Editing Oral tradition (section)

===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"
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| 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]].