Write to speak

So I was going to do a video to emphasize what I am about to write, but a few things held me up—presenting at the Watson conference, re-reading the rules for our blogs, and finally the time it would take to script and film my little diatribe. ...I’ll come back to these things.

As we delve deeper into the history of writing, the power dynamics become more convoluted and more insidious. Last week we began to discuss the right to speak. This week I want to focus on the idea of write to speak. More than just a simple play on words, it seems that once folks like Douglass, Wells, and the Grimke sisters began to secure the right to speak there was a shift from seeing spoken discourse as publishing to hierarchy of discourses with spoken being merely a tool for delivery and the written as the thing that legitimizes the act. The end of Ferreira-Buckley’s chapter when she talks of the blue stockings foreshadows the rise of written culture and its dominance over the spoken tradition. As women gained their public voices, the only way to delegitimize those voices became to advantage written discourse.

While Mailloux focuses his essay on the dynamics that took place in the English department, I want to focus on the larger societal effects that divided speech and written rhetoric. At first the dominance of print over oral tradition could be argued in that print allowed for a much wider audience. With speaking only those within earshot at a particular moment could access the rhetoric. Put those same thoughts into print and the moment is extended and the audience is no longer locked in by geography (a case made in Eisenstein’s book). What’s curious about the split between speech and print is that it happens around the same time we start recording human voices. At first the thought might be that speech is becoming its own entity because of the technology. In this case though, I am arguing that the technology became a tool to relegate speech to lesser than rhetoric. Need a modern day equivalent? Look no further than the technology of the web (especially wikis and blogs) where “any idiot can have a voice.” Written discourse found ways to promote itself over the spoken. In Bordelon et al’s anecdote about women speaking in public, they describe females only being allowed to read in public. So women would stand with a book in hand and deliver their orations. The right to speak is granted by the written word even though the written word is no more than an entry ticket. Another example of refining who is allowed to speak comes from Blair’s notion of taste. (See my blog from last week.)

The temple of public discourse is well-guarded.

The schism of speech and writing led to, as Porter notes, the diminished importance of the audience. The listening kairotic audience becomes lost on writers once speech is separated from the English department. It’s a bridge we are still rebuilding if the Watson conference I attended is any evidence. Yes, there was a lot of great discussion (my favorite part of any panel is the end where everyone talks off the cuff); however, the papers, for the most part, are merely delivered (and think of the startling difference in Villanueva’s speech and colloquial discourse in the Octolog). Papers are read. This is how we make it in academia—by reading papers that frame themselves as discussions. The influence also seems to come down to a micro-level. In order to perform a video that would have me speaking to the camera I felt impressed to consult the rules for our blogs. Though I could twist the blog rules for my purposes, those words, “paper,” “notes,” and the explicit word count (though it could be spoken) made me think twice. (I really don’t think Jim would hold my feet to the fire on an audio post, but my reluctance to go outside of print comes from somewhere—as did my decision to consult the syllabus about how to portray my thoughts.) But perhaps even more telling is my immediate desire to script the performance. That, I decided, would make it legitimate. (It would also double the work I have to do with the writing, filming, editing and posting the video file.)

Are we moving past the point in academia when we tell people, “If you have something important to say, write it down”? How do the things that contribute toward tenure still betray our bias toward print over orality? And, of course I am wondering if English will ever again encompass speech or vis-versa (why not?).