Question #3

The speeches by Simon Lucas and Dan Michel have been textualized very differently. In the one instance, grammar has been edited, redundancies have been eliminated, and other features of oral language have been transformed into a more traditional written text. In the other, many of the oral features have been reatined in the written version. Which translations do you prefer, and why? What are some of the implications of each style? Argue your psoition with concrete examples from the text(s), showing HOW each written form has certain implications for meaning.

Question #2

Walter Ong has argued that, "Learning to read and write disables the oral poet." Do you agree or disagree with this claim? Why or why not? Connect your response explicitly to one or more of the storytelling examples that we have discussed in class.

Essay Questions

Hi Everyone - Sorry for the delay in getting here this week; I'm still madly playing catch-up after being out of town for two days. So, I am going to posst three different questions here in three separate posts, with each question addressing one possible topic for your first essay. The is that we can all share ideas and discuss these topics as you work on your essays.

Question #1: Wendy Wickwire, in transcribing and editing Harry Robinson's stories, "poetizes" the text. She has stated that she is following anthropologist Dennis Tedlock's model of representing oral narrative as "dramatic poetry" on the page. Tedlock argues that this mode of written representation does a better job of preserving the flavour of oral performance as it moves to written text. Other critics have argued that this arbitrary choice is an imposition on the (narrative) text and has other, negative, and ideological implications. With which position do you agree? Why or why not? How does the formal style of written representation affect meaning? Use explicit examples from Write It On Your Heart to argue your position.

Transcribing Oral Stories

Now that all of you have print copies of the stories that we listened to in class on Monday, I'd like to think about the ways in which these stories have been textualized. All of the stories that we listened to were told in English by bilingual speakers of a Native language. This reduces some of the complexity inherent in translation, because the storytellers provided their own translation and interpretation into English. However, the move from the spoken word to the written word in these stories is not nearly as seamless. All of the stories have been transcribed by different people, and in different ways. Some are presented as poetry, some as prose. In some instances we know a little bit about the storytelling context; in others not. We don't always know who has transcribed the story, nor what the context of the transcription (as distinct from the storytelling performance) is. Think about the textual version of the stories that we have listened to, and make some comments about the issues areound the transcriptions. What do you see as some of the problems and challenges in moving from oral to written? Is one style or method of textual presentation better than others in re-presenting an oral text?

Hi Everyone - Welcome to our Blog for FNST 206! I'll be inviting everyone in first, and then I'll post some things for discussion.