Abstract
This article relies on a leading line of anthropological research on the socio-cultural implications of orality in Iran. The analyses reveal that the prevalence of oral language in Iran is associated with a wide range of implications, such as redundancy, emotionality, ambiguity, high-context culture traits, the lack of critical thinking, the gap between speech and writing, the importance of poetry, restricted scientific and technical knowledge, religiosity, traditionalism, the centrality of negotiating, old-fashioned entrepreneurship, and authoritarian governance and leadership. The article examines the practical consequences of orality on Iranian culture, social relations, and politics.
Introduction
Speaking is a natural and automatic practice that humans learn early in childhood. Almost all humans and all societies have a spoken language, but writing is a complex technology that requires special training and generally many years of schooling. There are tens of thousands of spoken languages, but only about 100 languages have adequate writing systems to produce literature (Ong, 1982). The use of written language or literacy 1 differs substantially from the use of spoken language or orality. Literacy was a significant human invention that transformed the essence of human consciousness by creating intellectual abstraction from concrete reality. Writing allowed man to expand his knowledge beyond the limits of time and space and thus transmit information across generations and far geographical locations. By regulating human relations, literacy has enabled societies to organize commerce, law, and public administration. Writing and the subsequent printing machine was central to the European Renaissance and the Church Reformation and paved the way for the growth of capitalism and the industrial revolution (Eisenstein, 1980; McLuhan et al., 2011; Rosenberg, 1987)
Written culture encouraged the creation of bureaucracy, depersonalized systems of government, and the development of abstract thought and syllogistic reasoning (Akinnaso, 1982; Graff, 1979). The development of literacy accelerated the shift from myths to history, from magic to science, from status to contract, from concrete to abstract, from collective to social, and from ritual to rational. Indeed, literacy is necessary to develop science, history, philosophy, art, and language. Goody (I977) theorized major differences between speaking and writing and suggested that there is a “Great Divide” between oral and literate cultures, in other words, between the societies that rely on spoken language and those that rely on written language.
The current essay builds on this theoretical perspective and uses it to analyze the effects of orality and literacy on different spheres of social life in Iran. More particularly, this article relies on the extant literature and refers to the Iranian context to analyze the implications of orality for different social phenomena, including information, comprehension, learning, education, religiosity, business, entrepreneurship, governance, and politics. The analyses reveal that the predominance of orality in Iran is associated with a wide range of effects, namely fluid information and unaccumulated knowledge, old-style education, high religiosity, unsystematic business and entrepreneurship, and authoritarian governance, which ultimately contribute to lower levels of socio-economic development.
In the following sections, the concepts of orality and literacy are conceptualized. Next, it is explained why Iran is a predominantly oral culture. Then, the implications of orality for six areas are analyzed and discussed. In the end, the theoretical and practical implications, contributions, and avenues for future studies are pointed out.
Oral vs. Literate Cultures
Oral language can exist without writing, but writing always needs orality. Compared with the long history of human speech, writing has existed only for the past few thousand years (Ong, 1988). Even in modern Europe, literacy for most of the population is not much older than 100 years (Hay, 2000; Ong, 1987). According to Ong (1982), the historical evolution of human societies witnessed four types of communication cultures: (a) primarily oral cultures relying on various ritualized genres and mnemonic devices to retain essential information, (b) chirographic cultures with writing, (c) typographic cultures with printing, and (d) highly literate cultures that enhance writing with new technologies (Ong, 1982; Rodgers, 1984). Primary orality characterizes cultures that are entirely oral and do not have any knowledge of writing or print (Ong, 1982). Similarly, Glück (2016) refers to the term illiteracy as the condition of total absence of written communication. Advances in trade, transport, telecommunication, and globalization have led to the disappearance of purely oral cultures; hence, all major world cultures are literate to some extent.
By analyzing the patterns of oral communication in literate cultures, Ong (1982) distinguished between primary orality and secondary orality (Ladson-Billings, 1992). Primary orality refers to the orality of a culture without any written language. In contrast, secondary orality refers to the forms of oral communication in contemporary societies mediated by phone, radio, and T.V. that, for their existence and functioning, depend on writing and print (Rosenberg, 1987). Since primary orality is derived from the use of sound, meaning in primary orality is created and modified through variations in vocalic sounds, such as pitch, tone, and rate. Secondary orality is a type of “literate orality” product of the electronic transformation of verbal expression (Gronbeck et al., 1991; Ong, 1982).
