HG2094 WORD OF MOUTH: TRANSMISSION OF ORAL CULTURE

The course introduces fundamental topics in Orality in Linguistics and Oral Culture and Literature. It would consist of a basic introduction to linguistic strategies in the transmission of traditional knowledge in preliterate cultures all over the world, from Antiquity (Homer and the Homeric poems), to the Middle Ages (the Irish Filid, the original Old Norse poetry), to our times (the Serbian Guslari, the studies on orality by Marcel Jousse), plus a specific focus on indigenous cultures in Australia and Africa, and in South-East Asia. The course will provide the students with a general and accurate overview of the above-mentioned topics, associating notions of Language Documentation and Language Description with elements of Anthropological Linguistics, Philology, and Comparative Literature. The course examines the epistemological issue of orality, culture, and literacy both from the point of view of basic original and theoretical principles established by the best scholars in this discipline (from Milman Parry, to Albert Lord, to Eric Havelock, to Marcel Jousse, to John Foley, to Ruth Finnegan, to Edgard Sienaert), and from the point of view of the direct analysis of examples of oral `unwritten texts? and oral strategies in handing down the traditional knowledge. The teaching activity will be also substantiated by the application of general principles of Theoretical Linguistics and Comparative Literature. Particular attention will be given to the analysis of a number of methodological `milestones? in the study on orality, culture, and literacy, in particular to The Anthropology of Gesture by Marcel Jousse and to works by Milman Parry, Eric Havelock, Albert Lord, and Ruth Finnegan. The course will introduce, therefore, the study of orality, language, and literature in a historical and theoretical way, not only analyzing the related general issues, but also dealing with the direct application of basic principles in reading and interpreting `unwritten texts? of oral traditions from all over the world.