Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
Hostname: page-component-7c8c6479df-8mjnm Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-03-29T15:48:41.183Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

3 - The constitution of oral texts

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 December 2009

Karin Barber
Affiliation:
University of Birmingham
Get access

Summary

Making words stick

What do we need to know to interpret a text? This question leads into the very constitution of the text itself. We are asking what it is that makes a text textual – what enables it to exist, to be recognised or remarked as a text. An anthropology of texts needs to go below the level of documenting genres and relations between genres, defining characteristic styles, and relating these to a social context immediate or distant. Text is differently constituted in different social and historical contexts: what a text is considered to be, how it is considered to have meaning, varies from one culture to another. We need to ask what kinds of interpretation texts are set up to expect, and how they are considered to enter the lives of those who produce, receive and transmit them.

In this chapter and the next I focus on oral texts, because all societies produce them in one form or another, and because anthropology, despite great shifts in the definition of its subject matter, retains a central focus on face-to-face, small-scale societies where oral and popular genres are the norm.

Oral texts are the outcome of a concerted effort to fix words and make them outlast the here-and-now. But they are also a vivid demonstration of the emergent and the improvisatory.

Type
Chapter
Information
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2007

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure coreplatform@cambridge.org is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

  • The constitution of oral texts
  • Karin Barber, University of Birmingham
  • Book: The Anthropology of Texts, Persons and Publics
  • Online publication: 23 December 2009
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511619656.004
Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

  • The constitution of oral texts
  • Karin Barber, University of Birmingham
  • Book: The Anthropology of Texts, Persons and Publics
  • Online publication: 23 December 2009
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511619656.004
Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

  • The constitution of oral texts
  • Karin Barber, University of Birmingham
  • Book: The Anthropology of Texts, Persons and Publics
  • Online publication: 23 December 2009
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511619656.004
Available formats
×