Oral Communication In English Essay Example

cause confusion regarding grammar when asking questions, which is especially concerning for these students.

A Brief History of Oral Communication

The global movement of collecting, analyzing, and sharing oral history has become widespread. Oral historians in different countries, such as Britain and Northern Ireland, have their own unique approaches to this field based on their national contexts.

In Britain, oral history has seen significant growth since the 1990s. Initially rooted in folklore studies, it has now become an important component of community histories. It is highly regarded by both non-academics and academic disciplines, with influences from women's history and labour history. The Oral History Society in Britain has played a crucial role in promoting and advancing its utilization.

For more information about the history of oral history in Britain and Northern Ireland, visit Making Oral History on the Institute of Historical Research's website.

The Modern Tradition in the United States

In contemporary times, oral history involves capturing or transcribing firsthand accounts of historical events. In the late 19th century, certain anthropologists began collecting recordings, specifically Native American folklore, using phonograph cylinders. During the 1930s, interviewers sent by the Works Progress Administration (WPA) gathered accounts from various groups, including survivors of significant historical events such as the American Civil War and slavery. The Library of Congress also started recording traditional American music and folklore on acetate discs. The introduction of audio tape recordings after World War II simplified the task for oral historians.

The term "oral history" gained popularity after the New Yorker magazine published a profile about Joe Gould in 1942. Gould claimed to be collecting an oral history of the time but never completed his work. In 1946, David Boder, a

professor of psychology at Illinois Institute of Technology, used a wire recorder to capture extensive interviews with Holocaust survivors in Europe. These recordings are considered the earliest testimonies and significant oral histories of the Holocaust.

In 1948, Alan Nevins established the Columbia Oral History Research Office at Columbia University with the aim of recording, transcribing, and preserving oral history interviews. The Oral History Association was founded by American oral historians in 1967, followed by the establishment of the Oral History Society by British oral historians in 1969.

Today, numerous national organizations and the International Oral History Association organize workshops and conferences while publishing newsletters and journals dedicated to advancing the theory and practices of oral history.

Researchers from various fields, including historians, folklorists, anthropologists, sociologists, journalists, and linguists, utilize different interviewing methods in their studies. However, oral historians have established common ethics and standards of practice. One crucial priority for oral historians is obtaining "informed consent" from interviewees. This is typically done through a deed of gift that also establishes copyright ownership to ensure publication and archival preservation.

During interviews, oral historians prefer asking open-ended questions instead of leading ones that could potentially influence respondents to conform to the interviewer's expectations. The scope and purpose of interviews can vary; they may involve "life reviews" for individuals nearing the end of their careers or focus on specific periods or events in people's lives such as war veterans or survivors of Hurricane Katrina.

The initial oral history archives were centered around conducting interviews with prominent politicians, diplomats, military officers, and business leaders. During the 1960s and ‘70s, the use of interviewing expanded to investigate history from a grassroots perspective. Regardless of

the project's field or focus, oral historians aim to capture the memories of various individuals while researching a specific event. By conducting interviews with multiple people, oral historians strive to gain diverse perspectives instead of relying on a single viewpoint.

According to oral historians, individuals may misremember events or distort their account for personal reasons. To ensure accuracy and capture the complexity of issues, oral historians conduct extensive interviews and seek points of agreement among different sources. The practice of oral history emphasizes the role of memory, both individual and community, in preserving stories. In a legal context, the Supreme Court of Canada recognized the significance of oral histories in the Delgamuukw v. British Columbia trial in 1997. It ruled that oral histories were as valuable as written testimony for determining historical truth. Additionally, English is a West Germanic language that developed from the Anglo-Frisian dialects introduced to Britain by Germanic invaders from northwest Germany and the Netherlands.

Initially, Old English consisted of various dialects that represented the different Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England. Among these dialects, Late West Saxon eventually became dominant. The original Old English language then experienced influences from two more invasions: the first being the Scandinavian speakers of the Germanic language family who conquered and settled in parts of Britain in the 8th and 9th centuries, and the second being the Normans in the 11th century who spoke Old Norman and eventually developed an English version known as Anglo-Norman. These two invasions resulted in a certain level of "mixing" in the English language.

Cohabitation with Scandinavians simplified grammar and enriched the Anglo-Frisian core of English. The subsequent Norman occupation added a more complex layer of

words from Romance languages, particularly through courts and government. As a result, English became a highly flexible borrowing language with an extensive vocabulary.