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Oral

Specialty Definition: Oral

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Specialty Definition: Oral history

(From Wikipedia, the free Encyclopedia)

Oral history is an account of something passed down by word of mouth from one generation to another. Oral history is considered by some historians to be an unreliable source for the study of history. However, oral history is a valid methodological and theoretical way to explore history. Each time anyone reconstructs a memory, there are changes in the memory, but the core of the story is usually retained. However, over time the content of a story can be twisted out of all recognition.

Before the development of written language in a given society, oral history has been the primary means of conveying information from one generation to the next. The most common form of this transmission is through storytelling and the recitation of epic poetry, with the stories and poems collectively known as the oral tradition of a people. The combination of this oral tradition with morals and rituals passed down by word of mouth is known as the folklore of a society. Although not as prevalent now as in the past, oral history is still very much alive among many North American native groups.

Because variations tend to be introduced into a tale with each repetition, the reliability of oral history is often called into doubt. However, the information passed on has occasionally shown a surprising accuracy over long periods of time. For example, the Iliad, an epic poem of Homer describing the conquest of Troy, was passed down as oral history from perhaps the eighth century BCE, until being recorded in writing by Pisistratos. Nonetheless, factual elements of the Iliad were at least partially validated by the discovery of ruins discovered by Heinrich Schliemann in 1870, thought to be those of the city described in the poem.

The most popular examples of oral history are the works of several authors that have, over the span of many hundred years BCE, collected folklore which ultimately resulted in these works being included in a collective book known as the Old Testament. The New Testament was created by four different original authors whose slightly differing versions of many biblical events were combined. The Bible was therefore 'nearly' entirely created using oral history.

Oral history is also used to refer to recording eyewitness accounts of historical events. Some anthropologists started collecting recordings (at first especially of American Indian folklore) on phonograph cylinders in the late 19th century. In the 1930s the United States Library of Congress started an oral history program to record traditional folk music, and accounts by surviving witnesses of the American Civil War, Slavery, and other major historical events, onto acetate discs. With the development of audio tape recordings the task of oral historians became easier.

One of the most important rules for those collecting oral history is to avoid asking leading questions, for many people will tend to say what they think the historian wants them to say.

Oral historians attempt to record the memories of many different people when researching a given event. Since any given individual may misremember events or distort their account for personal reasons, the historical documentation is considered to reside in the points of agreement of many different sources, rather than the account of any one person.

Oral history is now often used when historians investigate History from below.

Storytellers

Thomas King

Harry Robinson

Theorists

Marshall McLuhan

Walter Ong

Wendy Wickwire

Source: adapted by the editor from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia under a copyleft GNU Free Documentation License (GFDL) from the article "Oral history."

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Oral law

(From Wikipedia, the free Encyclopedia)

An oral law is a code of conduct in use in a given culture, religion or other regroupement, by which a body of rules of human behaviour is transmitted by oral tradition and effectively respected, or the single rule that is verbally transmitted.

Many cultures do have an oral law, while most contemporary legal systems have a formal written organisation. The oral tradition (from the latin tradere = to transmit) is the typical instrument of transmission of the oral codes or, in a more general sense, is the complex of what a culture transmits of itself among the generations, "from father to son". This kind of transmission can be due to lack of other means (like for illiterate or criminal societies) or can be expressedly required by the same law.

Oral law in Jurisprudence

On a legal point of view, an oral law can be:

• a habit, or custom with legal relevance or when the formal law expressely refers to it (but in this latter case, it is properly an indirect source of legal rights and obligations);
• a command, an order, verbally given, that has to be respected as a law (in most modern western legal systems, some dispositions can be issued by word in given cases of emergency).

An oral law, intended as a body of rules, can be admitted in jurisprudence as long as it shows some efficacy, therefore it needs that the law is public, the human action is evaluated by a judge (ordinarily producing a sentence according to the general interpretation of the law) and then a punishment has eventually to be put into effect. Some oral laws provide all these elements (for instance, some codes of conduct in use among criminal associations like mafia do have a well known law, a judge, a condemnation), while others usually miss some of them.

Oral law in Judaism

Rabinical Judaism has always held that the books of the Tanach (aka The Old Testament, the written law) have always been transmitted in parallel with an oral tradition. Jews point to the text of the Torah, where many words are left undefined, and many procedures mentioned without explanation or instructions; the reader is assumed to be familiar with the details from other, oral, sources.

This parallel set of material was originally trasmitted orally, and came to be known as the oral law. At the time, it was forbidden to write and publish the Oral Law, as any writing would be incomplete and subject to misinterpretation and abuse. However, after great debate, this restriction was lifted when it became apparent that it was the only way to ensure that the law could be preserved. To prevent the material from being lost, around 200 CE, Rabbi Judah HaNasi took up the redaction of oral law; it was compiled into the first written work of rabbinic Judaism, the Mishnah. Over the next four centuries this body of law, legend, ethical teachings and argumentation underwent debate in both of the world's major Jewish communities (in Israel and Babylon). The commentaries on the Mishnah from both of these communities eventually came to be edited together into compilations known as the Talmud.

Halakha (Jewish law and custom) thus is not based on a literal reading of the Tanakh, but on the combined oral and written tradition, which includes the Tanakh, Talmud, and to some extent, the early Midrash compilations.

INDEX

1. Definition 2. Synonyms 3. Crosswords 4. Usage: Modern

5. Usage: Commercial 6. Images: Slideshow 7. Images: Photo Album 8. Images: Digital Art

9. Sounds 10. Quotations: Historic 11. Quotations: Non-fiction 12. Usage Frequency

13. Names: Derived from 14. Cities 15. Expressions 16. Expressions: Internet

17. Translations: Modern 18. Abbreviations 19. Acronyms 20. Derivations

21. Rhymes 22. Anagrams 23. Bibliography

Copyright © Philip M. Parker, INSEAD. Terms of Use.