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Human and Mediated Communication around the World pp 41–65Cite as

Orality and Literacy

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Abstract

Both in human and mediated communication, differences can be recognized with respect to orality and literacy. These differences can be recognized in communication styles, literary genres, and electronic communication. The mass media vary with respect to literacy and orality in design and content. The need to understand the difference between orality and literacy has grown with the electronic age because of the hybrid communication function of the Internet and mobile media. Both speech and absence of speech follow cultural conventions. Language reflects and influences culture. The Western vision of communication is persuasion, following rhetorical tradition, but there is a different history of rhetorical practice in Buddhist preaching, and also in Japan, rhetoric takes a different form. Reading and writing developed in a different way and at different places in the various parts of the world, and an oral or literal history can still be recognized in many communication products.

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  1. Burgh-Haamstede, The Netherlands

    Marieke de Mooij

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de Mooij, M. (2014). Orality and Literacy. In: Human and Mediated Communication around the World. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-01249-0_2

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