Editing Oral tradition (section)

==Study==
===Historiography===
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Oral traditions have been utilised in many historical fields, however are most associated with pre-colonial African history.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Law |first=Robin |url=https://www.taylorfrancis.com/chapters/edit/10.4324/9781315505176-10/oral-tradition-history-robin-law |title=Writing and Africa |date=1997 |chapter=Oral tradition as history|pages=159–173 |doi=10.4324/9781315505176-10 |isbn=978-1-315-50517-6 }}</ref> Historians generally view oral traditions as neither entirely symbolic or wholly true, but a synthesis of the two, requiring great skill and subtlety to separate them.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Isichei |first=Elizabeth |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=3C2tzBSAp3MC&dq=african+history&pg=PP14 |title=A History of African Societies to 1870 |date=1997-04-13 |publisher=Cambridge University Press |isbn=978-0-521-45599-2 |language=en}}</ref>{{Rp|page=11}}

[[Jan Vansina]], who specialised in the [[history of Central Africa]], pioneered the study of oral tradition in his book ''Oral tradition as history'' (1985). Vansina differentiates between ''oral'' and ''literate'' civilisations, depending on whether emphasis is placed on the sanctity of the written or oral word in a society. The Akan proverbs translated as "Ancient things in the ear" and "Ancient things are today" refer to present-day delivery and the past content, and as such oral traditions are both simultaneously expressions of the past and the present. Vansina says that to ignore the duality either way would be reductionistic.<ref name="Vansina 1971 442–468">{{cite journal |last=Vansina |first=Jan |title=Once upon a Time: Oral Traditions as History in Africa |journal=Daedalus |volume=100 |issue=2 |year=1971 |pages=442–468 |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/20024011 |publisher=MIT Press|jstor=20024011 }}</ref> Vansina states: 
{{blockquote|Members of literate societies find it difficult to shed the prejudice and contempt for the spoken word, the counterpart of pride in writing and respect for the written word. Any historian who deals with oral tradition will have to unlearn this prejudice in order to rediscover the full wonder of words: the shades of meaning they convey to those who ponder them and learn them with care so that they may transmit the wisdom they contain as the culture's most precious legacy to the next generation.<ref name="Vansina 1971 442–468">{{cite journal |last=Vansina |first=Jan |title=Once upon a Time: Oral Traditions as History in Africa |journal=Daedalus |volume=100 |issue=2 |year=1971 |pages=442–468 |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/20024011 |publisher=MIT Press|jstor=20024011 }}</ref>{{rp|page=442}}}}

==== Recording a tradition ====
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{{blockquote|Ask him now to repeat the story slowly so that you may write it. You will, with patience, get the gist of it, but the unnaturalness of the circumstance disconcerts him, your repeated request for the repetition of a phrase, the absence of the encouragement of his friends, and, above all, the hampering slowness of your pen, all combine to kill the spirit of storytelling.  Hence we have to be content with far less than the tales as they are told. |author=[[Edwin W. Smith|E.W. Smith]] and [[Andrew Murray Dale|A.M. Dale]] |title=''The Ila-speaking peoples of Northern Rhodesia'' (1920) |source=<ref>{{cite book |last1=Smith |first1= E.W. |last2=Dale |first2=A.M. |title=The Ila-speaking peoples of Northern Rhodesia |year=1920 |url=https://archive.org/details/ilaspeakingpeopl01smit}}</ref><ref>{{cite journal |journal=Oral Tradition |url=https://journal.oraltradition.org/wp-content/uploads/files/articles/9i/1d_Introduction_9_1.pdf |volume=9 |issue=1 |year=1994 |first=Lee |last=Haring |title=Introduction: The Search for Grounds in African Oral Tradition}}</ref>}}

