What is Literacy?

"almost as if you have to know how to read and write to be considered it."

Some of the theories that strike me the most come in no particular order. Ohmann discusses the social construction (recent at that--late 1800's) of the quantafiable terms 'literate' and 'illiterate'. Here we see just another way of separating the dominant group from all others. Those who are possessed of certain skills that one group deems desirable are now called a certain thing; those who do not have this skills are other-than this thing (in this case the former is 'literate'; the latter is 'illiterate'). Here we also see a wonderful reversal of cause and effect: were the people named 'illiterate' on the lower end of the social structure because they didn't possess literacy (in this case, reading and writing skills), or were they deemed to not possess literacy because they were (or as a way of keeping them) on the lower end of the social system? It's easy to look around us today and see that if you are illiterate, you are most likely to end up on the bottom end of the class system; however, when you look at Ohmann's point, it's interesting to consider that the reverse might be closer to reality. Constructing the idea of literacy 100 years ago served/s as a way to keep certain people on the bottom.

This reflects Freire's ideas about literacy as a political construct: an act of empowerment, a social tool of revolt. If the lower classes had come to be segregated by their inabilities to communicate in the dominant discourse, then giving them access--or helping them achieve mastery in such discourse--by definition would help shake up their status in the world. According to Freire, this is the last thing the oppressors want (and hence, the very thing the oppressED need). So here we see the idea that literacy has political impact, not as a side effect, but at its very core; possibly as its very reason for existing as a social category.

All of this still begs the question of what literacy actually is. And this is where James Gee's definition strikes me as the most powerful. I mentioned before that in the case of the late 1800s, literacy may have been synonymous with the ability to read and write. But (and while that's probably wrong) today we need to see the broader implications of the term. Gee's definition can help, and I'll see if I can do it some justice: All humans are possessed of what he calls a 'primary discourse'. We all speak and act in the native language and customs of our families. Of course, the words 'language' and 'family' can be defined in many ways, but the point remains true. All people are capable of communicating in some kind of way with their immediate/intimate primary social group. Everyone can do this, but no one would call it literacy per se. The concept of literacy appears when we attempt to communicate with 'strangers', with those outside this initial group. Here is where we must develop a common discourse, one that is outside both my and your intimate groups discourse. Gee calls this a secondary discourse. It would seem that there are infinite numbers of secondary discourses. There is school discourse, job interview discourse, musical discourse, first-date discourse. Writing and reading are secondary discourses because they are ways of taking our communicative abilities beyond their insider meaning within our primary family. So when Gee defines 'literacy' as the mastery of secondary uses of discourse, it is easy to see why so many would believe literacy to be synonymous with reading and writing. To be sure, this is indeed a literacy. But if we look at Gee's definition, we can see that there are many different literacies. And we must ask why indeed we tend to only count this one literacy as 'literacy'. Who decided this? Who benefits?

This is good shit.