This research discusses communication and meaning in the context of orality, using a variety of theoretical perspectives, including memory theory, media and communication theory, and semiotics. Drawing on the work of Walter Ong, it provides new insight about the characteristics and limits of oralnarration by assessing the memes, tropes, and phraseological units in the oral narrations of Armenian Genocide survivors. This research identifies a list of replicable forms of stories and oral devices that are used by the group in question; it then proposes that oral narration of non-fictional topics designed to convey historical or episodic information to others is intuitive, reactive, directed, fuzzy, and sticky. Concerns about the legitimacy and historical value of the narrations under review do not play a role in this research; instead, the focal point is the meaning embedded in the form and structure of the narrations under study.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:LACETR/oai:collectionscanada.gc.ca:OTU.1807/31664 |
| Date | 05 January 2012 |
| Creators | Zaramian, Reuben |
| Contributors | Dilevko, Juris B. |
| Source Sets | Library and Archives Canada ETDs Repository / Centre d'archives des thèses électroniques de Bibliothèque et Archives Canada |
| Language | en_ca |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis |
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