In all honesty, the concept that the word literacy can mean more than just the ability to read and write was not even brought to my attention until senior year of high school. In some passing statement the teacher made about full comprehension, and articulation as well. That being said, all the other kinds of literacies that exist are only currently being brought to my attention now, after four years of college. More importantly the definition of literacy keeps getting deeper, and more complex.
To start with Hawisher and Selfe “Literacies have lifespans”. This makes sense to me now after thinking on it, at the same time it’s also mind blowing. You could spend your whole life getting to be fluent in or at something just to one day have that knowledge expire. For example, if you are adequate in health literacy and some time in the near future the human body evolves due to a virus to the point of changes to human immune systems. Then the accuracy of your health literacy changes, could even be non-existent depending on how much of the facts that you once knew has changed.
Social Practices
Another form of literacy being Discourse, primary and secondary. Though at the moment I only partially understand Gee’s explanation of the differences the two forms of “Discourse”. I did understand some of the other points he brought up. The strongest of his claims to me is the idea that language is simply a tool. Most of the time it hardly matter what was said, so much as how it was said, and who said it.
This is one of his claims that I can fully understand and agree with. I have had experience with it personally. I consider myself fluent in the English language, so much so that I use different dialect with different people. It’s sometimes called code switching. My first language wasn’t English even though it is my most fluent. I learned English in a very proper manner, using diction and all vowels, and focus on pronunciation.
When I went to school I realized that the other kids did not talk this way. I was often asked “why do you talk smart”, which seemed a really funny question to me because in my head I thought ‘why would I want to talk stupid. I later realized it didn’t what I ‘Talked’ or what it was called what mattered was communication. I would have to change how I communicated in order to reach an understanding with my audience. Now I know how to say at least three different things with the same head nod, or look.
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