Interfaces of the Word by Walter J. Ong - 9780801492402

Interfaces of the WordStudies in the Evolution of Consciousness and Culture\nAuthor(s): Walter J. Ong\nFormat: Paperback\nPublisher: Cornell University Press, United States\nImprint: Cornell University Press\nISBN-13: 9780801492402, 978-0801492402\nSynopsis\nDrawing on a wide range of disciplineslinguistics, phenomenological analysis, cultural anthropology, media studies, and intellectual historyWalter J. Ong offers a reasoned and sophisticated view of human consciousness different in many respects from that of structuralism. The essays in Interfaces of the Word are grouped around the dialectically related themes of change or alienation and growth or integration. Among the subjects Ong covers are the origins of speech in mother tongues; the rise and final erosion of nonvernacular learned languages; and the fictionalizing of audiences that is enforced by writing. Other essays treat the idiom of African talking drums, the ways new media interface with the old, and the various connectio.