The Talking Drum: Moving Towarda Psychology of Literacy Transformation

Abstract

This article discusses how the talking drum has been a viable cultural voice for many West and Central African cultures in the acquisition of literacy. Based on this discussion; the author proposes research questions regarding the function and use of music and language, cognition and the psycholinguisticfeatures of the drum languages, the psychological dimension of music production, and its link to acoustic phonetic symbols of the drum languages. Ofparticular concern is the musical character of tonal languages spoken in Africa and the use of the talking drum for literacy purposes. In addition, the article describes the important role of the talking drum in the maintenance of archaic forms of (tonal) languages through mnemonic code systems and the speech mode of drumming.