The Singer of Technology

Abstract

Using frameworks from Ong, Turner, and Frohmann, the author analyzes excerpts from Hesiod’s Works and Days and from the Book of Exodus for technical features. These documents were found to contain technical information that was best used in face-to-face interaction. Further, the documents exhibit evidence of residual orality, an encroachment of oral register into written. These findings suggest that technical communication originates in the genres and oral registers of ancient cultures. Such details have been missed owing to a written bias of technical communication and of scholars who look upon such works only as literature. Presently, oral-based information is viewed as informal and less authoritative than written information. In the absence of writing, however, information can only be transmitted orally.