Activation and Preservation: The Interdependence of Text and Performance in an Oral Tradition

Abstract

Very simply and generally, the function of written texts in our culture (and hence the source of the conduit metaphor) is the transmission of information. The writer of a text may have a multitude of reasons for writing the text, and the text, accordingly, may have as many purposes and functions; but stripped to its bare essence, a text is a channel through which information of some sort flows from the writer to the reader.--Information