Toward an Oral Poetics

Tedlock, Dennis

doi:10.2307/468297

Cited by 61 publications

(19 citation statements)

References 0 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Unclassified

Order By: Relevance

“…The pace of narration may increase, slow down, or even pause momentarily. Indeed, pauses are one of the most characteristic features of oral narrative, and vary in length: Tedlock's (1971, p. 127) analysis of tape-recorded Zuñi oral narratives found that pauses ranged from four-tenths of a second to 3 s. Pauses are typically used to break long sentences into smaller units, but are also used for emphasis (Tedlock, 1977). …”

Section: Use Of Ostension In Oral Storytellingmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Like infant-directed speech and action, oral storytelling is also characterized by the use of redundancy: patterned repetition of words, phrases, and episodes is one of the most pervasive features of performed narrative (Scheub, 1977; Tedlock, 1977). One manifestation of this phenomenon is the use of formulaic expressions (Lord, 1960) that are rarely if ever used in everyday speech (Tedlock, 1971).…”

Section: Use Of Ostension In Oral Storytellingmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The reliance of oral storytelling on contingency—and thus its fundamentally pedagogical nature—is revealed in one of the problems faced by linguists when collecting traditional tales: indigenous informants who are bilingual typically want to tell the story in the investigator's own language “so that the investigator will understand and respond ” (Tedlock, 1977, p. 509, emphasis in original). Oral narrative is inherently responsive and participatory; stories are often told in response to a question (Biesele, 1993, p. 58) or event (Tedlock, 1977, p. 515).…”

Section: Use Of Ostension In Oral Storytellingmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Oral narrative is inherently responsive and participatory; stories are often told in response to a question (Biesele, 1993, p. 58) or event (Tedlock, 1977, p. 515). For example, among the Quiché Maya, “stories occur to people… when conversation or chance events bring them to mind.… in the midst of a conversation about crocodiles and iguanas, someone says, ‘Well, there's a story about that,’ and proceeds to tell it on the spot” (Tedlock, 1977, p. 515).…”

Section: Use Of Ostension In Oral Storytellingmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 3 more Smart Citations

Oral Storytelling as Evidence of Pedagogy in Forager Societies

Sugiyama

2017

Front. Psychol.

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Teaching is reportedly rare in hunter-gatherer societies, raising the question of whether it is a species-typical trait in humans. A problem with past studies is that they tend to conceptualize teaching in terms of Western pedagogical practices. In contrast, this study proceeds from the premise that teaching requires the ostensive manifestation of generalizable knowledge: the teacher must signal intent to share information, indicate the intended recipient, and transmit knowledge that is applicable beyond the present context. Certain features of human communication appear to be ostensive in function (e.g., eye contact, pointing, contingency, prosodic variation), and collectively serve as “natural pedagogy.” Tellingly, oral storytelling in forager societies typically employs these and other ostensive behaviors, and is widely reported to be an important source of generalizable ecological and social knowledge. Despite this, oral storytelling has been conspicuously overlooked in studies of teaching in preliterate societies. Accordingly, this study presents evidence that oral storytelling involves the use of ostension and the transmission of generic knowledge, thereby meeting the criteria of pedagogy.

show abstract

Section: Use Of Ostension In Oral Storytellingmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Use Of Ostension In Oral Storytellingmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Use Of Ostension In Oral Storytellingmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Use Of Ostension In Oral Storytellingmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 2 more Smart Citations

Oral Storytelling as Evidence of Pedagogy in Forager Societies

Sugiyama

2017

Front. Psychol.

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…As Tedlock points out, "An oral poetics that begins with living oral tradition is by its nature participatory." 18 Throughout the story, listeners are expected to respond vocally. At the end of every complete sentence, Hopi listeners encourage the teller with the short expletive "oh," indicating their continued attention.…”

Section: Storytelling Rolesmentioning

confidence: 99%