Abstract
This paper invites a reconsideration of the divide between oral and literate cultural practices in the research on literacy. It begins by challenging the distinction which David Olson has made between text andutterance as one which overstates the separateness of literate and oral practices. To supplement Olson's position, the author describes the continuing importance of oral practices for the promotion of intellectual activities which are centred on texts. He does so, in part, by drawing on the literacy lessons of the Passover Haggadah. The Haggadah proves to be a text which celebrates the intellectual necessity of interruption and the ongoing need for interpretation, two critical practices firmly rooted in an oral regard for the word. This picture of an alternative literacy tradition is put forward as a possibility for a renewed regard for reading and for the text in the classroom.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Ben-Asher, N., & Leaf, H. (Eds.). (1957).The junior Jewish encyclopedia. New York: Shengold.
Bloom, H. (1973).The anxiety of influence: A theory of poetry. New York: Oxford University Press.
Bloom, H. (1975).The kabbalah and criticism. New York: Seabury.
Bloom, H. (1979). The breaking of form. In H. Bloom, P. de Man, J. Derrida, G. Hartman, & J. H. Miller (Eds.),Deconstruction and criticism (pp. 1–38). New York: Continuum.
Boman, T. (1970).Hebrew thought compared with Greek (J. L. Moreau, Trans.). New York: Norton.
Bosker, B. (1984).The origins of the Seder: The Passover rite of early rabbinic Judaism. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Clanchy, M. T. (1979).From memory to written record: England, 1066–1307. London: Edward Arnold.
Cole, M., & Scribner, S. (1980).The psychology of literacy. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Derrida, J. (1974).Of grammatology (G. C. Spivak, Trans.). Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press.
Derrida, J. (1979). Living on. In H. Bloom, P. de Man, J. Derrida, G. Hartman, & J. H. Miller (Eds.),Deconstruction and criticism (pp. 75–176). New York: Continuum.
Eisenstein, E. (1979).The printing press as an agent of change: Communications and cultural transformations in early-modern Europe. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Finnegan, R. (1973). Literacy versus non-literacy: The great divide. In R. Finnegan & R. Horton (Eds.),Modes of thought. London: Faber.
Fish, S. (1980). What makes an interpretation acceptable. In S. Fish,Is there a text in this class: The authority of interpretive communities (pp. 338–355). Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Fredman, R. G. (1981).The Passover service. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.
Gilbert, S. M., & Gubar, S. (1979).Madwoman in the attic: The woman writer and the nineteenth century literary imagination. New Haven: Yale University Press.
Goodman, P. (1973).The Passover anthology. Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society.
Goody J., & Watt, I. (1962–63). The consequences of literacy.Comparative Studies in Society and History 5 304–345.
Graff, H. (1979).The literacy myth: Literacy and social structure in the nineteenth century city. New York: Academic Press.
Greenfield, P. (1972). Oral and written language: The consequences for cognitive development in Africa, the United States, and England.Language and Speech 15 169–172.
Harste, J., Woodward, V., & Burke, C. (1984).Language stories and literacy lessons. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann.
Hartman, G. H., & Budick, S. (Eds.). (1986).Midrash and literature. New Haven: Yale University Press.
Havelock, E. (1976).Origins of western literacy. Toronto: Ontario Institute for Studies in Education.
Havelock, E. (1982).The literate revolution in Greece and its cultural consequences. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
Heath, S. B. (1983).Ways with words: Language, life, and work in communities and classrooms. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Heinemann, J. (1986). The nature of Aggadah. In G. H. Hartmann & S. Budick (Eds.),Midrash and literature (pp. 41–56). New Haven: Yale University Press.
Kermode, F. (1983). Institutional control of interpretation. In F. Kermode,The art of telling: Essays on fiction (pp. 168–184). Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Kermode, F. (1986). The plain sense of things. In G. H. Hartman and S. Budick (Eds.),Midrash and literature (pp. 179–194). New Haven: Yale University Press.
Levin, M. (no date).An Israel Haggadah for Passover. New York: Abrams.
Locke, J. (1972).An essay concerning human understanding (M. Cranston, Ed.). New York: Collier.
Luke, C., de Castell, S., & Luke, A. (1983). Beyond criticism: The authority of the school text.Curriculum Inquiry 13 111–127.
Montaigne, M. (1909).The essayes of Michael Lord of Montaigne (J. Florio, Ed. & Trans.). London: Oxford University.
Olson, D. R. (1977a). From utterance to text: The bias of language in speech and writing.Harvard Educational Review 47 84–109.
Olson, D. R. (1977b). The language of instruction: The literate bias of schooling. In R. C. Anderson, R. J. Spiro, & W. Montague (Eds.),Schooling and the acquisition of knowledge (pp. 65–89). Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.
Olson, D. R. (1980). On the language and authority of textbooks.Journal of Communication 30 186–196.
Olson, D. R. (1985). Introduction. In D. R. Olson, N. Torrance, & A. Hildyard (Eds.),Literacy, language, and learning: The nature and consequences of reading and writing (pp. 1–15). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Ong, W. (1980). Orality and literacy in our time.Journal of Communication 30 197–204.
Ong, W. (1982).Orality and literacy: The technologizing of the word. London: Methuen.
Plato. (1952).Plato's Phaedrus (R. Hackforth, Trans.). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Romaine, S. (1984).The language of children and adolescents: The acquisition of communicative competence. Oxford: Blackwell.
Rosen, H. (1985). The voice of communities and the language of classrooms.Harvard Educational Review 55 448–456.
Roth, L. (1954).Jewish thought as a factor in civilization. Paris: UNESCO.
Sampson, G. (1985).Writing systems: A linguistic introduction. Stanford: Stanford University Press.
Scholem, G. (1971). Revelation and tradition as religious categories in Judaism. In G. Scholem (Ed.),The messianic idea in Judaism (pp. 282–303). New York: Schocken.
Scribner, S., & Cole, M. (1981).The psychology of literacy. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Schweickart, P. P. (1986). Reading ourselves: Toward a feminist theory of reading. In E. A. Flyn & P. P. Schweickart (Eds.),Gender and reading: Essays on readers, texts, and contexts (pp. 31–62). Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press.
Street, B. (1984).Literacy in theory and practice. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Tannen, D. (1982). The oral/literate continuum in discourse. In D. Tannen (Ed.),Spoken and written discourse (pp. 1–16). Norwood, NJ: Ablex.
Tomkins, J. (Ed.). (1980).Reader response criticism: From formalism to post-structuralism. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press.
Wittgenstein, L. (1958).Philosophical investigations (G.E.M. Anscombe, Trans.). New York: Macmillan.
Wittgenstein, L. (1961).Tractatus logico-philosophicus (D. F. Pears & B. F. McGuinness, Trans.). London: Routledge & Kegan Paul.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Willinsky, J. The paradox of text in the culture of literacy. Interchange 18, 147–163 (1987). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01807067
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01807067