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Listen to a lecture. Take notes on the information presented.
oral – spoken
transmit – to send or convey from one person or place to another
definitive – better than all others
embellish – to make a story more interesting by adding new details
flexibility – being able to adapt or change
Listening:
View the transcriptW: Today, I'd like to talk about oral traditions in ancient societies. In the ancient world, most people did not rely on writing for communication, especially not for storytelling, a fact that has two important consequences for ancient stories. First, ancient stories that were transmitted by word of mouth were not finished, or completed, like written stories are today. In other words, there wasn't one definitive version of a story. Today, an author writes a story and it is complete; it doesn't change. Ancient stories, on the other hand, were always told differently. If you were telling a story you heard, you could change things about the story: add some details to entertain your audience. Say, for instance, you wanted to tell your story to a group of soldiers. You might embellish it by adding battle scenes. Later, another person might add a bit of romance to the story to make it more entertaining for the audience. So there was a lot of flexibility in how the story could be told. Different people could tell it different ways. Second, the stories often didn't have an identifiable author. We don't know who first told them. So, when people finally wrote these stories down on paper, they were not the actual authors, even though they often put their names on these stories. In some cases, these stories remain anonymous. So you have ancient stories that are said to be the work of some author, but in truth, the stories were told and retold by many people, so that we don't really know who first started telling it. Really, an entire culture might be the most valid author.
Read the prompt below.
Using points and examples from the lecture, explain how oral traditions affected ancient stories.
Look again at your notes from the listening. Decide what information from the lecture should be included into the response.
Listening:
Write down your summary of the lecture in the listening.
- Topic: How ancient stories are told.
- Thesis: Because stories were not written down, they were affected in two ways.
- Key point 1: Stories often changed when they were told aloud.
- Key point 2: Stories did not have only one author.
Deliver your response, including all the facts and using necessary transitions.
Listen to a sample response. Note any useful ideas and expressions that could improve your response.
The lecturer says that in ancient societies, people told stories to each other. They did not write them down, and this had two consequences for ancient stories. First, it meant that stories often changed each time someone told them. For instance, the professor talks about how you could add battle scenes or romance to make a story more interesting for your audience. Second, stories never had an author like they do today. So many people who we think created the ancient stories might have just been the ones who wrote them down.
Notes for the Response:
Now give your response to the prompt again, incorporating useful expressions from the sample, while also paying attention to your pronunciation and intonation. Record your time.