===Development within Europe===
[[File:Filip Visnjic guslar.jpg|thumb|right|[[Filip Višnjić]] (1767&ndash;1834), [[Serbia]]n blind [[gusle|guslar]]]]
In the work of the Serb scholar [[Vuk Stefanović Karadžić]] (1787–1864), a contemporary and friend of the [[Brothers Grimm]]. Vuk pursued similar projects of "salvage folklore" (similar to [[rescue archaeology]]) in the [[cognate]] traditions of the South [[Slavs|Slavic]] regions which would later be gathered into [[Yugoslavia]], and with the same admixture of [[Romanticism|romantic]] and [[nationalistic]] interests (he considered all those speaking the [[Eastern Herzegovinian dialect]] as Serbs). Somewhat later, but as part of the same scholarly enterprise of nationalist studies in folklore,<ref>[http://journal.oraltradition.org/files/articles/5i/5_radloff.pdf "Early Scholarship on Oral Traditions"] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080529035828/http://journal.oraltradition.org/files/articles/5i/5_radloff.pdf |date=2008-05-29 }}: Radloff, Jousse and Murko ''Oral Tradition'' 5:1 (1990) 73-90</ref> the [[turcology|turcologist]] [[Vasily Radlov]] (1837–1918) would study the songs of the [[Kara-Kyrgyz Autonomous Oblast|Kara-Kirghiz]] in what would later become the Soviet Union; Karadzic and Radloff would provide models for the work of Parry.

====Walter Ong====
In a separate development, the [[media theory|media theorist]] [[Marshall McLuhan]] (1911–1980) would begin to focus attention on the ways that [[communication|communicative]] [[Mass media|media]] shape the nature of the content conveyed.<ref>See for example Marshall McLuhan, ''The Gutenberg Galaxy: The Making of Typographic Man''. University of Toronto Press, Toronto, 1962.</ref> He would serve as mentor to the [[Jesuit]] [[Walter Ong]] (1912–2003), whose interests in [[cultural history]], [[psychology]] and [[rhetoric]] would result in ''Orality and Literacy'' (Methuen, 1980) and the important but less-known ''Fighting for Life: Contest, Sexuality and Consciousness'' (Cornell, 1981).<ref>Walter J. Ong. ''Fighting for Life: Context, Sexuality, and Consciousness''. Cornell University Press, Ithaca & London, 1981.</ref> These two works articulated the contrasts between cultures defined by [[Orality#Primary orality|primary orality]], writing, print, and the [[secondary orality]] of the electronic age.<ref name="autogenerated3">Foley, John Miles. ''The Theory of Oral Composition''. Bloomington: IUP, 1991, pp. 57 ff.</ref>

:{|style="border:1px; border: thin solid white; background-color:#f6f6FF; margin:20px;" cellpadding="10"
|-
| I style the orality of a culture totally untouched by any knowledge of writing or print, 'primary orality'. It is 'primary' by contrast with the 'secondary orality' of present-day high technology culture, in which a new orality is sustained by telephone, radio, television and other electronic devices that depend for their existence and functioning on writing and print. Today primary culture in the strict sense hardly exists, since every culture knows of writing and has some experience of its effects. Still, to varying degrees many cultures and sub-cultures, even in a high-technology ambiance, preserve much of the mind-set of primary orality.<ref>Walter J. Ong. ''Orality and Literacy'', p. 11.</ref>
|}

Ong's works also made possible an integrated theory of oral tradition which accounted for both production of content (the chief concern of Parry-Lord theory) and its reception.<ref name="autogenerated3" /> This approach, like McLuhan's, kept the field open not just to the study of aesthetic culture but to the way physical and behavioral artifacts of oral societies are used to store, manage and transmit knowledge, so that oral tradition provides methods for investigation of cultural differences, other than the purely verbal, between oral and literate societies.

The most-often studied section of ''Orality and Literacy'' concerns the "[[psychodynamics]] of orality" This chapter seeks to define the fundamental characteristics of 'primary' orality and summarizes a series of descriptors (including but not limited to verbal aspects of culture) which might be used to index the relative orality or literacy of a given text or society.<ref>Walter J. Ong. ''Orality and literacy: the technologizing of the word'', pp. 31-76.</ref>

====John Miles Foley====
In advance of Ong's synthesis, [[John Miles Foley]] began a series of papers based on his own fieldwork on South Slavic oral genres, emphasizing the dynamics of performers and audiences.<ref>Foley, John Miles. ''The Theory of Oral Composition''. Bloomington: IUP, 1991, p 76.</ref> Foley effectively consolidated oral tradition as an academic field<ref>{{Cite web |title=not found |url=http://illumination.missouri.edu/spr05/fol1.htm |access-date=November 25, 2024 |website=illumination.missouri.edu}}</ref> when he compiled ''Oral-Formulaic Theory and Research'' in 1985. The bibliography gives a summary of the progress scholars made in evaluating the oral tradition up to that point, and includes a list of all relevant scholarly articles relating to the theory of [[Oral-Formulaic Composition]]. He also both established both the journal ''Oral Tradition'' and founded the ''Center for Studies in Oral Tradition'' (1986) at the [[University of Missouri]]. Foley developed Oral Theory beyond the somewhat mechanistic notions presented in earlier versions of Oral-Formulaic Theory, by extending Ong's interest in cultural features of oral societies beyond the verbal, by drawing attention to the agency of the [[bard]] and by describing how oral traditions bear meaning.

