Location: UR Island

Words will not kill us, spoken or written, no matter what my colleagues say about “the death of reading.“

Second Life has featured voice on its “main grid” for a while now, and I’m impressed. Dianna and I tried talking, instead of typing, some time ago. She sounded fine and I—well, I yelled at my laptop.  Di said “you sound like you are talking into a can,” but that will soon be remedied for $20 to buy a computer-gamer’s headset.

We talked—then typed—about what voice will mean in a virtual world.  Soon I’ll only use voice to chat with Di, Cecil, and my other friends who have made the leap.

Voice is not expected to be widespread for a while, given that many SLers go in-world from their boring jobs and it might raise eyebrows if a co-worker overheard “Yeah! Let’s teleport to the beach and ride the jet-skis!  Bring that new dude with the panda-bear’s head!”

My colleague Beeble Baxter is obsessed by this “return to the Agora” that we see around us, as the world of Gutenberg recedes before new multi-modal literacy. This terrifies traditional humanists; I’m an immigrant to this new world.  Cecil Hirvi, who’s reading this (one of my faithful readers) must be jumping for joy now…as a Borg, he’s used to assimilation. 

But, as Beeble and I have discussed at length, why be so scared?  An aural and visual culture can work…just get into a time machine and visit the Athens of Pericles.

I’m teaching the Socratic dialogs now that focus on the time just before the philosopher’s death. There one sees a culture where writing was just catching on; one dialog I’m not teaching pits Socrates, the proponent of spoken discourse, against Phaedrus, who loves that new-fangled thing called “writing.“ Writing, Socrates argued, can be used as a crutch so the writer no longer needs to rely upon memory.

Back then, argument and logic were measured by an orator’s skills (and tricks). Thus we get not only the divergence of spoken and written discourse but also the ancient and ongoing split between those who seek to influence an audience (the rhetoricians) and those who seek to convince the audience of the truth (the philosophers).

Who will have the edge in a new aural culture?  Don’t expect that answer in a 300-word blog!

Be sure to check the “In a Strange Land” Archive for old posts

True Beeble. I like this discussion. Straight on the toppic and not as heated as the last ones I was involved ... and best thing is there are actually arguments

I think why some people have such a hard time transporting the correct message in written (esp. online) text is the fear of broader use of adjectives. When people lose the fear of using them and maybe use even more then one in a sentence the written word tends to be clearer again.

your argument about the radio jockeys is very striking when I read it. I can only sign that because its true. Since we only have a part of the person at hand we tend to build the rest from our imagination.

as for the citing ... only as long as I get a copy (online is perfectly fine) since I think it will be a great reading

Now this is what I call a discussion! Yes, the nuances we can put in our voice is not so easy in writing - even with emoticons and smileyfaces.

I am intrigued by Tenchi’s posting about the value of text only, not hearing the voice of the other because it ruins our own impression of them. This is the opposite of what we experience when we hear our favorite radio personalities and imagine how they look, only to have our fantasy image dashed by their actuality!
Have we ever wished we hadn’t seen the face behind the voice?

I suppose we all are always inventing some of our perceptions of one another, even face to face interaction is not completely unmediated.

Fantastic discussion - may I include it in my research and cite our conversation?

Iggy you give me too much credit I am merely an ambitious amateur with an aborted university career and a special interest in modern approaches to history.

The theory I mentioned is by Friedemann Schulz von Thun who is something like a rockstar of the university professors here in germany.

unfortunately i have just very few things in english at hand mainly this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Friedemann_Schulz_von_Thun
but if you are not afraid to some german I highly recommend you his first book on communication which founded this theory.

Another good read on the subject of communication is Michel Foucault. A french social historian who founded the discourse and power theory which I also find highly interesting. some infos on him can be found here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michel_Foucault

In any way communication in historical or cultural context is one of my favorite subjects or fetish if you like

i never do people harm when pouncing them pappy was back up on his feet in a split second ;D

Tenchi, you and Beeble need to friend each other in-world.  I am very interested in how we encode submessages in what we say or write.