Nowadays, primary oral culture in the strict sense hardly exists since every culture knows of writing and has some experience of its effects. Still, to varying degrees, many cultures preserve much of the primary orality mindset (Bahl, 2017). Similarly, in literate cultures, orality is still present. Goody and Watt (1963) noted that even in highly literate cultures, the transmission of information occurs in part orally. All the world’s cultures use a combination of spoken and written languages and, for that reason, can be considered a mix of orality and literacy. According to Finnegan (2018), oral and literate societies exist in continuity, not a dichotomy. Therefore, the idea of pure and uncontaminated oral culture is untenable as the line between orality and literacy is blurred.
Based on the variation and use of orality in communication, Ong (1967) classified societies as radically oral, largely oral, and residually oral. Such a classification may be useful to identify the extent of orality preserved and manifested in a particular culture (Rosenberg, 1987). Consistent with this approach and for the purpose of this study, we use the variation of orality/literacy mindset to distinguish between oral and literate cultures. In other words, oral cultures are marked by the prevalence of oral communication, whereas literate cultures heavily rely on using written language. In literate societies, the written language is central to all social relations, including education, administration, organization, politics, economic activity, and business.
Categorizing Iran as an Oral Culture
In the previous paragraphs, we described oral and literate cultures and indicated that almost all significant cultures currently use a combination of spoken and written messages. Nevertheless, some cultures consider the spoken language central to human relationships. Accordingly, we suggest that Iran is still a predominantly oral culture because most social and economic activities, including education, learning, business transactions, investment, and organizational management, are still done primarily via the oral language. In the following pages, we offer some examples that highlight and support the dominance of orality in Iran.
The illiteracy rate in Iran has dramatically decreased in recent years. Nevertheless, 15% of Iranians (10% of men and 20% of women) are still entirely illiterate and lack essential reading and writing skills (CIA Factbooks, 2022). While the illiteracy rate is not desirable yet, the increase in literacy rates in Iran is a very recent phenomenon that has occurred in the past three decades, and its effects are not yet visible. At the beginning of the twentieth century, Iran’s literacy rate was little at around 5% (Abrahamian, 2008), and by 1976, only 37% of Iranians aged 15 and above could read and write (The World Bank, 2022).
A society can develop a strong written culture only when the standard written language is understandable to all. Since Islam has played and continues to play a significant role in Iranian society and politics, clerics unnecessarily introduce new Arabic words into Persian and add to the communication complexity. On the other hand, educated people unnecessarily use a large number of English words and impair the natural functioning of the Persian language. The utilization of Arabic and English terms in the Persian language makes it more difficult to be understood by a large portion of the population.
Most Persian literature is in poetry. However, Persian poetry is mainly spoken and intended to expand speech, not writing. Therefore, Persian poetry does not necessarily promote written literature and may even impede it. It is important to note that writing long Persian prose, such as novels, is relatively new in Iran and has been adopted from Europe (Balaÿ, 1998).
There is a significant gap between speech and writing in Iran, so it seems as if people speak one language and write in another. In addition, the variety of ethnic dialects and local languages in Iran is very noticeable, implying that a word can be pronounced in several different ways. The gap between spoken and written languages is a major obstacle to developing literate culture.
In Western countries, mainly literate cultures, writing is used highly in transactions, such as buying a house, a car, and even daily necessities. By contrast, in an oral culture like Iran, most or even the whole transaction is done orally. In the case of small goods, there are usually no price tags, and the prices are announced orally.
When it comes to writing on the internet and social media, most Iranians write in colloquial language, which cannot be considered proper writing. Such colloquial communications cannot be considered proper writing because they do not respect grammar and semantic order and may imply confusion over time and out of their original context.
