Linguistics

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Linguistics Literacy L2 Literacy Semester 2,
2004

• Lecture slides and notes
• Week 1

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What is literacy?

• Literacy has many uses and is difficult to
  define with precision. As is the case with other
  complex notions, metaphors are often used to
  organise our thinking about literacy.

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For example, literacy as a disease

• Like a germ that learns to enjoy penicillin,
  illiteracy consumes all armies sent to fight it.
  No matter what we do about itthe condition
  persists. Depending on how you count them, adult
  illiterates make up anywhere from a tenth to a
  fifth of the Canadian population. We have no
  reason to think their number is shrinking, and
  some reason to fear that it is growingsocial
  evililliteracy is causedThe remedy
• Financial Times (Canada) 4 July 1988 (from
  Barton, p10)

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• The Soviet education system, I felt, had worked
  all too well having created on a colossal scale,
  a generation of highly intelligent, highly
  literate young people who were more or less
  immune to the totalitarian message.
• Bruce Chatwins novel Utz. 1988, p118.
• (Barton, p11)

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Metaphors used to talk about illiteracy

• Condition Response Means Goals
• 1. Sickness Treatment Clinical intervention Cure
• Handicap Rehabilitation Compensatory
  aids Alleviate
• 2. Ignorance Training Instruction Master
• 3. Incapacity Therapy Counselling Adjust
• 4. Oppression Empowerment Political
  action Rights
• 5. Deprivation Welfare More resources Benefits
• 6. Deviance Control Isolation Correction

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In-class activity

• In groups of 2-3 identify which of the metaphors
  of illiteracy are most widely held in Australia
  or other societies you know.

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Definitions of literacy

• - being able to read and write
• - being "educated" (versus illiteracy)
• - being able to understand a knowledge domain or
  use a medium (e.g., cultural literacy, economic
  literacy, computer literacy)

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• Literacy as being able to read and write
• - a set of skills and subskills

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• Literacy as being "educated" (versus
  illiteracy)
• - a marker of education and to a lesser
• extent socioeconomic class.

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• Literacy as being able to understand a knowledge
  domain or use a medium (e.g., political literacy,
  economic literacy, computer literacy)
• - having access to spheres of
  knowledge or information.

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Literacy as social practice.

• - understood in the context of the social
  practices in which it is acquired and used.
• the concept of literacy covers a multiplicity of
  meanings, and definitions carry implicit but
  generally unrecognised views of functions (what
  literacy can do for individuals) and uses
  (individuals can do with literacy skills).
• (Heath, 1980, p 123) in Barton p 26

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Literacy as ideology.

• - what is meant by literacy differs by situation
  and is dependent on ideology.
• Critical literacy researchers examine how
  social structure, which is mediated by language,
  affects the individual and gives rise to
  inequalities in access and power.

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Literacy as autonomous skill.

• - a cognitive skill understandable independently
  from social context.

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Literacy as a constructed notion.

• The study of literacy has been heavily influenced
  by the contructivist view of the world.
  Constructivist approaches assume that social
  reality is a mental model constructed and shared
  by individuals. Language plays a central role in
  the construction of reality.

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Literacy a definition

• Literacy is a set of socially organised
  practices which make use of a symbol system and a
  technology for producing and disseminating it.
  Literacy is not simply knowing how to read and
  write a particular script but applying this
  knowledge for specific purposes in specific
  contexts of use. Scribner Cole, cited in
  Barton (1994) p20.

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• in general, the study of language is undergoing
  a revolution, with the dominant view moving away
  from investigating a system which is described
  solely in terms of its structure the study of
  language is moving toward viewing language as a
  dynamic social activity which serves peoples
  purposes. (Barton, 1994) p54

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Literacy involves mastery of many forms beyond
the basic code (vocab grammar)

• Register Different ways of talking in different
  situations.
• Genre Different structural forms, especially in
  writing, e.g. poetry, essay, want ad
• Discourses Broader ways of using language
  specific to a group or a purpose (legal,
  academic, etc. discourse communities)

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Texts

• Texts are forms (pieces) of language
• Literacy studies are interested in how texts are
  made and the practices surrounding them. These
  include how the text is produced, who it is
  intended for, how it is interpreted, and how it
  is used.

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• PLEASE FLATTEN
• CARDBOARD

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• 5 minute parking only

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Intertextuality

• The way in which texts refer to earlier texts.

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Text and meaning

• Meaning resides in the mind of the reader It is
  what the reader takes from the text.

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Last slide week1