Oral Tradition最新文献

{"title":"A Pebble Smoothed by Tradition: Lines 607–61 of Beowulf as a Formulaic Set-piece","authors":"Michael D. C. Drout, Leah Smith","doi":"10.1353/ORT.2018.0006","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/ORT.2018.0006","url":null,"abstract":"In lines 607-61 of Beowulf, just before the battle between the hero and the monster Grendel, the Danes and visiting Geats celebrate their comradeship in the great hall of Heorot.1 While venerable Hrothgar, king of the Danes, presides, Queen Wealhtheow, bedecked with gold, carries the ornamented cup of fellowship to each warrior in turn, old and young alike.2 The passage, which for convenience we will call “Wealhtheow’s cup-bearing,” is one of several depictions in Beowulf of the social happiness that Anglo-Saxon poetry often calls dream (“joy”) and has been described as “the most detailed description we possess of the offering of the ceremonial drinking cup to an honored guest in early Germanic society” (Fulk, Bjork, and Niles 2008:155). But in contrast to Wealhtheow’s later appearance in the poem (lines 1168b-231)—in which she thwarts Hrothgar’s attempted adoption of Beowulf, promotes the king’s nephew Hrothulf as a protector for her sons, and gives the legendary Brosing necklace to the hero— nothing much happens. Jeff Opland (1976:446-57) does not include the passage in his list of “joy in the hall” type-scenes. Oral Tradition, 32/1 (2018):191-228","PeriodicalId":30001,"journal":{"name":"Oral Tradition","volume":" ","pages":"-"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2018-03-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1353/ORT.2018.0006","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46609631","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Oral Features of the Qur'ān Detected in Public Recitation","authors":"M. Knight","doi":"10.1353/ORT.2018.0005","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/ORT.2018.0005","url":null,"abstract":"The first audience for the Qur’ān did not receive leaves with writing on them (98:2),1 nor something on parchment they could touch (6:7), nor a book from the sky (4:153). They heard it. The Qur’ān arrived orally, piecemeal, and, significantly, each piece of which was heard before it was written down. Within a quarter of a century the pieces were collected, their order standardized, and uniform copies of the whole soon became available. At that point, believers could access it by ear or by eye (and by heart for those portions they had memorized). This complementarity of hearing and reading, a bimodal approach to verbal comprehension, has endured within Muslim communities to this day, but for many scholars in the West, the primary interaction with the work has been in its printed form, as a text read, usually silently. But since the words are the same whether read or heard, what difference does it make? This essay examines some of the textual features of the Qur’ān that emerge more prominently when listening to it, features that may enhance insight gained during slow or silent reading sessions. A comparison with ancient Greek oral works, such as those of Homer, highlights features of orality in both, demonstrating that both are meant to be heard. An examination of Classical memory methodologies reveals how rhetorical figures and other linguistic devices facilitate transmission and continuing presentation of works such as these in an “audiome” (sound-rich environment or one in which communication by sound predominates, whether in preliterate or literate societies), as well as their preservation in written text. Figures and devices involving structure, meaning, diction, syntax, and sound are sampled from the Qur’ān so readers might recognize their aural power and thus their significance within the text. All translations are by the author, unless indicated. The rudimentary translations of Quranic material provided herein by the author (best translation of the Qur’ān into English to date is that by Abdel Haleem 2004) are intended to convey as much as possible the original word order so that the sequence of ideas flows as original listeners would have heard them in Arabic; however, this order may not account for the emphasis words normally have in a statement because of the language’s typical relative placement of Topic and Focus (see Edwards 2002:9-13). Citations from the Qur’ān","PeriodicalId":30001,"journal":{"name":"Oral Tradition","volume":" ","pages":"-"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2018-03-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1353/ORT.2018.0005","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43896571","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Between the Oral and the Literary: The Case of the Naxi Dongba Texts","authors":"D. Poupard","doi":"10.1353/ORT.2018.0002","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/ORT.2018.0002","url":null,"abstract":"Shafts of sunlight stream through the crooked rafters, piercing the heavy smoke from the fire. Before you sits a dongba ritualist. He reads from the beautifully written manuscript in his hands, singing of the Naxi ancestors and their encounters with spirits—good and ill. He closes his eyes, lost in memory. He has stopped reading, but he keeps on singing. This dongba ritualist, unlike the Tibetan paper singers, is fully literate; and unlike a priest reading a sermon from the Bible, he is versed in the craft of oral poetry. The book in front of him can, unlike the prop of the paper singer, be read, for it is a receptacle of the written word; but unlike the Bible, it can never be read with the same two combinations of words. Research into oral traditions has long been centered on contrasting what is perceived to be “oral” with the “literary,” as if the two stand on