A Plea for an Interdisciplinary Approach to the Study of Arab Oral Tradition
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 5849552 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Saad Abdullah Sowayan (corresponding author) |
| Year | 2003 |
| Volume | 18 |
| Issue | 1 |
| Pages | 132-135 |
| Publication date | 2003-03-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Oral tradition (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0883-5365 • E-ISSN: 1542-4308 |
| Publisher | Project MUSE (PUBLISHER • US) |
| DOI | 10.1353/ort.2004.0037 |
| OpenAlex | W2111361078 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 2 |
| References cited | 8 |
In reviewing the history of scholarship in the field of oral literature, we find that the theory of oral-formulaic composition and performance is one of its most outstanding landmarks. The application of this theory in its traditional conception as proposed by Milman Parry and enunciated by Albert Lord is rather sterile and restricted, however, in that it applies only to the poetic genre looked at strictly from a formal literary perspective. It is a surface-structure-oriented theory with very meager intellectual yield, not to mention being prone to gross misapplication. Examples of such limited approaches and misapplications are the works of James Monroe (1972) and Michael Zwettler (1978) on the tribal poetry of Pre-Islamic Arabia. Jack Goody, Eric A. Havelock, Walter Ong, and others have tried to broaden the anthropological and psychological implications of the theory to include not only an oral mode of composition but also an oral mode of thinking and the processes of oral discourse in general. The discussions since then have shifted to focus on the oral stage versus the writing stage of Culture and what effects the introduction of script has on the individual and on the society as a whole. The emphasis now is on the examination of the structure and working of human memory and cognition and the means through which oral societies store, organize, and retrieve knowledge, pass on their traditions, and maintain cultural continuity through successive generations. What started as an insular theory of textual criticism is now turning into an interdisciplinary enterprise. The scholarship of oral literature has crossed academic boundaries to straddle many disciplines, ranging from aesthetics to linguistics to communication to psychology to anthropology to folklore, and many more. This broadening of the academic base has been very fruitful in bolstering the theories and methods of the field. Yet there is another direction that the field needs to reach out toward and investigate more thoroughly, namely the connectedness of literature to the rest of culture in oral societies
Plea · African history and culture analysis · Language, Linguistics, Cultural Analysis
| Unique citing works | 2 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 0,14 |
| Citation span | 2012 - 2014 (3) |
| Citation velocity | historical |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 2 |