Communication is a very important part of our lives. It keeps us in contact with the happenings in the whole world, but which types of communications can we find nowadays?
We could say that there are three ways of communicating: Orality, writing and hypermedia.
Orality is a verbal expression, and Walter J. Ong (American Jesuit priest, professor of English Literature and cultural and religious philosopher) divides it into two different forms:
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Primary orality: It is used in places where people have no idea of writing or reading
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Residual orality: It is used in places where writing has arrived, but is not used in people’s daily life.
Writing, on the other side, is what we could call the graphic representation of a language. It uses sings as a method of communication, and it is said that the first writing techniques come from the year 4000 b.C.
Finally, hypermedia is a type of text where sounds and images appear. We can find texts, videos, audios, maps and other media in it.
The best example of a hypermedia we can have is the World Wide Web (Most commonly known as www).
At first, orality was the most popular way of communication, because people didn’t know how to write, but some years later, writing started taking more and more importance, being used by a lot of people. Now, the hypermedia takes both orality and writing together, so we could say that it’s the new way of communication.
References:
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Hypermedia. In Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Retrieved 19:06, January 10, 2009, from: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypermedia
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Walter J. Ong. In Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Retrieved 20:32, January 11, 2009, from: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walter_J_Ong
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Orality. In Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Retrieved 21:00, January 11, 2009, from: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Orality&oldid=238417313
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Escritura (lingüística). In Wikipedia, La Enciclopedia Libre. Retrieved 22:45, January 11, 2009, from: http://es.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Escritura_%28ling%C3%BC%C3%ADstica%29&oldid=21317754
