Text-Messaging and Orality Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

Text-Messaging and Orality - Essay Example The cell phone is perhaps the single most ubiquitous feature of communication technology and according to the CTIA over 82% of Americans own one. Its ubiquity is not only due to its overwhelming ownership but by its very nature considering that neither a computer nor a land-line phone can be carried and used so easily. This facile manipulation of technology hints at McLuhan's comment. Moreover, the overwhelming majority of those cell phones have text-messaging capability. Text messaging as a phenomenon has gained attention from academics and critics primarily because of the proclivity of its users to employ "creative" grammatical and linguistic constructions. Its harshest critics claim that it will, or already has, led to a corruption of language. Indeed its pliable and dynamic structure does allow a manipulation of formal grammatical and linguistic rules that would be difficult to parse in formal essays, such as this one; its function in a civilization that has long been inscribed b y writing fulfills a much different role than essays, or letters- though its effect on language might be inedible and perceived even in those forms. Text-messaging and related channels represent a syncretism between oral and written forms of communication, and while it lacks the formal purity of traditional written forms of communication, it maintains its own separate aesthetic and poetic qualities that emphasize a heavy reliance on context, mnemonic deployment, and efficiency. By analyzing the physical nature, functional and literary features of text-messaging the oral features of text-messaging will be revealed, understanding of course that in the final analysis its essence as a textual form of communication in a hypertextual society remains regnant. In attempting to outline the structural features of text-messaging and related conduits of communication such as instant messaging, it will be juxtaposed to the features of orality that are relevant. Consider Edouard Glissant's quote, "Oralityis inseparable from the body in movement" (MacNeil, 2007). We understand text and the printed word to be primarily outside the body, distinct from the body and its author. Spoken word or talk is understood to be generated from within the body and indistinct from the author. Text-messaging straddles this interior/exterior boundary. The device on which one types or texts undeniably lies outside the body, its reception as well is mediated by a device outside the person. This is an important distinction as one of the salient features of oral communication is that it is received immediately and without explicit and conscious mediation, insofar that the reverberation of sound, the movement of air is not interpreted into words or speech until it is we ll into the ear canal, and though we recognize the source of the sound, its compilation occurs internally (Ong, 1982, pp. 32-33). To some degree this is quite different from the structure of text-messaging, insofar like other textual forms of communication, it is understood that the interpretation occurs on the page, in the visual field. However, in considering the intimate and tight connection between text-message and text-messenger there remains some features of the bodily coextension of orality. The cell phone's mobility and sizes bridges the communication barrier imposed by other devices, such as computers, telephones, even paper. Someone can interact with and use their cell

The end of the Odyssey Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

The end of the Odyssey - Essay Example There are various theories, criticisms, interpretations, and opinions on the ending of Homers epic poem, The Odyssey. Some have unique theories such as the solar eclipse theory, others are historically possible, as if the oral tradition and the lost scrolls, while some are theoretical that leave the audience with an immortal image of the text. In this easy, we will have a critical review of the ending of the epic chronicle. At the end of the chronicle of The Odyssey, the author, Homer refers to the occurrence of the total eclipse. The core phrase that by the then seer, Theoclymenus, depicts a foresight of the death of untamed and unruly men who had sought the hand in marriage of Penelope at the time Odysseus was at war. The seer makes reference the sun obliteration from the sky, with a cloud of bad luck invading the whole world (Homer & Lattimore, 1967). This idea is symbolic of the occurrence of a total eclipse, a situation where the moon blocks the sunrays. Although, this is not new it was up to the early years of the 1920 that astronomers were able to calculate the occurrence of such an eclipse over Greece. The eclipse had a possibility of occurrence in the month of April in the year 1178 BC (Homer & Lattimore, 1967). However, many individuals are convinced that the passage that has a reference of the solar eclipse is just but a mere mythical total solar eclipse. This argument supports the claims a poetic license as the Odyssey was written by Homer several centuries after the said events had taken place. On the other side, many modern scholars and critics are convinced by the possibility of the April 1178 BC solar eclipse occurrence (Bloom, 1988). This claim is supported by other passages in then poem that have a reference to other four independent astronomical events that occur independently to each other. Instead of just having a historical view of the occurrence of a solar eclipse, several astronomers have investigated the timing