opposite sides of some unbridgeable chasm. This began in earnest with the work of Milman Parry,2 who divided literature precisely into these two forms: “the one part of literature is oral, the other written” (1933:180). Even today, after Derrida’s opening up of the oral versus written dichotomy, and in spite of research on living oral traditions in cultures that use writing for other social interactions, the two forms are still perceived as essentially separate. They can co-exist, but can they co-exist within the same text? If so, how? And what if there was a tradition of literature that could be shown to bridge this divide? It is my argument that not only can the ritual texts of the Naxi3 people of southwest China be proven to be demonstrably oral in nature, but that they also exist in a realm of potentiality that occupies the uncontested territory between the two extremes of oral and written: they are truly Oral Tradition, 32/1 (2018):27-52","PeriodicalId":30001,"journal":{"name":"Oral Tradition","volume":" ","pages":"-"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2018-03-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"49214745","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"The Fairy Seers of eastern Serbia: Seeing Fairies—Speaking through Trance","authors":"Maria Vivod","doi":"10.1353/ORT.2018.0003","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/ORT.2018.0003","url":null,"abstract":"The fairy-seers of southeastern Europe are (mostly) women who are able to communicate with women-like creatures from the supernatural world. Sometimes the fairy-seers induce a trance state in order to establish communication with these creatures. During their communication with the fairies the fairy-seers can prophesy about future events. The fairy-seers can also deliver messages to the living on behalf of their deceased relatives. Similarly, they advise about how to heal an ill individual or the treatment of that individual can proceed after consulting the fairies. These illnesses are usually a form of so called “fairy-illness”—a disorder that has its origins in a curse or a spell wrought by fairies offended by that individual. In the narratives of fairy-seers, fairies are described as three young, beautiful longhaired women, dressed either in white or in black. The women who can see and speak to the fairies have been chosen by them early on, usually in their childhood or adolescence. By dancing and singing on special days of the orthodox Christian calendar, these women fall into a trance state and then communicate with “their sisters,” as these invisible creatures are called by these women. The fairy-seers are called numerous names in various languages across southeastern Europe. The semantic field of these varying designations is far from identical: sometimes the seers need not enter into a trance to see them, sometimes they fight (nocturnal) battles in the sky to ensure good crops for their region, where they live and work as any normal human being. But there is one common denominator to all of them: they undergo a process of initiation (prompted by these creatures) and the invisible creatures with whom they communicate are females. I choose to use this term in an attempt to cover and to depict a vast range of more or less similar phenomena across the Balkans with an English term, with the goal of creating an “umbrella term” in the English language (nowadays a lingua franca) for working purposes.","PeriodicalId":30001,"journal":{"name":"Oral Tradition","volume":"32 1","pages":"-"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2018-03-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43612228","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"A New Approach to the Classification of Gaelic Song","authors":"V. Blankenhorn","doi":"10.1353/ORT.2018.0004","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/ORT.2018.0004","url":null,"abstract":"A good deal of water has flowed under the bridge since James Ross published “A Classification of Gaelic Folk-Song” in 1957.1 Ross’s study was typical of a time when scholars favored a clinical and taxonomical approach to oral traditional culture, before modern theories about text, context, and genre began to raise good questions about the application of scientific methods to the analysis of cultural activity. The search for answers to these questions has greatly advanced the way ethnographers and ethnomusicologists understand culture, including the cultures of the Gael.2 After six decades, it seems fitting to revisit Ross’s classification system, and to examine whether the effort of constructing such a system is still worthwhile or not. In The Anthropology of Music, Alan Merriam (1964:209) suggests that we understand musical activity by considering the uses and functions that music serves within a given culture:","PeriodicalId":30001,"journal":{"name":"Oral Tradition","volume":" ","pages":"-"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2018-03-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47209775","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Parallelism and Orders of Signification (Parallelism Dynamics I)","authors":"Frog","doi":"10.1353/ORT.2017.0017","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/ORT.2017.0017","url":null,"abstract":"This essay sets out an approach to parallelism in verbal art as a semiotic phenomenon that can operate at multiple orders (or levels) of signification. It examines parallelism in the sounds through which words are communicated, in language communicated by those sounds, in symbols or minimal units of narration communicated through language, and then in more complex units of narration communicated through those symbols or units. Attention is given to how these different levels of parallelism