Although the Quran is a holy book, it has an oral character. Before it became a book, the Quran was God’s revelation that the Prophet Mohammad recited aloud to his companions for 23 years, who gradually memorized the verses. Twenty years after the death of the Prophet of Islam, the Quran was written (Cook, 2000; Herzog, 2011). The word Quran literally means reciting. The Quran is almost poetic and involves a special euphony that fascinates the listener and arouses emotions. By contrast, the Bible is an actual book whose authors are known. The Bible is much longer than the Quran and recounts the details of many natural and historical events; hence, it has a more extensive vocabulary. Therefore, compared to Christianity, Muslim cultures such as Iran tend to be more oral. Additionally, the Quran is widely recited in Arabic, which the people of Iran do not understand completely.
Communication and Comprehension
Since speech is temporary, oral communication becomes redundant to ensure the efficient transmission of information (Ong, 1982). In oral communication, repetition is used to recall information and maintain speech continuity. Furthermore, repetition allows speakers to buy time to think ahead and prepare for the next point (Tsang, 2007). For example, instead of saying “Good morning,” a TV presenter in Iran tends to say: “Dear viewers, beloved compatriots, dear companions, and audience, may your beautiful morning be good and successful.” In literate cultures, redundancy is not valued because readers can always refer to earlier writing and retrieve previous information. Since writing is a slower process, writers have more time to organize their thoughts and reduce redundancy (Chafe, 1982).
While literate cultures emphasize accuracy in a message, oral cultures often attach importance to symbolism and emotional resonance. This difference between oral and literate cultures seems understandable. In oral cultures, there is more interaction between the speaker and the audience; naturally, an influential speaker tends to be agreeable, engaging, and enthusiastic. Therefore, rhetoric techniques, such as formulas, humor, exaggeration, parallelism, puns, metaphor, and hedges are usual in oral cultures such as Iran (Olson, 1991). In oral cultures, communication and learning involve close, empathetic, and cooperative behavior (Halverson, 1992). Therefore, an oral message is often valued more for its affective components than logical or informative content.
Additionally, the speaker and audience are not separated in oral cultures; instead, they participate in a bilateral relationship to build meaning together. By contrast, literate cultures favor evidence and cold reasoning to enhance the accuracy of the message. Iranians are known for being emotional. A large portion of communication in Iran contains emotions and has no informative value. In the T.V. presenter example mentioned above, part of the redundancy can be attributed to the emotional tone of the message.
Oral information is not stored in a fixed text and is subject to alteration over time. For example, storytellers and oral interpreters may lose or revise their memorized information (Rosenfeld et al., 2009). For this reason, information in oral cultures tends to be fluid and inaccurate. By contrast, in literate cultures, information is precisely written down and remains essentially unchanged over time. As an oral culture, communication in Iran is marked by a high degree of ambiguity. Ambiguity is particularly valued in Persian poetry. In the absence of freedom of expression, ambiguity is an effective strategy to express ideas without facing undesired consequences.
Since there is more interaction between the speaker and the audience in oral communication, the speaker tends to be pleasant, engaging, and enthusiastic. For this reason, rhetorical techniques, such as formulas, humor, exaggeration, parallelism, puns, and metaphor are widely used in Iran. To effectively recall information, people prefer reusable formulas in epithetic expressions, proverbs, and idioms that come readily to mind and facilitate information retention (Ong, 1982; Tsang, 2007). For instance, it is habitual to hear expressions, such as “the heroic soldier” and “the wise leader” instead of “the soldier”; and “the leader.” One of the characteristics of communication in an oral culture such as Iran is the over-utilization of adjectives. In contrast, literate cultures do not need such mnemonic patterns to retain information because they rely on recorded texts (Rosenfeld et al., 2009).
Oral cultures such as Iran are homeostatic because they forget obsolete and useless memories. Therefore, the number of words (vocabulary) does not grow much in oral cultures as unnecessary words are regularly abandoned and abolished. By contrast, literate cultures accumulate many archaic words from the past and use dictionaries to store and define them (Ong, 1982; Rosenfeld et al., 2009). Due to a relatively restricted number of words, Iranians may use the same term to carry different meanings according to their needs (Tsang, 2007). In literate cultures, words have specific meanings, but in oral cultures, the meanings of words are reshaped depending on the context of communication (Goody & Watt, 1963; Ong, 1982; Tsang, 2007).
