This essay Sharing Tradition has been written by an American writer Frank LaPena. Here in this essay, we can find the vision of sharing tradition through oral means which is the oral tradition. This essay is about handing on culture and values from generation to generation through oral tradition to maintain our traditional and cultural values in human society. Here in this essay, the writer has explained the importance of tradition for the people of this world and its preservation through the oral tradition which is an art form.
Here, LaPena has highlighted our traditional and cultural values which are very much vital for our bright future. According to him, we must listen to our elders to maintain our cultural and traditional norms and values. In this essay, LaPena has put forward his opinions in favour of oral tradition and its preservation. He has even talked about different factors which have affected oral tradition and created problems to maintain our culture and values.
Before You Read
a. Do you share your cultural traditions with your friends?
Answer: Yes, I share my cultural traditions with my friends. I tell them about my family's rituals, ceremonies and cultural events. I have even invited my friends to attend religious ceremonies at my home many times.
b. Did your parents tell you stories when you were a child? If yes, did they have anything to do with your culture or values?
Answer: Yes, my parents told me stories when I was a child. Their stories related to religions had a direct connection with my own culture or values. Their religious stories taught me the actual sense of my religion and its norms and values.
c. Should we preserve our cultural values and traditions? Why?
Answer: Yes, we should preserve our cultural values and traditions. We should preserve them to maintain our cultural and traditional values in our life. Due to their preservation, our life can move ahead along with the right thoughts and decisions. Our cultural values and traditions always show us righteous paths in our lives.
Who is the writer of Oral Tradition?
Main Summary
Sharing Tradition by Frank LaPena Frank LePena talks about the importance of oral tradition. In this essay, he keeps on telling all his readers about his experiences and thoughts related to oral tradition. According to him, the oral tradition refers to a form of art of human communication where knowledge, art, ideas and cultural material is received, preserved and transmitted orally from generation to generation. In other words, oral tradition is about passing on information related to cultures and values from generation to generation through oral means. This transmission is made through speech or song, folktales, ballads, chants, prose or verses etc. Oral tradition helps to maintain the values of the culture. The task of sharing tradition isn't minor. The task of sharing tradition through oral means seems easy to talk and write but quite hard to practise. Here, both the elders and young people play a very vital role to maintain and preserve the values of the culture.
The role of speakers (elders) and listeners (young people or followers) is very important. The knowledge of close elders related to cultures, traditions, religions, and values must be listened to and followed properly by young people. The elders share the traditions and various concepts related to cultures and values with the young people. After the death of elderly people, young people have to fill up their places being responsible. They have to take responsibility for sharing tradition after elders through oral tradition to maintain cultures and values in their community. In this way, the oral tradition keeps on moving from generation to generation preserving cultures and values. Young people are able to make elders alive by maintaining their concepts of tradition and knowledge of life in the community.
The concepts of elders move from generation to generation being immortal. Tradition keeps on moving ahead properly if we are aware of our culture. The lifestyle of elders, their concepts related to life, belief, religion, culture, values etc made them capable to acquire the ideal position in their life. They kept on sharing their tradition orally from generation to generation for the welfare of humanity. They showed the righteous paths to survive ahead. Their acts of sharing tradition were for the future of the coming generation and their life. Oral tradition is the educational tool for understanding this natural world. It is the proper way to secure the cultures and values of the people. According to the writer, there are some problems with maintaining oral tradition from generation to generation.
These Problems of Maintaining Oral Tradition
1. Difficulty in filling up the 'niche' of elders:
To maintain our culture, it is necessary to pass on the oral tradition from generation to generation. The young people have to listen and follow their elders and fill their ideal position (niche). But, the task of filling elders' places is very difficult. The young people and their interests in their culture seem weak because the elders' religious obligations as religions, ceremonies, dance etc are related to their culture. In modern times, young people don't prefer to listen to them and maintain culture and tradition. The niche of elders has become hard to fill up. Due to this, a problem has been seen in passing oral tradition from generation to generation to maintain culture and values.
