ABSTRACT
In Chapter 4 I discussed some theoretical concepts we need in order to provide a full account of literacy. I said that text as the product of social action was the starting point. However, we need categories that will help us understand what text is, how it is constituted and, above all, what text does. Again, the starting point is social action. Who acts, with what purposes and around what issues? Clearly, in social action there are issues; they may be exceedingly trivial, or they may be significant. Issues are one reason for action. Where there are no issues, there is no action. In earlier formulations (1984/1989) I used the notion of difference to explain the coming into being of text; difference not in the sense that Derrida has used it but in the sense in which we explain lightning: a potential for a current to flow due to a difference in electrical charge. The current is made possible by that difference, with a flow from negative charge to positive charge. In semiosis that difference can be about anything: about who is to act, about purposes, about knowledge, about issues of any kind. Difference as such is itself an issue. In this book I want to use issue to refer to content, to what something is about. In the social semiotic theory that I use, this is dealt with by the category of discourse. It deals with the social provenance, production and organisation of content, following from the work of Michel Foucault.