Spoken language generally cannot be transmitted across temporal and spatial dimensions. In the past, when audio and video recording technologies, such as telephones, radios, and satellites did not exist, the transmission of oral information from one point to another was minimal. Today, although new technologies can transmit spoken information to distant locations, there are still significant limitations to the transmission of spoken information. When information and concepts are disseminated across time and space, understanding among different groups of people is increased, and commerce, cooperation, and intellectual exchange are promoted. Likewise, the information in the spoken word cannot be efficiently and accurately transmitted over time and across generations.
Both oral and written messages are communicated within a context, but the degree of their dependence on the context differs drastically. The written message is often detached from the immediate experience and is presented in abstract ideas in spatially and temporally distant settings. Because of its permanence, the written message transcends space and time. Therefore, the written message relies very little on the immediate context of communication. By contrast, the oral message often has an immediate reference to the context because, unlike writing, it cannot transmit information at a distance from the lived experience. In oral cultures such as Iran, the message is often supplemented with various contextual elements, including gesture, facial expression, intonation, humor, parallelism, irony, and metaphor (Rosenberg, 1987). Therefore, to understand a message’s content, one must pay attention to the context of the information. In Hall’s (1976) words, Iran is a high-context communication culture.
Education
In oral cultures, memorization is of paramount importance because the information is stored in individuals’ minds. Interestingly, the word memorization in Persian has two meanings: to preserve and to know by heart. In other words, to memorize something is to know it by heart to preserve it. In such oral cultures, a good student is the one who memorizes the most. Iranian students’ main tasks are memorizing the Quran, poetry, proverbs, and even formulas in mathematics, chemistry, and physics. Individual and group projects are not very usual at school, but the education system puts a lot of pressure on students to turn in the memorized material on the day of the examination. In university entrance examinations and postgraduate courses, it is customary for students to memorize large amounts of information. Thus, memorization is essential in the educational system to the detriment of critical thinking, problem-solving, and innovation. Memorization is not only different from critical thinking; it also contradicts it. Creativity is essentially an act of revolt and involves criticism. If we memorize a statement, we have accepted it without questioning or criticism.
In oral and collectivist cultures such as Iran, the person who sends a message is more important than what the message contains. Thus, a quotation is very important. The traditional teaching method in Iran, especially in theological seminaries, is based on a quotation from other people, especially credible and famous religious scholars. Seminary clergy is compelled to use the quotation as a measure of truth. Although the Shia seminary approach is a highly traditional educational method, the quotation’s importance is seen in many aspects of education in Iran. Even at the collegial level, the scholars’ mastery of a particular area often depends not on the quality of their arguments but on the extent of their quotations. Likewise, ad hominem arguments may be used to validate/invalidate statements.
Because of the dominance of oral communication in Iran, ordinary people find it difficult to establish a strong relationship with written communication. For example, it is easier for most people to talk to a bank teller than to read an investment contract. Due to the vast gap between speech and writing, Iranians seem to speak one language and write and read in another. Written language appears to most people as a foreign language devoid of emotion and intimacy. Therefore, reading a text, especially a long text or a book, does not seem pleasant. The vast gap between spoken and written languages affects not only the quality of reading texts but also the quality of education in general. Many students who suffer from academic failure lack the skills to read text fluently.
The greater the distance between speech and writing, the greater the number of students who will have difficulty reading the text and fail at school. This information dichotomy has detrimental effects because most educational, scientific, and technical activities can be done only in writing and cannot be easily transmitted to the general public. Iran’s low per capita reading rate could be related to the vast gap between speech and writing.
Literature and Science
To retain oral information, the best way is to express it rhythmically, like a Persian poem that can be memorized, retold, spoken, and passed down from generation to generation. The advantage of poetry is that it spares the speaker from the trouble of having a notebook. Poetry is essentially the reflection of orality because the poets do not write a piece of the poem; instead, they recite it. That is why poetry has been essential in Iranian culture, and poets have been highly respected. Various elements, such as rhyme, melody, and alliteration, make poetry pleasant and easy to remember.