2. Impacts of modern technology on people:
Every generation faces new and modern technology which replaces the old things and concepts. The modern world and its people are moving on with drastic changes ahead along with modern technology. In the name of development, various changes are being made in this natural world. Traditional things are replaced with new things. The change in climate and the natural world has been seen due to modern technology. People are seen as very busy with modern technology. Modern technology and their loneliness have separated them from each other. In this situation, it is difficult to maintain traditional and cultural values through oral means due to the lack of active listeners or followers.
3. Modern Educational System and its impacts:
The modern educational system and the way of perceiving it divert people's minds. The knowledge in the present time is perceived through doing research and collecting data. The oral materials which researchers get in the field related to tradition may not be correct. The information related to oral tradition is even modified while printing. But, the information of oral tradition can be modified or even corrected through oral means. The educational process forces people to accept the information from the printed pages which are full of errors and very difficult to correct. The published information related to cultures and values creates a kind of problem in passing on cultures and values from generation to generation through oral means.
4. Source of information and way of perceiving and sharing it:
Oral tradition is fully dependent on oral means. It doesn't have any writing records as a literary tradition. The provided information by the speakers is transmitted mistakenly sometimes. Sometimes, the information is even perceived mistakenly by the listeners. Due to the gap between generations, the truth of the elders' historical information might turn into fantasy for the listeners. In this situation, it becomes quite difficult to validate oral tradition or traditional stories. There must be a proper understanding between the speakers and the listeners. The listeners must have belief in what they are listening to. The way of perceiving and transmitting information must be made keeping trust in our traditions and elders.
Conclusion
This short essay "Sharing Tradition" has been written by an American writer Frank LaPena. This essay is about the importance of our culture and the values of our tradition and its preservation. This essay has mainly focused on the controlling idea of sharing tradition from generation to generation through oral means for the bright future of the world and its people. The task of sharing tradition is quite important where both the elders and the young people play very vital roles to preserve our norms, values, and cultures of our tradition. There must be continuous responsibility of generations to maintain our culture and values of tradition.
The transmission of information from one generation to another generation through oral means must be authentic. It is very much important to listen to our elders to understand the real value of our tradition. The elders and their ideal positions in society make them the guardian and caretakers of our tradition. After them, their places are quite hard to fill up. The young people have to show their interest in their tradition and their elders' words. They have to follow their elders and share the information with the coming generation being responsible to maintain our tradition. In the present time, the task of sharing tradition seems a bit harder than expected.
The problems of oral traditions are mentioned above; Thus, an oral tradition is an art form where elders pass on their concepts related to culture and values to young people through oral means. It is an educational tool for understanding the natural world. The role of the elders and young people is so important in oral tradition. The concepts of elders remain immortal if their concepts are followed and properly transmitted by young people being responsible.
Exercise
Understanding The Text
a. According to LaPena, what is the importance of oral tradition? To what extent do you agree with his opinions and why?
➜ According to LaPena, the meaning of the oral tradition is to preserve and maintain the culture and values of our tradition from generation to generation by word of mouth, I fully agree with his views, because the culture and values of tradition should be nurtured and protected from generation to generation for the benefit of people and their life. Cultural and traditional values
b. Who preserves and passes on the oral tradition?
➜ An Oral tradition is an art form where information about culture and values is passed down from generation to generation orally. Elders and young people play a vital role in the preservation and transmission of oral tradition. Firstly, the task of preserving and transmitting the oral tradition is done by the elders, then the young people have this task, this task is continued from generation to generation, the most important being that the elders and the young must be responsible for this task of preservation and transmission. oral tradition.
c. What is the danger of not passing on information from generation to generation?
➜ The danger of not passing information down from generation to generation is that the culture and values of our tradition will die out. People have to survive meaningless lives without their cultural and traditional values.
d. What is the difference between oral tradition and literary tradition?
➜ An oral tradition is a form of art in which information relating to culture and values are transmitted from generation to generation through oral means. Mistakes in oral tradition can be modified and corrected at any time by oral means. Subsequently, the literary tradition refers to both the written and the printed tradition in which information is transmitted through written means. Here in this literary tradition, mistakes are quite difficult to change and correct.
e. How does LaPena establish a relationship between art and the oral tradition?
