Response to Ong and Wolf - 10/8/2014

I found these readings by Ong and Wolf to be quite interesting. However, I felt like these were super hard to read. It took me quite awhile to really comprehend and digest just really was being said. Among the complex ideas and theories, the context was just deep and I felt like I would miss a lot being said if I didn't reread the majority of it. So personally, I think I might just talk my reaction to the readings instead of talking about the readings themselves, because I think I would end up chopping up a lot of it and not understanding what exactly was being said.

First off, like I said before wow. Those were really hard to comprehend. However, I found it very very cool the connections between orality and linguistics. I always knew that speak and words and writing and novels all connect, but when you think about it, they are what intertwine and weave with each other. You can't really have one without the other.

I hate to nerd out here, but in HBO's Game of Thrones, in those medieval times, there is a character in the third and fourth season named Davos Seaworth. He is the king's hand so he does majority of the talking for the king.  The reason why I am connecting this to the readings is due to the fact that he is illiterate. He speaks and presents himself and the king very professionally and well mannered, yet he cannot read or write notes for the kings. So after reading this handouts, I kept thinking of him. Because it says in Wolf's readings on the very first line that humans were never born to read. We just invented it. Which of course, alters the course of how our brain functions.

But after reading these, then also reflecting back on our speeches, like Professor Condon said in class, many rhetoric's would make it up on the spot and not rely on parchments for a guide. So it is very interesting to the growth and chronological order than words and speech have taken over the years. I wonder if we have hindered ourselves from doing something great if we taught ourselves not to read? Or did we save ourselves from dying out and not know how to survive?