ABSTRACT
The number of adults in the population of Britain who are completely illiterate is negligible. Adult literacy is more a question of levels of competence and capacity for self-expression. As language is always evolving and different types of communication emerging, there can be no absolute standards of this. It is, in fact, extremely rare in Britain, as well as most European countries, to find an adult who is not living in an institution to be completely unable to read or write. The average university graduate has a vocabulary of at least 20,000 words. The size of a person's vocabulary can be assumed to be a fairly good reflection of the level of literacy and their educational standard as a whole. This is summed up by the concepts of elaborated and restricted codes developed by social psychology. Although vocabulary provides, in a manner of speaking, the main building blocks of language, grammar and syntax are equally essential.
