Defense Date

7-15-2022

Graduation Date

Summer 8-1-2022

Availability

Immediate Access

Submission Type

dissertation

Degree Name

PhD

Department

Communication and Rhetorical Studies

School

McAnulty College and Graduate School of Liberal Arts

Committee Chair

Anthony M. Wachs

Committee Member

Richard Thames

Committee Member

Erik Garrett

Keywords

Media ecology, Orality and Literacy, Arabic Orality, Arabic Literacy, Arabic culture

Abstract

The transition from orality to literacy is the focus of this dissertation. Studying orality and literacy in Western Academic scholarship focuses on the transitional phase (transition from orality to literacy) of the Western transitional. This project widens the focus of the transitional phase and analyzes the transitional phase of the old traditional Arabic culture. The dissertation analyzes both oral and transitional phases of the old Arabic culture. It studies the unique characteristics of these two phases (oral and transitional). Isnad was the main feature of the Arabic transitional phase. Isnad is a chain of narrators who convey sayings. Every narrator in this human chain should be reliable and creditable. Unlike narration known in the primary oral cultures, isnad conveys literate knowledge in the time of orality. Al-Jahiz’s Al-Bayan wa Al-Tabyeen is a book that is studied to find out the characteristics and the boundaries of the transitional phase. The project seeks to determine the characteristics of the transitional phase as a phase that is not only a bridge between orality and literacy through studying the transitional phase of the Arabic culture and analyzing one of the transitional works, namely Al-Bayan wa Al-Tabyeen.

Language

English

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