➜ LaPena establishes the relationship between art and oral tradition through his views, in which he describes the transmission of oral tradition from generation to generation, says that the task of handing down tradition from generation to generation by word of mouth is a form of art in which speakers (old) and listeners (young imitators) play a very important role. This art form is carried over from generation to generation, successfully sustaining and preserving culture and values. Information related to tradition is communicated quite artistically through oral speech, folk tales, ballads, songs, prose, verses, etc. Oral tradition is a unique art whereby the culture and values of tradition are preserved and upheld in this world.
Reference to the Context
a. LaPena states that oral tradition helps maintain the values of a culture. If you believe that the oral tradition is important, how would you maintain it?
➜ I would maintain oral tradition by doing the following activities: Try my best to convey information about culture and values by word of mouth. Try to make people aware of the importance of oral tradition. Organize a team in my community to support our culture and traditions by word of mouth. Inform you about the advantages of oral tradition for my people. Ask my team members to pass authentic information to everyone orally.
b. “Not everyone is capable of fulfilling the roles of the elders.” Explain this statement with reference to the essay.
➜ Not everyone can fulfil the role of elders, the elderly are the basis of our tradition. Our culture and values are first and foremost preserved and maintained by the elders. Their roles in maintaining and preserving our culture and our traditional values are exceptional. on preserving and maintaining our culture and values of oral tradition from generation to generation. Because of their vital roles, they become able to acquire ideal positions in their life. Their duties and obligations related to their cultural and traditional values such as religions, ceremonies, dance, etc. reflect their way of life and knowledge of their tradition which touches many people in the community. After the death of the elders, this niche is quite difficult to fill.
c. What is the controlling idea or thesis of this essay?
➜ The controlling idea or thesis of this essay is about sharing traditions by oral methods and even the correct way of passing it on from generation to generation. This essay has demonstrated the importance of sharing tradition for all readers. The task of orally sharing tradition is a form of art where the elders and youth play a very important role in preserving and preserving the culture and values of tradition. The task of sharing tradition has many problems on its way. The elders and the youth need to be responsible. They need to trust each other and share the right information.
d. How do topic sentences guide the reader through the essay? What would be lost without them?
➜ Topic sentences guide readers to provide them with various ideas regarding the importance of word of mouth sharing traditionally. Topic sentences refer to the sentences that appeared initially in each paragraph. The values of the tradition and how to maintain and preserve them. These themes support word of mouth and how to preserve and preserve the culture and values of tradition. These topics will lose a lot in the essay as follows: Correct conceptions of the tradition of sharing. Controlling the idea of the essay. Oral tradition and its importance. The role of the elderly and youth. Problems in the preservation and conservation of oral traditions. Solutions for maintaining oral tradition.
e. What are the four major problems developed by LaPena with regard to maintaining the oral tradition. How are they used to structure the essay?
➜ The four main issues developed by La Pena regarding maintaining oral tradition are: Difficulty filling the elders' niche with the problem of sharing traditions through verbal traditions. The influence of modern technology. Impacts of the modern education system. Information sources and how to recognize and share them.
Reference Beyond The Text
a. Write a paragraph or two explaining your attitude toward the oral tradition of passing along information.
➜ I think that oral tradition is one of the effective practices for sustaining and preserving the culture and values of the tradition for all the people of this world. I also accept oral tradition as an art form, where both elderly and young people play their vital roles in preserving and maintaining culture and traditional values by passing on authentic information from generation to generation. For everyone, the practise of oral tradition is very important. We can preserve and keep our cultural and traditional values through oral tradition. We can secure our cultural and traditional identity through the help of oral tradition.
b. Our culture is our identity. Write a few paragraphs explaining how you intend to preserve your culture, values and norms.
➜ Our identity is our culture. In our lives, our culture, values and norms play a very significant role. Our whole life hinges on our culture. Culturally, we are linked to our civilization. We can do good in our lives because of our culture, standards and values. These elements teach us in our lives to choose the right paths, thoughts and decisions. I intend to preserve my culture, values and norms by performing the following activities: Celebrating every ceremony linked to my culture. Making people aware of the significance of our culture, values and standards. Advertising or promoting cultural and traditional events in my society. Forming a cultural heritage related organization. Sharing culture-related information and the values of my tradition.
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