The bibliography would establish a clear underlying methodology which accounted for the findings of scholars working in the separate [[Linguistics]] fields (primarily [[Ancient Greek]], Anglo-Saxon and Serbo-Croatian). Perhaps more importantly, it would stimulate conversation among these specialties, so that a network of independent but allied investigations and investigators could be established.<ref>Foley, John Miles. ''Oral Formulaic Theory and Research: An Introduction and Annotated Bibliography''. NY: Garland, 1985. ''The Theory of Oral Composition''. Bloomington: IUP, 1991, pp. 64-66.</ref>

Foley's key works include ''The Theory of Oral Composition'' (1988);<ref>John Miles Foley. ''The Theory of Oral Composition: History and Methodology''. Indiana University Press, Bloomington and Indianapolis, 1988.</ref> ''Immanent Art'' (1991); ''Traditional Oral Epic: The Odyssey, Beowulf and the Serbo-Croatian Return-Song'' (1993); ''The Singer of Tales in Performance'' (1995); ''Teaching Oral Traditions'' (1998); ''How to Read an Oral Poem'' (2002). His [[Pathways Project]] (2005–2012) draws parallels between the media dynamics of oral traditions and the [[Internet]].

===Acceptance and further elaboration===
The theory of oral tradition would undergo elaboration and development as it grew in acceptance.<ref>Foley, John Miles. "Oral Formulaic Theory and Research: An Introduction and Annotated Bibliography." NY: Garland, 1985. ''The Theory of Oral Composition''. Bloomington: IUP, 1991, p. 70</ref> While the number of formulas documented for various traditions proliferated,<ref>A. Orchard, 'Oral Tradition', ''Reading Old English Texts'', ed. K O'Brien O'Keeffe (Cambridge, 1997), pp. 101-23</ref> the concept of the formula remained lexically bound. However, numerous innovations appeared, such as the "formulaic system"<ref>Fry, Donald K. "Old English Formulas and Systems" ''English Studies'' 48 (1967):193-204.</ref>{{#tag:ref|Donald K. Fry responds to what was known, pejoratively, in Greek studies as the "hard Parryist" position, in which the formula was defined in terms of verbatim lexical repetition (see Rosenmyer, Thomas G. "The Formula in Early Greek Poetry" ''Arion'' 4 (1965):295-311). Fry's model proposes underlying generative templates which provide for variation and even artistic creativity within the constraints of strict metrical requirements and extempore composition-in-performance|group=Note}} with structural "substitution slots" for [[syntax|syntactic]], [[morphology (linguistics)|morphological]] and [[narrative]] necessity (as well as for artistic invention).<ref>Davis, Adam Brooke "Verba volent, scripta manent: Oral Tradition and the Non-Narrative Genres of Old English Poetry." Diss. Univ. of Missouri at Columbia. DAI 52A (1991), 2137 pp. 202, 205</ref> Sophisticated models such as Foley's "word-type placement rules" followed.<ref>Foley, John Miles. Immanent Art: From Structure to Meaning in Traditional Oral Epic. Bloomington: IUP, 1991. 30, 31, 202n22, 207 n36, 211n43</ref> Higher levels of formulaic composition were defined over the years, such as "[[ring composition]]",<ref>Foley, John Miles. "The Singer of Tales in Performance. Bloomington: IUP, 1995. 55, 60, 89 108, 122n40</ref> "responsion"<ref>Olsen, Alexandra Hennessey. "Oral -Formulaic Research in Old English Studies:II" ''Oral Tradition'' 3:1-2 (1988) 138-90, p. 165) Olsen cites Foley's "Hybrid Prosody and Old English Half-Lines" in ''Neophilologus'' 64:284-89 (1980).</ref> and the "[[type-scene]]" (also called a "theme" or "typical scene"<ref>Foley, John Miles. ''The Singer of Tales in Performance''. Bloomington: IUP, 1995. 2, 7, 8n15, 17 et passim.</ref>). Examples include the "Beasts of Battle"<ref>Magoun, Francis P.  "The Oral-Formulaic Character of Anglo-Saxon Narrative Poetry." ''Speculum'' 28 (1953): 446-67</ref> and the "Cliffs of Death".<ref>Fry, Donald K. "The Cliff of Death in Old English Poetry." In ''Comparative Research in Oral Traditions: A Memorial for Milman Parry'', ed. John Miles Foley.  Columbus:  Slavica, 1987, 213-34.</ref> Some of these characteristic patterns of narrative details, (like "the arming sequence;"<ref>[[Paul Zumthor|Zumthor, Paul]] "The Text and the Voice." Transl. Marilyn C. Englehardt. ''New Literary History'' 16 (1984):67-92</ref> "the hero on the beach";<ref>D. K. Crowne, "The Hero on the Beach: An Example of Composition by Theme in Anglo-Saxon Poetry", ''Neuphilologische Mitteilungen'', 61 (1960), 371.</ref> "the traveler recognizes his goal")<ref>Clark, George. "The Traveller Recognizes His Goal." ''Journal of English and Germanic Philolog''y, 64 (1965):645-59.</ref> would show evidence of global distribution.<ref>Armstrong, James I. "The Arming Motif in the Iliad". ''The American Journal of Philology'', Vol. 79, No. 4. (1958), pp. 337-354.</ref>

