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What is Orality — if Anything?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 January 2016

Ruth Finnegan
Ruth Finnegan*
Affiliation:
Open University
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Extract

‘A challenging start to the Colloquium’ was what the organiser asked for, in the form of a critique of one of its key terms. This is what this paper endeavours to supply. I suspect it has turned out not quite as provocative as the title sounds, but it does attempt to provide some critical assessment of, and background to, the much-discussed concept of ‘orality’, presented from the viewpoint of an anthropologist long interested in the study of oral literature and poetry. Most of the discussion will be in general terms, but I will illustrate my points from time to time by examples from my own fieldwork in West Africa.

Type
Articles:
Information
Byzantine and Modern Greek Studies , Volume 14 , 1990 , pp. 130 - 150
Copyright
Copyright © The Centre for Byzantine, Ottoman and Modern Greek Studies, University of Birmingham 1990

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