Beeb’s studying some of this in his PhD program, and he’s got students on the loose in SL exploring aspects of identity and communication.

Don’t pounce on him too hard…   Save that for me, when we mud-wrestle for Cecil. You’ll win.

I have just had some spare moments and let Diannas thoughts on this subject pass through my mind.

I think that it very much depends on the style of written speech if there are misunderstandings. Also the inflections and the use of irony or sarcasm can cause the same problems when the people do not have the “ear” for it.

A communication theory states that every message conveys 4 submessages with them. What people make of it depends on which of the “4 ears” they are listening. Some people tend to listen on 4 ears while most are satisfied with two or even one. The choosing of the ear mostly depends on the situation and the relationship between the sender of the message and the listener.

I think that this theory can be applied to every from of communication and so misunderstandings can occur on whichever layer you are communicating. I think that it depends on the sender of the message to code the ear into it and this can be done in any way communication is proceeded. It mainly depends on the skill to give a message as well as the skill to read it in the right way.

Ah…it’s good to see this discussion!  I’ve been swirling in the voice/text debate for over a couple of months now and I have come across the issues posted here as well as others.

It’s the kind of discussion that, well, merits a conference and discussion between people.  In the end, voice wins out in some areas and text in others.  But just EVEN having a discussion about the merits of spoken word versus text is something I don’t regularly come across and usually discuss in a bubble with an occasional individual here or there. 

I’m looking forward to an in-world lecture on the topic of “Phaedrus versus Socrates”.  Maybe a mud-wrestling match will settle it once and for all??

Cecil

Well Beeble. By stating words are sexy I am referring to two things in general.

1. The most people I know are more elaborate when they are writing then when they are talking. The simple dwelling in elaborate written speech is so much fun for me that I like written communication more then voice communication. From my experience voice communication over the net tends to be crude and if more then two persons are involved turn silly quite often and quite fast.

2. In my eyes SL is a playful surrounding like a big RPG. Many people build their characters as a likeness of their meatspace appereance and others give themselves a complete other appereance and behaviour. The written word adds up to this since I complete the character with MY imagination. And when I suddenly hear the other person and that voice does not fit the image I see on that screen it destroys a big deal of the imagination don´t you think?

Hey y’all - the only good reason I have to support voice is the mis-understanding of the typed word…sometimes people think you mean something that you don’t because they cannot hear your voice and the way you express yourself. I have found myself typing lots of explanations (especially with people from other countries whose 1st language is not english) becasue something I typed was perceived as bad when it really wasn’t meant to be. Voice allows us those nuances of inflection as well as sarcasm & joking that don’t always come across as well when read. I don’t want to use it with everyone, but it’s a fun tool to have.

Well, if’n a po’ ignorunt hillbily boy kin ree-ply to sich an intermerleckshul dis-course (which are the opposites o’ dat-course):

Miz Tenchi wood be sexy in a burlap sack an a bad cold, talkin’ o’ typin’ away.

Thar. I dun sed it plane as the nose on the top o’ my head.  Wiggly, yu may bee my boss but don’t go ‘round a-foolin’ too much wif my kinfolks.  Miz Tenchi kin pounce!

Beeble, ol’ pal: Wurds kin be rite sexy. I bin a-readin’ that novel-book about Lady Chatty’s Luver, an let mee tell yu:

Hoo-Whee!  Miz Tenchi am rite!

While I have yet to try SL’s voice option, I am intrigued by its introduction because the voice at least reatains some of our original autograph or ‘self-mark’...voice patterns are as unique as fingerprints and represent the ‘mark’ of specific embodiment. Typed text cannot convey the same.

However, Tenchi’s suggetion that the written word is more sexy causes pause…how do you mean exactly? Though these typed characters don’t convey my autographic information, but might the delay in the composition of my thoughts allow me more space for rhetorical seduction?

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