Discourse Through the Use of Language and Literacy

When I read the article from James Paul Gee, I was confronted with terms I had heard of but never thought to define them in an academic context. My ideas of literacy, language use and discourse did not come from directly learning about these terms. For example, my idea of literacy was more centered around being literate, thus capable of reading and writing. I knew this without the memory of when or where I was taught it, but I still knew it. This article expands on that notion though that literacy is more than that. There are levels to literacy in academics, in social situations and in other areas of Discourse. James Paul Gee described a Discourse as a way of being. https://www.jstor.org/stable/027be32d-5dc0-321a-909b-a8550a1bc3fb?seq=3 I came to the understanding that to be a master of a Discourse I would need to be fluent. For example, although I am part of the Discourse community of sports I only consider myself fluent in certain sports like baseball and soccer. While I am almost in training in a way, for my literacy in other sports and other worlds within sports, like sports marketing or management. I would need to use the right language to communicate in a sports Discourse. When I go to broadcast I need to use more professional and particular terminology when describing or analyzing play. The other side of this would be in speaking about the same sports or even the same play in a sport but to a friend, I may simplify the terminology and be potentially more crude or critical in my descriptions. The use of language is important just as described in Gee’s article when he presents the use of proper English and grammar as improper in certain situations, especially social, informal ones. This reminds me of the week one article that bring up the stakes, in that case it was for academic purposes but if you ask that same question of what the problem is or what does the situation call for, it dictates the sort of acceptable language to be used in a Discourse. https://eng2020.chrisfriend.us/blog/why-study-writing/defreitj/navigating-a-writing-assignment-with-questions-and-a-particular-approach/

Related posts:

James Paul Gee and Cervetti article Literacy Is More Than Writing and Reading The Importance of Literacy  Literacy In Writing