Additionally, poetry has an emotional dimension that creates joy, inspiration, and transmission of teachings and traditions. In an oral culture, such as Iran, poets serve the conservation of language, traditions, beliefs, and customs across time and space. Persian poets often use a combination of verbal techniques, such as metaphor, simile, exaggeration, praise, and lyricism to increase the effectiveness of their words on the listener. Of all these poetic crafts, ambiguity has considerable significance.
Many poets deliberately or habitually choose ambiguous language to confuse their words. For example, in Hafez’s poetry, wine, Quran, drunkenness, tavern, asceticism, mysticism, and many other words are used with different and contradictory meanings. An educated Iranian can read and enjoy Hafez’s poems but cannot understand them easily. Another characteristic of poetry as a literary genre is that it generally sacrifices meaning in favor of format. Persian poets may use inappropriate words to observe rhyme and increase euphony. Poets may even break the rules of grammar to increase their poems’ oral beauty. It should be mentioned that because poetry is an entertaining and pleasant message, it is rarely criticized and discussed.
The novel is a long and written story that is relatively new in Iran. Most Iranian stories and fables have been oral or in poems. European novels, such as Les Misérables, The Hunchback of Notre-Dame (by Victor Hugo) or Great Expectations, The Tale of Two Cities, David Copperfield (by Charles Dickens), and The Three Musketeers (by Alexandre Dumas) consist of hundreds of pages and offer meticulous details on the events and characters. Unlike Persian poetry, which offers basic information, the novel accurately describes and analyzes details. European novels appeared around the twelfth century A.D. Interestingly; they were initially oral and poetic (Chartier, 1990).
Since the 18th and 19th centuries, the novel has become the dominant literary genre in European countries, including France, England, and Germany (Chartier, 1990). Unlike poetry, which is usually read aloud in public, the novel is suitable for solo reading. Because the novel is read individually, it offers many opportunities for deep reflection and reinforces the reader’s individualism and critical thinking (Olson & Torrance, 1991). The novel’s continuity creates a particular order in the reader’s mind and strengthens his linear perception of time (Goody, 1977). Unlike poetry, the novel cannot be memorized because it is lengthy and prosaic.
Knowledge essentially involves creating, organizing, and storing specific information and concepts within a discipline. Therefore, we can say that science production is naturally a literary activity. Some contemporary anthropologists like Goody (1977, 1987) and Ong (1982) believe that developing new sciences would not have been possible without a solid literate culture. Accurate writing is essential to developing all branches of science and advancing history, philosophy, and art. Goody (1977, 1987) suggests that the written culture, especially after the invention of the printing press, significantly impacted the development of rationalism in Europe.
Likewise, Eisenstein (1980) suggested that the progress of writing, more than anything else, freed knowledge from the chains of time and space and caused dramatic changes in the human mind. Spoken language is incapable of expressing scientific and complex ideas. Oral cultures have rich traditions and wisdom but do not efficiently accumulate knowledge and, therefore, cannot build complex systems in physical or social sciences (Ong, 1987; Rosenberg, 1987). Geometry, arithmetic, physics, chemistry, and many other disciplines cannot be expressed in spoken language. In the speech, statistics, numbers, tables, graphs, equations, and curves cannot be presented, and phenomena cannot be accurately explained. Moreover, in any scientific field, the creation and transmission of concepts are only possible through precise writing. That is why orality hinders the creation and preservation of scientific and technical knowledge.
The Centrality of Religion and Tradition
In oral cultures, a significant part of people’s lives is devoted to remembering past knowledge and experiences. Goody (1977) reported that the orality of a culture often corresponds to the amount of memorization. As the past becomes central to social life, tradition and, by extension, religion gain importance. The communal nature of oral communication upholds the conservation of existing social order and reinforces the mainstream traditional and religious values and beliefs. In oral cultures, such as Iran, religion, family, and older people are highly respected as they represent the repositories of knowledge and wisdom (Goody, 1987; Maxwell & Macaulay, 2006; Rosenberg, 1987).