At the same time, the fairly rigid division between oral and literate was replaced by recognition of transitional and compartmentalized texts and societies, including models of [[diglossia]] ([[Brian Stock (historian)|Brian Stock]]<ref>[[Brian Stock (historian)|Brian Stock]]. "The Implications of Literacy. Written Language and Models of Interpretation in the Eleventh and Twelfth Centuries" (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1983)</ref> [[Franz Bäuml]],<ref>Bäuml, Franz H. "Varieties and Consequences of Medieval Literacy and Illiteracy", in ''Speculum'', Vol. 55, No. 2 (1980), pp.243-244.</ref> and [[Eric Havelock]]).<ref>Havelock, Eric Alfred. ''Preface to Plato''. "Vol. 1 A History of the Greek Mind", Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts: 1963.</ref> Perhaps most importantly, the terms and concepts of "[[orality]]" and "[[literacy]]" came to be replaced with the more useful and apt "[[traditionality]]" and "[[textuality]]".<ref name="autogenerated2">Davis, Adam Brooke. "Agon and Gnomon: Forms and Functions of the Anglo-Saxon Riddles" in ''De Gustibus: Essays for Alain Renoir''. Ed John Miles Foley. NY: Garland, 1992 110-150</ref> Very large units would be defined ([[The Indo-European Return Song]])<ref>Foley, John Miles. ''Immanent Art'' Bloomington: IUP, 1991. 15, 18, 20-21, 34, 45, 63-64, 64n6, 64-68,, 74n23, 75, 76, 77n28, 78, 80, 82, 82n38, 83, 87-91, 92, 93, 94, 102, 103, 104n18, 105, 109, 110n32</ref> and areas outside of [[epic poetry|military epic]] would come under investigation: women's song,<ref>[[Marta Weigle|Weigle, Marta]]. "Women's Expressive Forms" in Foley, John Miles, ed. "Teaching Oral Traditions" NY:MLA 1998. pp. 298-</ref> [[riddle]]s<ref name="autogenerated2" /> and other genres.

