This is the unedited version of my story: "The Power of Sleep"
How does the text deviate from conventions of written English?
Punctuations aid immensely in providing meaning of text to the audience. We grew up in systems where these writing conventions are prerequisites for good writing. There are barely any indications of the beginning and end of sentences, nor clues to pause to ensure that the reader understands and interprets the text in the way it was intended. This is the major writing convention deviation that I have noticed. As an ELA teacher reading posts on social media sites, I often find texts without proper writing conventions annoying and often question whether the writer actually read what they wrote prior to posting. The text above reminds me of such posts.
"prior" is written as "per" in the story
In the fourth to last line, It should have been ..."is now a family joke" but it was transcribed as "not a family joke."
reading of the text can be considered difficult because it seems like one everlastingly long sentence.
words are mostly correctly spelt.
My mom's names begin with capital letters
the text is written from left to right in lines in the order the story was spoken
What are the most common "mistakes" in the texts and why do you consider them "mistakes"?
Lack of proper punctuations and capital letters (mentioned earlier) would be the most common mistake.
Everything is one big paragraph, even though I tried to pause long enough at the end of my sentences and even longer when I was explaining a new event. We have been taught to organize our ideas in paragraphs using particular writing formulas and anything outside the prescribed convention indicates a lack of structure/organization in our thoughts.
When I said the word, prior, it was transcribed as "per." This is considered a "mistake" because I am conversant with the meaning that I want the text to convey to the reader and that mistake changes the meaning of that section of the story.
What if you had "scripted" the story? What difference might that have made?
My story would have:
been organized into paragraphs, as required of narrative writing structure
been written with proper capitalization and punctuations would have been placed where appropriate to help my reader with phrasing, pauses, mood, and overall interpretation of the text
more transition word and less fillers
I already know the story I'm telling and the message that I want my reader to take away. I would have also edited to ensure that there are less mistakes and ensure clarity in the events being told.
In what ways does oral storytelling differ from written storytelling?
With oral storytelling:
Our thoughts can be articulated by the actual sounds that come from our mouths, written storytelling lacks that feature.
The gestures produced are powerful in transmitting meaning to ones audience and add a greater quality to the oral storytelling, which written texts also try to capture using images from descriptive words and punctuations. This speaks to the ability to connect with ones audience.
Meaning-making in oral communication is also related to the culture from which one originates and the language that culture speaks.
Feedback from the audience is instantaneous and the storyteller can make necessary adjustments to the tone, style of talking, length of the story, etc.
With written storytelling:
The plethora of words from several origins, "enlarges the potentiality of language beyond measure, restructures thought" and is more powerful than the number of words in oral storytelling (Ong, 2002). This is in part because new words are constantly being coined and accepted due to the mix of cultures and languages across the world.
References:
Ong, W.J. (2002). Chapter 1: The orality of language. In Orality and literacy: The technologizing of the word (pp. 5-16). Routledge. (Original work published 1982).
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