Home | Business News | Browse by Publication | S | Southwest Journal of Linguistics

Literacy and Literacies: Texts, Power, and Identity.

Article Excerpt
By James Collins and Richard K. Blot. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003. Pp. 238.

The present volume attempts to trace the relationship between traditional and modern interpretations of literacy and the impact that the role of text has had on societal structure. Although not specifically stated by the authors, the audience best suited for this book is that of scholars of linguistics and/or literacy studies.

In the first chapter, the authors lay the theoretical groundwork for the book by outlining the overarching themes that will be addressed in the volume. Here the authors concern themselves with distinguishing between the notions of 'Literacy' and 'Literacies' from their title. The former term, in the singular, refers to the knowledge and skills required to decode and encode textual messages. The authors assert that this interpretation reflects more 'universalist' models of literacy, ones 'which conceive it as a uniform set of techniques and uses of language, with identifiable stages of development and clear, predictable consequences for culture and cognition' (3-4). Such models assume a clear and progressive contrast between literacy and orality, and, the authors contend, have even made assertions for superiority of Western forms of literacy (with alphabetic systems) over those of the East (with syllabary or logographic systems).

The authors contrast this first term in their title with that of 'literacies.' In its plural form, C&B's use of the term encompasses the notion of multiple forms of literacy, including ones which have no specific obligation to textual material, such as 'cultural literacy' and 'moral literacy.' As such, this movement toward a plurality of forms places equal emphasis on the social construction of knowledge leading to literacy, that is, the 'ways' of knowing, as it does on the texts itself. In doing so, the concept casts doubt upon the notion of a clearly defined separation between orality and text and calls into question the supremacy assigned to the written word over oral forms as societies have progressed.

To develop their arguments regarding 'literacy' and 'literacies,'the authors focus on the critical examination of how the notions of 'tex-t' and 'power' are defined, and how these two notions have shaped, and are shaped by, a sense of individual and community identity.

To explore the notion of 'literacy,' the authors lead Chapter 2 with a quote from nineteenth century anthropologist Sir Edward Burnett Tylor, who writes, in part, that 'it is no doubt right to draw a line between barbarian and civilized where the art of writing comes in, for this gives permanence to history,...

View this article FREE - Now for a Limited Time, try Goliath Business News
Free for 3 Days!