Article

Name: Oral vs written in poetic discourse: challenging the traditional binary opposition

Authors: N. M. Azarova, A. L. Polyan

Institute of Linguistics of the RAS

Abstract: Modern linguistics tends to drift from binary oppositions towards constructing more complicated models, accounting situations of intercultural transfer, cross discourse and cross language interference. Taking into consideration new objects, such as poetry in “dormant” languages (in our research – Hebrew poetry, III–XIX cent. AD) causes to reconceive the common opposition “oral – written”. A “dormant” we call a language which is not used for spontaneous oral communication, but is widely employed for creating new written texts and for transmitting old texts, primarily oral ones. Meaning of the parameter “oral” regarding to poetry in an unspoken language is different from that in a spoken one. In the latter, as oral texts are usually regarded non-written ones, resulting from spontaneous communication, whereas for an unspoken language spontaneous communication is not typical. Nevertheless, reading in “dormant” languages was more oral technically (texts were usually uttered). “Dormant” language has no oral poetry in its tradition form. Poetry in “dormant” languages can often be voiced, but it never has features of oral poetry (formulas, compulsory instability and variability, illiterate addressees). Nevertheless, some traits of oral functioning of poetry in “dormant” languages can be detected. For one thing, these are remnants of the author’s voicing the texts, his / her inner dictation (rhythmic deviations, caused by cross language interference, first of all by influence of local vernacular languages). For the other thing, these are evidences for poetic recitals. Foremost, religious poetry was recited, and its reception required double encoding and decoding of the message (processing a voiced text into imagined written signs and back). The extent to which the poetic discourse in the “dormant” language is oral depends also on the language and cultural situation in the society, and on the extent to which the poetry in the local language enjoying a high status is oral. We regard the opposition of “oral-written” as a ternary one (written – voiced – oral). In case of an alive spoken language in all these three spheres one language is used, whereas an unspoken functions in complementary distribution with an alive vernacular language: a “dormant” language is employed in the realms of “written” and “voiced”, when a vernacular one – in the realm of “oral”.

Keywords: orality, oral and written, poetic discourse, Hebrew poetry, “dormant” language

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