American Voices: Listening to Fiction, Poetry, and Prose

Orality of Africa

"By our voices we recognize each other in the darkness." from the Ifa Divination ⁷

The act of expression is fundamentally oral. Africa was and continues to be an oral world. Africa was shaped by the living voice, but mutilated by the colonial structures that came into power, taking away the voice of its people. The objective in African orality is to use voice to translate everyday experiences into living sound. West Africa, in particular, uses voice in terms of several key principles. Orality is functional: always a form of communication; orality is public: sound travels and the more listeners the better; orality is communal: we share identity, land, language, values and needs through affirmations of creating sounds. Orality is participatory: letting each other know what we think of voice; sound, adding other verses while calling, shouting or responding; orality is interdisciplinary: the spirit moves the listener through sounds of the soul. Interdisciplinary in this context denotes physical, spiritual, and mental combination of speakers and listeners. Orality is experimental: the creative moment, the experience, the product and the process. Orality is vocal: a talking drum, conversing in a language, recreates reality, a dialogue with another self. ⁸

Orality makes the listener do work, actively making connections between spoken images and/or ideas. African orality was an achievement of humankind that familiarized many with community life and history. Oral values stand in opposition to literate values: they favor process over product, practice over theory and improvisation over reproduction, social function over personal expression, spoken over written words, and the collective over the individual. Use this comparison statement with student small groups. Ask them to brainstorm (allow approximately ten minutes) ideas related to the lists of comparisons in the realm of values and traditions that they might practice in their homes or community outside of schools. Invite the opportunity for students born in other countries to present the collective information after the discussion groups finish the task. Prepare a short homework assignment for students, answering the questions: Why do I think the way that I do about orality? Am I afraid to discuss this subject? Where did the messages about orality I hear come from? Have my ancestors (grandparents, etc.) taught me anything about orality (stories, tales, and poems)? The following day, students can present their findings in small group discussions. Groups will choose a presenter/leader to report out to the whole class key points summarizing the discussion. This can stand as an exercise for connecting information to life and an exercise in summarization.

Oral Power in the African-American Community

Today's youth have brought to focus another dimension in rhetorical culture the spoken word being a powerful vessel for carrying the messages of any experience that effects communal interaction. Students have been outspoken in technology use as a medium to communicate both in spoken and written words. This practice also represents the power of the African oral culture and tradition, young African-Americans have set themselves apart form other generations in grasping and being moved by the lyrical attributes of spoken word poetry, call and response preaching, and rap (poetry in motion). The orator, poet, or preacher who animates his message so that the listener can become an active participant is considered a great speaker. As a result, speaker and audience become one in the message. Call-response oration can be deemed as a perfected social interaction referring to the power potential in the strong sense of group community, group unity, and group cooperation. Students will share their religious organizational practices. The mega-church has come to the forefront of the African-American community and young people are moved by the preacher who coaxes his audience with creativity, including tone, volume, physical movement, rate of speech, and rhythm. Each of these elements reaches a responsive chord with each person achieving a sense of equality and harmony to all listeners.

Students will be assigned to listen to both Martin Luther King, Jr. and Malcolm X speeches. They will have to determine the type of speech, secular or religious. They will evaluate how the speaker and audience work together to build a desired result - unity. Students will learn the conceptual traits of the call and response orator: Anaphora - the repetition of words or phrases within successive sentences; Vocal creativity - changes in tone, rate, loudness, emphasis, intonation, and duration of words and phrases. The Step - a variation in pitch between words or syllables, sometimes heard in a step-up or step down pattern; Cadence - much like the pounding of the human heart or the measure marked by the African drum, words spoken in rhythmic balanced patterns, in repetitions or antitheses, in alliteration and assonances. Synchronous kinesics - body movements of the audience and speaker, people move in unison and reflect each other's movements; Paralinguistic Behaviors ⁹ - vocal behavior takes on the oral characteristics (i.e.- rate, loudness). ¹⁰ Students will analyze the process of speaker and audience, how they become a unified whole by isolating the conceptual traits mentioned above. Additionally, students will listen to the speeches of Senator Barbara C. Jordan and determine differences and similarities in the call-response traits.

African-Americans are known to participate with a speaker in forms of verbal approval, verbal commands, hand clapping, foot stomping, finger popping, and more. These participatory behaviors are tolerated and encouraged by the performer/speaker; this is used for the flow of emotional and aesthetic impulses. King and X's oratory can provide students with a greater appreciation for the cultural heritage of the oral tradition. Students will find that call-response and the Afro centric philosophy of communication reflect a rich legacy that can be nurtured and expressed within the school setting. This practice is very African in origin and can be approached in the classroom in reference to voice.