Ruth Finnegan

Oral Traditions and the Verbal Arts

A Guide to Research Practices

• Broschiertes Buch

Produktbeschreibung

The study of oral traditions and verbal arts leads into an area of human culture to which anthropologists are increasingly turning their attention. Oral Traditions and the Verbal Arts provides up-to-date guidance on how to approach the study of oral form and their performances, treating both the practicalities of fieldwork and the methods by which oral texts and performances can be observed, collected or analysed. It also relates to those current controversies about the nature of performance and of 'text'. Designed as a practical and systematic introduction to the processes and problems of researching in this area, this is an invaluable guide for students, and lecturers of anthropology and cultural studies and also for general readers who are interested in enjoying oral literature for its own sake.

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Produktdetails

• Verlag: Routledge
• Seitenzahl: 304
• Erscheinungstermin: 5. Dezember 1991
• Englisch
• Abmessung: 216mm x 140mm x 18mm
• Gewicht: 431g
• ISBN-13: 9780415048415
• ISBN-10: 0415048419
• Artikelnr.: 20985718

Autorenporträt

Ruth Finnegan is Professor in Comparative Social Institutions at the Open University. She was editor of the anthropological journal Man from 1987 to 1989, and is the author of many books and articles, including Literacy and Orality, Oral Literature in Africa and Oral Poetry.

Inhaltsangabe

1 Introduction: scope and terminology 1.1 Preview 1.2 'Language', 'speech'
and 'text': some initial questions 1.3 Some central terms-accepted and
disputed 1.4 'Text(s)': a special case 1.5 The interest of the problems 2
Theoretical perspectives 2.1 The role of theory 2.2 Continuing
methodological tensions 2.3 Background to studies of oral tradition and
verbal art 2.4 Influential methodologies and theories 2.5 Current trends 3
Some prior issues and practicalities 3.1 Some strategic questions 3.2
Background preparation 3.3 Recording equipment 3.4 Relevance for archive
research 4 Collecting, recording and creating texts: preliminaries and
mechanics 4.1 Some initial techniques and provisos 4.2 The settings for
collecting and recording 4.3 Making and keeping records 4.4 Preliminary
processing 5 Observing and analysing performance 5.1 Concepts of
'performance' and their significance 5.2 Audiences, performers,
participants 5.3 Other components of performances 6 Production, functions
and ideas 6.1 Composition, transmission and memory 6.2 Social and economic
position of participants 6.3 Verbal art, oral tradition and functions 6.4
Local aesthetics and thought 7 Genres and boundaries 7.1 Approaches to
classification 7.2 Some crucial boundaries: or are they? 7.3
Differentiating and studying genres 7.4 Some common genre terms and
controversies 7.5 Cross-cutting themes 7.6 Final points 8 Analysing and
comparing texts: style, structure and Content 8.1 Textual analysis:
problems and opportunities 8.2 Variation, typology and comparison 8.3
Structure and structuralist methods 8.4 Stylistic features and problems 8.5
Relevance of literary analysis and written literature 8.6 Specialist
techniques: counting, content and computers 8.7 The quest for 'meaning' 9
Texts in process: translation, transcription and Presentation 9.1
Translating 19.2 Transcription and representation 9.3 The presentation and
dissemination of texts and performances 9.4 Conclusion 10 Ethics