interrelate and may diverge, while revealing that parallelism at all of these levels reflects a single semiotic phenomenon.","PeriodicalId":30001,"journal":{"name":"Oral Tradition","volume":" ","pages":"-"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2017-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"49024962","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Parallelism in Verbal Art and Performance: An Introduction","authors":"Frog, Lotte Tarkka","doi":"10.1353/ORT.2017.0008","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/ORT.2017.0008","url":null,"abstract":"Frog is an Academy of Finland Research Fellow and Associate Professor in Folklore Studies at the University of Helsinki. He completed his Ph.D. in Scandinavian Studies at the University College London in 2010 and his Docentship (Habilitation) in Folklore Studies at the University of Helsinki in 2013. He specializes in theory and methods related to the study of oral poetry and mythology, working mainly with Finno-Karelian kalevalaic poetry and Old Norse poetry and prose.","PeriodicalId":30001,"journal":{"name":"Oral Tradition","volume":" ","pages":"-"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2017-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1353/ORT.2017.0008","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47013428","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"\"Word upon a Word\": Parallelism, Meaning, and Emergent Structure in Kalevala-meter Poetry","authors":"Lotte Tarkka","doi":"10.1353/ORT.2017.0010","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/ORT.2017.0010","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":30001,"journal":{"name":"Oral Tradition","volume":" ","pages":"-"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2017-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45311325","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Multimedial Parallelism in Ritual Performance (Parallelism Dynamics II)","authors":"Frog","doi":"10.1353/ORT.2017.0022","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/ORT.2017.0022","url":null,"abstract":"This article approaches parallelism as a semiotic phenomenon that can operate across verbal art and other media in performance. It presents an approach to different media and the uniting performance mode as construing \"metered frames.\" Multimedial parallelism is analyzed as a phenomenon resulting from the coordination of expressions in relation to these frames to form members of parallel groups. The focus is on rituals that involve interaction with the unseen world. Discussion of parallelism between speech and empirical aspects of performance extends to the potential for presumed parallelism between speech and unseen objects, agents, and forces. John Miles Foley's concept of \"performance arena\" is extended to performers' and audiences' perceptions and expectations about \"reality\" in ritual performance. The mapping of otherworld locations and cosmology onto empirical spaces in performance is also discussed.","PeriodicalId":30001,"journal":{"name":"Oral Tradition","volume":" ","pages":"-"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2017-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47268670","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Prayers for the Community: Parallelism and Performance in San Juan Quiahije Eastern Chatino","authors":"Hilaria Cruz","doi":"10.1353/ORT.2017.0019","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/ORT.2017.0019","url":null,"abstract":"This essay examines parallelism and other essential features of ritual discourse in San Juan Quiahije, Eastern Chatino. The Chatino languages are spoken in the highlands of Oaxaca, Mexico. The essay focuses on the poetic and discursive features found in two impromptu prayers within a corpus of civic/religious ritual petitions that the members of the community refer to as La42 qin4 kchin4,1 or “Prayers for the Community.”2 The “Prayers for the Community” are part of a ritual carried out regularly by elders and traditional San Juan Quiahije (SJQ) authorities in their official capacity as community representatives. These dignitaries come together at dawn on the first day of each month and on high holidays—the most important feast day is that of the patron saint of SJQ, Saint John the Baptist, June 24th—to petition for the well-being of the entire community, and especially for the younger generations. Both of the petitions analyzed in this essay were made at the same ceremonial event on June 24, 2009 at 5:00 a.m. in the Catholic church. The prayers were said by Simón Zurita and Wenceslao Cortés, two elders from the SJQ community. On the evening prior to the prayers, a group of municipal envoys visited select elders of the community, including Simón Zurita, and formally invited them to join the municipal officials and participate in the worship. Wenceslao Cortés, serving his final elected position in the SJQ municipality, had instructed the envoys to invite the elders to the ceremony. The elders who agreed to accompany the authorities to the ceremony were instructed to come to City Hall at around 4:15 a.m. to begin the ritual. A total of six elders participated in the petition and began to arrive at City Hall by 4:00 a.m. At 5:00 a.m. the group walked together from City Hall to the church. Upon arriving at the doorsteps of the church, they all knelt and crossed themselves. Then all proceeded to walk on their knees for three to four minutes toward Oral Tradition, 31/2 (2017): 509-534","PeriodicalId":30001,"journal":{"name":"Oral Tradition","volume":" ","pages":"-"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2017-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"42489306","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}