The methodology of oral tradition now conditions a large variety of studies, not only in [[folklore]], [[literature]] and literacy, but in [[philosophy]],<ref>Kevin Robb. "Greek Oral Memory and the Origins of Philosophy." ''The Personalist: An International Review of Philosophy'', 51:5-45.;
A study of the AG oral mentality that assumes (1) the existence of composition and thinking that took shape under the aegis of oral patterns, (2) the educational apparatus as an oral system, and (3) the origins of philosophy as we know it in the abstract intellectual reaction against the oral mentality. The opening section on historical background covers developments in archaeology and textual criticism (including Parry's work) since the late nineteenth century, with descriptions of and comments on formulaic and thematic structure. In "The Technique of the Oral Poet" (14-22), he sketches both a synchronic picture of the singer weaving his narrative and a diachronic view of the tradition developing over time. In the third part, on the psychology of performance, he discusses "the prevalence of rhythmic speech over prose; the prevalence of the event' over the abstraction'; and the prevalence of the paratactic arrangement of parts... over alternative schema possible in other styles" (23). In sympathy with Havelock (1963), he interprets Plato's reaction against the poets as one against the oral mentality and its educative process.</ref> [[communication theory]],<ref>"Review: Communication Studies as American Studies" Daniel Czitrom ''American Quarterly'', Vol. 42, No. 4 (Dec., 1990), pp. 678-683</ref> [[Semiotics]],<ref>Nimis, Stephen A. ''Narrative Semiotics in the Epic Tradition''. Indiana University Press: Bloomington, 1988</ref> and including a very broad and continually expanding variety of languages and ethnic groups,<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.gwu.edu/~e73afram/ag-am-mp.html |title= African American Culture Through Oral Tradition|website=www.gwu.edu |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090124025135/http://www.gwu.edu/~e73afram/ag-am-mp.html |archive-date=January 24, 2009}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |url=http://wsupress.wayne.edu/literature/armenian/hacikyanhal1.htm |title=Wayne State University Press - Language and Literature: - Page 1 |publisher=Wsupress.wayne.edu |access-date=2012-10-23 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120210055400/http://wsupress.wayne.edu/literature/armenian/hacikyanhal1.htm |archive-date=2012-02-10 }}</ref><ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.blackwell-compass.com/subject/literature/article_view?article_id=lico_articles_bpl376 |title= Native/American Digital Storytelling: Situating the Cherokee Oral Tradition within American Literary History : Literature Compass|website=www.blackwell-compass.com |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120209224529/http://www.blackwell-compass.com/subject/literature/article_view?article_id=lico_articles_bpl376 |archive-date=February 9, 2012}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.usp.nus.edu.sg/post/poldiscourse/casablanca/sarhrouny1.html |title= Women in Oral Literature: Dreams of Transgressions in two Berber Wonder Tales|website=www.usp.nus.edu.sg |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080313044612/http://www.usp.nus.edu.sg/post/poldiscourse/casablanca/sarhrouny1.html |archive-date=March 13, 2008}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.lib.unb.ca/Texts/SCL/bin/get.cgi?directory=vol18_2/&filename=McGrath.htm |title=Studies in Canadian Literature |publisher=Lib.unb.ca |access-date=2012-10-23 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110805160107/http://www.lib.unb.ca/Texts/SCL/bin/get.cgi?directory=vol18_2%2F&filename=McGrath.htm |archive-date=2011-08-05 }}</ref> and perhaps most conspicuously in [[biblical studies]],<ref>{{cite web |url=http://journal.oraltradition.org/files/articles/1i/3_culley.pdf |title=Oral Tradition |access-date=2008-05-13 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080529035834/http://journal.oraltradition.org/files/articles/1i/3_culley.pdf |archive-date=2008-05-29 }}</ref> in which [[Werner Kelber]] has been especially prominent.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Kelber |first1=Werner H |title=Oral Tradition in Bible and New Testament Studies |journal=Oral Tradition |date=2003 |volume=18 |issue=1 |pages=40–42 |id={{Project MUSE|51595}} |doi=10.1353/ort.2004.0025 |doi-access=free |hdl=10355/64878 |hdl-access=free }}</ref> The annual bibliography is indexed by 100 areas, most of which are ethnolinguistic divisions.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://oraltradition.org/bibliography/areas |title=Oral Tradition |publisher=Oral Tradition |access-date=2012-10-23 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20121028144615/http://oraltradition.org/bibliography/areas |archive-date=2012-10-28 }}</ref>

