Abstract
This research discusses communication and meaning in the context of orality, using a variety of perspectives including memory theory, media and communication theory, and semiotics. Drawing on the work of Walter Ong, it provides new insight about the characteristics of oral narration by assessing the memes, tropes, and phraseological units in the testimonies of Armenian Genocide survivors. This research identifies replicable forms of stories and devices; it proposes that oral narration of non-fictional topics designed to convey information to others is intuitive, reactive, directed, fuzzy, and sticky. The focal point is the meaning embedded in the structure of the narrations.
About the author
Reuben Zaramian (b. 1986) can be contacted at 〈rzaramian@gmail.com〉.
©2014 by Walter de Gruyter Berlin/Munich/Boston