Furthermore, in oral cultures, the information exchanged among members of society is affected by oral inaccuracies and, after a certain time, acquires miraculous and magical properties. In other words, the spoken information strengthens belief in religion, mysticism, superstition, and miracles. According to the empirical studies conducted by Inglehart (1997), Inglehart and Baker (2000), and Inglehart and Welzel (2005), Iran is classified as a highly traditional and religious country. Knowledge does not depend on memory in literate cultures, as it is generally stored in written instructions. Writing allows abstraction, analytical thinking, and criticism and encourages the creation of new knowledge to the detriment of tradition (Rosenfeld et al., 2009). In literate cultures, convention, religion, family, and older people lose their importance as they no longer represent the repositories of knowledge. Furthermore, the individualist nature of reading undermines commonly held religious beliefs and paves the way for secularity, rationality, and free thinking.
Business and Entrepreneurship
The differences between oral and literate cultures become very apparent in commerce, business, and entrepreneurship. In Western countries, marked by solid literate cultures, writing is widely used to sell or buy various items, such as houses, cars, and even daily necessities. In literate cultures, buyers and sellers do a significant amount of their negotiations and transactions in writing. In contrast, in an oral culture like Iran, most, if not all, transactions are made orally and through direct negotiations between buyers and sellers.
In literate cultures, goods generally have price tags. Therefore, before purchasing a product, buyers can compare their purchasing power with the tagged price and make decisions. In an oral culture such as Iran, most items do not have accurate price tags, and buyers must ask the sellers directly for the price of each item. Even when questioned, many Iranian sellers avoid offering accurate prices and instead try to entertain buyers with compliments and welcoming phrases. According to Hall’s (1976) theory, Iranian culture is high context, implying that the message’s meaning is highly dependent on the context of communication, not the message itself. In other words, the prices should be found in the context of a transaction. Many Iranian businesses still refrain from displaying the exact price, even with online platforms. Not having a price tag allows the sellers to use the price discrimination method and receive more money depending on the circumstances.
In Iran and many countries in the Middle East, negotiation and haggling is part of social life (Hofstede, 2001). In such oral cultures, everything has to be negotiated. Haggling is not limited to buying and selling but encompasses all day-to-day activities. Since information and concepts are unstable, negotiation plays a vital role in setting boundaries and determining outcomes. In Iran’s oral culture, the seller-buyer relationship involves complex verbal games that begin with warm greetings and gradually become verbal contests. During the transaction, buyers and sellers get angry, reconcile, swear, talk about their personal lives, and turn the transaction into an emotional affair.
For example, sometimes sellers swear that they will not break even under a specific price or talk about their issues to affect buyers’ decisions. Both parties may use exaggeration, irony, sarcasm, swear words, and threats to put the other party in a weak position. In this transaction, everything is negotiated: quality of the goods, quantity, price, and terms of payment. Once the item has been purchased, and the transaction has been completed, a payment receipt is generally not redeemed. Everything happens orally, and the written word does not play an important role. Many traditional bazaar merchants believe that counting and recording the amount of money lessens its blessing. This type of oral business ignores basic accounting principles.
Most of the world’s biggest companies, from Nestlé, Peugeot, and Benz to Pepsi-Cola, McDonald’s, Microsoft, Apple, and Google, have grown from small businesses to big giants. In oral and traditional cultures such as Iran, entrepreneurship is usually based on family habits and has limited scope. Starting and running a business is dependent on the founders and owners. Thus, its success or failure largely depends on the personality and skills of founders and owners. Essential managerial functions, such as planning, organizing, recruiting, controlling, and leadership often rely on interpersonal relationships, thus reducing efficiency and growth prospects. A traditional business in Iran can produce excellent products, but the quality of its product ultimately depends on the presence of the owner because he is the one who manages everything and keeps the manufacturing secrets. Even if several company branches are established, there are usually significant differences in the product’s quality, price, and characteristics. Without well-written instructions, this type of business solely depends on a few individuals and can hardly grow across time and space.
Governance
Contemporary history shows that Iran’s freedom and democratization movements have not succeeded over the past 100 years, especially in recent times. All freedom-seeking movements in Iran have failed and were replaced by another dictatorship (Abrahamian, 2008). The reasons for the failure of pro-democracy movements in Iran are multiple, but it can be said that the lack of written culture and cultural characteristics have been one of the most important reasons for the decline of democracy in Iran. In the definition of democracy, it is often said that democracy is the rule of the people over the people. Of course, this is a lexical definition. However, it is evident that the rule of the people over the people requires the rule of law. The law is a neutral, precise, and universal written statement that applies to all community members. The law is, above all, a form of writing. Expressing the law in an oral message is impossible because speech is inaccurate, emotional, and inconstant.
