetorama have said, you present a well-spoken, logical argument. So, while initial utterances like an infant's call to his mother ("mama") and casual conversation might seem "natural" in reality, orality, too, is as natural and unnatural as anything else. I think all we're talking about here is degrees: How much more removed from us one technology is than another.
ajs248
Art, Artifice, Artifact
Phew! Alright, Josh, great job condensing difficult material and sparking a really interesting discussion. I've got a lot of ideas bouncing around in my head now.
One of the trickiest things about bringing this podcast format to a scholarly discussion is making complex ideas sound and feel conversational. You've mastered that. Could you just speak up a little next time? Or sit a little closer to the speaker? I had to crank the volume to hear you. [In fairness, this might be more of a problem with my ears than with your recording.]
I'd like to respond to you, as well as to Maddie [Rhetorama] and Allison [ajs248] regarding this issue of the relative "naturalness" of both speech and writing. I think it was Kyle [Kylesaurus Rex] who first pointed out that Ong is dealing with Saussurian terms when he talks about speech, language, and writing. Ong and de Saussure both give preferential treatment to speech as "original" or "natural," but this distinction, as the others have said can be a problem. It leaves us with a [relatively unsolvable] "chicken or egg" scenario. Does spoken communication precede written communication? Of course. But does the utterance of sounds to relay a message [speech] precede the mental processes required to compose that message [writing]?
My definition of writing here is broader than Ong would have it, and the idea of writing that includes any act of composition is taken from Derrida's _Of Grammatology_. If we take writing to be an original compositional act, an operation of mind that allows us to construct speech, music, the written word, html code, film clips, etc., then "writing" so conceived is no more or less natural than "speech." Both exist largely in the mind, both are crucial to our ability to communicate, both develop almost unconsciously.
You and Ong both reveal your [perhaps unknown] adherence to this idea by making the analogy between writing and music. Both have outward forms [print/notation], both give rise to audio components [speech/song], and both are reliant on the process of the human mind required to create [writing/composition].
Like you, I was very attracted to Ong's turn of phrase. Writing is an art, and it has become second nature. But it is also artifice, and artifact. Writing is the process by which we develop the thing, the thing itself, and a record or preservation of the thing. In this view it actually includes and encompasses speech. The two are less distinct than one might realize, and neither are as "inherent" as anyone might expect at first glance.
I don't mean to refute you or anyone else, but I find Ong's clear-cut distinctions to be deeply problematic. Your podcast made me think in new ways about this issue. Awesome job.