ABSTRACT
In this chapter I draw together some theoretical and methodological threads from the various different studies of literacy represented within this book. These studies share common roots in the anthropological ethnographic tradition of documenting literacy activities in small communities, but also go beyond this tradition in their analysis of how the meanings of local events are linked to broader cultural institutions and practices. The New Literacy Studies researchers start by conceptualising literacy not in terms of skills and competencies, but as an integral part of social events and practices. This means that particular attention is given to people’s use of oral language around texts, and to the ways in which the meaning and use of texts is culturally shaped. The notion of ‘literacy events’ highlights the mediation of texts through dialogue and social interaction, in the context of particular practices and settings (Heath 1983), and the conception of ‘literacy practices’ incorporates both events, and people’s beliefs and understandings about them (Street 1995). The studies in this book explore and extend the analytical potential of these concepts, through a more detailed theorising of ideas about context and intertextuality, and about the role of language. They examine how language mediates people’s interactions with texts, both at the local level in actual dialogues, and in terms of the broader discourses which shape local uses and meanings. I shall suggest that the taking on of more complex ideas about discourse and intertextuality in these studies of literacy enables the researchers to more clearly conceptualise the pivotal role of literacy practices in articulating the links between individual people’s everyday experience, and wider social institutions and structures. It also enables them to explore issues of power, through examining the relationship between micro-and macro-level contexts.