Even the first laws in ancient times were inscriptions. Among them, the Tablet of Hammurabi and the Ten Commandments of Moses are worth mentioning (Davies, 2010). Unlike the rule of law, which relies on writing, authoritarianism is built on speech subject to autocrats’ emotions, desires, and whims. The rule of law is ineffective in an oral culture like Iran, where most social transactions are based on speech and interpersonal relationships. Without a solid literate culture, it is generally not possible to achieve democracy and enjoy the benefits of the rule of law.
Iran’s leadership style at the organizational or societal level has been described as hierarchical, implying that the people prefer strong leaders and accept/expect that power is distributed very unequally (Daniel, 2001; Hofstede, 2001; House et al., 2004; Javidan & Dastmalchian, 2003). For that reason, status, title, profession, and social class are critical in Iran. Oral communication offers an opportunity for creating emotional and irrational bonds between the leader and his followers. For example, in Iran, it is customary to see business, and political leaders retain some power even after retirement because their power does not stem from their office.
A good leader is not someone who consults with others and seeks their opinion to run the organization but acts as an autocrat. In return, the followers remain loyal to the leader and consider obedience to him obligatory in all circumstances. As Hoveyda (2003) pointed out, the leader in societies like Iran is an authoritarian father who allows himself to punish his children severely. That could explain why Iranian leaders traditionally have a patronizing attitude toward their subordinates (Javidan & Dastmalchian, 2003).
Oral communication is directly associated with such a hierarchical structure. The social status of the speaker and the audience often influences the meaning of an oral message. In oral communication, criticism is not welcome because it disturbs interpersonal and power relations. Even if a criticism succeeds, it results in a revolt only against the person, but it does not change the situation because the social structure remains the same (Raven, 2001). That is why oral cultures tend to be more hierarchical and less egalitarian. On the contrary, writing democratizes knowledge by making it accessible to many people, thus eliminating some information disparities. Additionally, writing introduces critical thinking and encourages skepticism about a society’s core beliefs and values (Goody & Watt, 1963; Rodgers, 1984).
Western European countries, especially Britain, France, the United States, and Spain, increased their geopolitical and civilizational hegemony by spreading their languages and cultures to different parts of the world. Many of the institutions formed in Western countries have propagated worldwide through writing. The colonial countries of Europe used their literate cultures to impose their educational, economic, fiscal, legal, ideological, and administrative systems on other countries.
For example, the Alliance Française, a cultural foundation, was founded by the French government in 1883 to pave the way for the expansion of French colonial influence in other countries, particularly in Africa (Gosnell, 2008). Without a solid literate culture, a country cannot expand its civilizational influence. Oral cultures will gradually dissolve into other literate civilizations. In addition to being limited in the temporal dimension, oral cultures have significant limitations in the spatial dimension and cannot be transmitted over a vast geography and among many people. Oral cultures’ temporal and spatial limitations prevent their civilizations from growing to a desirable degree of sophistication and influence.
Discussion and Conclusion
This article has relied on the seminal theory of Ong (1982) and a leading line of anthropological research (see: Goody, 1987; Horowitz & Berkowitz, 1964; Horowitz & Newman, 1964) to analyze the socio-cultural implications of orality in Iran. We first defined orality and literacy as distinct modes of communication and examined their conceptual properties. Then, we relied on the extant literature to analyze the implications of orality in six areas of Iranian society: communication and comprehension, education, literature and science, religion and tradition, business and entrepreneurship, and governance.
As shown in Table 1, information and comprehension in an oral culture, such as Iran are marked by redundancy, repetition, high degree of emotion, inaccuracy, ambiguity, exaggeration, flowery language, restricted vocabulary, temporal and spatial constraints, and high-context dependency. Because of these features, communication, and comprehension in Iran can be labeled as fluid, affective and imprecise. Since much of the knowledge in oral cultures are preserved and transmitted via the spoken language, education in oral cultures such as Iran focuses on memorization and quotation to the detriment of critical thinking and creativity. Furthermore, there is a significant gap between speech and writing that can make reading and writing less attractive.
