Along the Oral-Written Continuum : Types of Texts, Relations and Their Implications

Rankovic, Slavica (EDT); Melve, Leidulf (EDT); Mundal, Else (EDT)

ISBN 10: 2503534074 / ISBN 13: 9782503534077

Published by Brepols Publishers, 2010

About this Item

Seller Inventory # 10255632-n

Bibliographic Details

• Title: Along the Oral-Written Continuum : Types of Texts, Relations and Their Implications
• Publisher: Brepols Publishers
• Publication Date: 2010
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 2503534074
• ISBN 13: 9782503534077
• Binding: Hardcover
• Condition: New

About this title

Synopsis

Ever since its introduction in the 1970s, Ruth Finnegan's notion of the oral-written, or the oral-literate, continuum has served as one of the most effective means of dispelling the dichotomous understanding of the two principal media of communication in the Middle Ages. However, while often casually invoked, the concept has never been made a focus of study in its own right. The present volume is an attempt to place the oral-written continuum at the heart of discussion as an object of a head-on theoretical investigation, as a backdrop to distinct processes of acquisition of literacy in different European regions, and, indeed, as a tool for navigating the rugged landscape of verbal forms, exploring the complexity of oral-literary interrelationships that they manifest. The articles probe the concept with a variety of theoretical and methodological approaches, span diverse texts and genres, and involve a range of European cultural contexts, with special emphasis on Scandinavia and Northern Europe, but also reaching out to various other corners of the continent: from France, the Netherlands and England in the West, over Germany, Bohemia and Poland in the central region, to Serbia and Bosnia in the Southeast.

About the Author

Else Mundal is professor of Old Norse philology at the Centre for Medieval Studies at the University of Bergen.