Imagine what the world was like with no dictionaries, reference books, libraries, no Internet. A culture where words mean what they do relevant to individual situations. This kind of direct semantic ratification is still used in oral cultures today and is the foundation for all communication we are now familiar with.
Because the ways of studying the oral and written modalities has shifted in recent years, our perception of the human identity has changed. Since we are creatures that have been born into a "literate" society, it would then seem obvious for Ong to use our familiarity with written texts as a starting point. Yet, instead he deconstructs the way we interpret discourse by introducing the notion of strictly oral cultures, a phenomenon unfamiliar to most of his readers. By looking at the two modes simultaneously, he can synthesize the two modalities to show us how the inextricable relationship between them infiltrates all communication.
Knowledge that there is a difference between
the written and "oral literature" may be a simple concept at first. Yet
because we as readers are immersed in a literate society, it may be hard
for us to imagine cultures such a Ong explains. Thinking in a non-written
way requires readers' sensitivity to each case in a different way. Each
act of discourse, no matter what the modality, calls for our consciousness
of the cultural implications affecting the exchange, as well as an awareness
of our own cultural biases upon interpreting it.