Our research shows poetry is central to Iranian society as Persian poems preserved and transmitted traditional information. Some features of Persian poetry, such as rhyme, melody, and alliteration, make it pleasant to retold and memorize. By contrast, prose and novels are not very attractive in oral cultures, and for that reason, as a literary genre, the novel remains in its infancy in Iranian culture.
The creation and dissemination of scientific knowledge are highly dependent on robust and precise written language. Many scientific and technical disciplines, including geometry, arithmetic, physics, and chemistry, cannot be expressed or taught only in spoken language. That is why oral cultures such as Iran face difficulty advancing their scientific and technical capabilities. Orality implies a constant gaze at the past and tradition, particularly religion. Literacy involves individualism, abstraction, analytical thinking, and criticism and is detrimental to religion and tradition.
As shown in Table 1, business and entrepreneurship are highly affected by orality. When most business activities are done via oral language, the transaction becomes fluid, prices are elastic, and negotiation determines everything. For instance, in Iran, where most of the business information is created and transmitted orally, accurate price tags hardly exist, and the levels of price and conditions of the transaction remain subject to haggling. This unsystematic way of conducting business creates enormous obstacles to expanding entrepreneurship. Oral communication is highly affected by the asymmetrical relationships between the speaker and the audience. Oral cultures tend to be more hierarchical and authoritarian than literate cultures. The rule of law, democracy, and political participation necessitates some types of universally applied principles that can be expressed only in a precise written language. For that reason, oral cultures such as Iran are susceptible to embracing authoritarianism and hierarchical social structures where power is distributed unequally.
The Socio-Cultural Implications of Orality in Iran.
Given the above discussions, we suggest the prevalence of orality is both a cause and a consequence of socioeconomic underdevelopment. The short life span of information in oral cultures prevents these cultures from accumulating valuable knowledge and creating more sophisticated social systems. The speed of progress in oral cultures is much slower than in more literate cultures. If a society does not accurately record existing knowledge and pass it on to the next generation, the next generation will not be able to receive and improve upon it. In this situation, the next generation can only repeat the traditions of the past. However, tradition is very different from knowledge. Tradition is a set of social patterns that can be repeated for thousands of years without any criticism or improvement, but knowledge consists of abstract ideas that can be applied in different contexts and result in innovation. Unlike tradition, knowledge is subject to criticism and revision. The former is static; the latter is dynamic.
As Lévi-Strauss (1962) pointed out, tradition essentially consists of repetitive patterns contrary to knowledge. Oral cultures generally emphasize tradition, religion, and myths. As a result, they do not have a favorable view of the future, avoid innovation, and fail to evolve with the times. Oral cultures are more suited to underdeveloped societies with simple mechanisms for managing their affairs and are limited in the information required for economic activities. As societies become more sophisticated, they must accumulate and transmit vast amounts of knowledge and information, which can only be done in writing. That is why writing has become central to economic and political activities in more developed societies.
Literacy changes social and cognitive structures and creates more impersonal and bureaucratic institutions, leading society toward rationality, calculability, efficiency, technological advancement, and democratization (Goody, 1977; 1975; Ong, 1982). Societies with predominantly written cultures are generally more rational and tend to define human relationships based on impersonal rules. In these societies, chaos, and conflict can be more effectively managed at both the micro level (family and friends) and the macro level (politics and society). Literacy positively affects economic development and can promote democracy, the rule of law, and political participation.
While this article offers insights into the socio-cultural implications of orality in Iran, the analysis and findings can be generalized to other developing countries marked by the prevalence of oral communication. The originality of this study resides in using the theory of orality to explain a wide range of social, cultural, and political phenomena in Iran. Despite its conceptual and analytical utility, it should be noted that the dichotomy of orality/literacy involves a significant degree of simplification, especially since digital and hybrid modes of communication are rising in importance today. This qualification does not, however, invalidate its conceptual and analytical applicability; instead, it justifies further research to test its usefulness in other countries. Future studies, therefore, may rely on this case study to determine the effects of orality on other societies and in relation to new and future modes of digital communications.
Footnotes
Declaration of conflicting interests
The author declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
Funding
The author received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.