Present developments explore the implications of the theory for [[rhetoric]]<ref>Boni, Stefano. Contents and contexts : the rhetoric of oral traditions in the oman of Sefwi Wiawso, Ghana. Africa. 70 (4) 2000, pages 568-594. London</ref> and [[composition (language)|composition]],<ref>Miller, Susan, ''Rescuing the Subject. A Critical Introduction to Rhetoric and the Writer''. Southern Illinois University Press, 2004</ref> [[interpersonal communication]],<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Minton |first1=John |title=The Reverend Lamar Roberts and the Mediation of Oral Tradition |journal=The Journal of American Folklore |date=1995 |volume=108 |issue=427 |pages=3–37 |doi=10.2307/541732 |jstor=541732 }}</ref> [[cross-cultural communication]],<ref>{{cite conference |last1=Simpkins |first1=Maureen |title=From Ear to Ear: Cross-Cultural Understandings of Aboriginal Oral Tradition |pages=263–268 |editor1-last=Mojab |editor1-first=Shahrzad |editor2-last=McQueen |editor2-first=William |conference=Adult Education and the Contested Terrain of Public Policy. Proceedings of the Annual Conference of the Canadian Association for the Study of Adult Education |date=2002 |id={{ERIC|ED478964}} }}</ref> [[postcolonial studies]],<ref>''"Culture Education" and the Challenge of Globalization in Modern Nigeria'' by Ademola Omobewaji Dasylva. This paper has to do with the challenges of globalization in modern Nigeria and the process of "culture education," a terminology used to emphasize the peculiar means and methods of instruction by which a society imparts its body of values and mores in the pursuance and attainment of the society's collective vision, aspirations, and goals. Within this framework, this paper examines the legacies of imperialism and colonization within the Nigerian educational system––particularly in reference to the teaching of folklore and oral tradition––including the destruction of indigenous knowledge systems and the continuing lack of adequate resources in African universities. The paper concludes by offering suggestions for a more fully synthesized indigenous and formal Nigerian educational system as a method of addressing postcolonial rupture. [http://journal.oraltradition.org/files/articles/21ii/Dasylva.pdf PDF] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080529035829/http://journal.oraltradition.org/files/articles/21ii/Dasylva.pdf |date=2008-05-29 }} ''Oral Tradition'' 21/2 (2006):325-41.</ref> [[rural community development]],<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.uaf.edu/iac/RHS/about.html |title=General Information - Rural Human Services Program |website=www.uaf.edu |access-date=22 May 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080907025120/http://www.uaf.edu/iac/RHS/about.html |archive-date=7 September 2008 |url-status=dead}}</ref> [[popular culture]]<ref>Skidmore, Thomas E. ''Black Into White: Race and Nationality in Brazilian Thought'' New York: Oxford University Press, 1974 p. 89</ref> and [[film studies]]<ref>{{cite web |url=http://ccms.ukzn.ac.za/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=382&Itemid=46 |title=Culture, Communication and Media Studies - Oral Traditions and Weapons of Resistance: The Modern Africa Filmmaker as Griot |website=Culture, Communication & Media Studies - UKZN |last1=Peplinski |first1=Carrie |access-date=22 May 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110813070823/http://ccms.ukzn.ac.za/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=382&Itemid=46 |archive-date=13 August 2011 |url-status=dead}}</ref> and many other areas. The most significant areas of theoretical development at present may be the construction of systematic [[hermeneutics]]<ref>J. A. (Bobby) Loubser, "Shembe Preaching: A Study in Oral Hermeneutics", in ''African Independent Churches. Today'', ed. M. C. Kitshoff ([[Lewiston, New York]]: [[Edwin Mellen Press]], 1996</ref><ref>Kelber, Werner H. "The Oral and the Written Gospel: The Hermeneutics of Writing and Speaking in the Synoptic Tradition" Philadelphia: Fortress P 1983.</ref><ref>Swearingen, C. Jan. "Oral Hermeneutics during the Transition to Literacy: The Contemporary Debate". ''Cultural Anthropology'', Vol. 1, No. 2, The Dialectic of Oral and Literary Hermeneutics (May, 1986), pp. 138-156</ref> and [[aesthetics]]<ref>Foley, John Miles. ''The Theory of Oral Composition: History and Methodology''. Bloomington: IUP, 1988. 55, 64, 66, 72, 74, 77, 80, 97, 105, 110-111, 129n20,; artistic cp to mechanistic, 21, 25, 38, 58, 63-64, 65, 104, 118-119n20, 120-121n16, 124n31, 125n53, oral aesthetic cp to literate aesthetics, 35, 58, 110-11, 121n26.</ref><ref>Foley, John Miles. ''Immanent Art: From Structure to Meaning in Traditional Oral Epic''. Bloomington: IUP, 1991. 245</ref> specific to oral traditions.