Chapter 5 Print Language, Literate Culture

Chapter 5
Print Language, Literate
Culture
Written Language, textual culture
– Historical perspective on how technology affected
the relationship bet language & culture:
• Invention of writing (3000 BC)
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Oral tradition
textual tradition
Chinese scribal culture/ passing wisdom & truths
Text’s meaning/ social prestige ‘literate education’
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Respect to textual authority was imp to early religious
traditions/ study of sacred texts
revelation / to recover
the original truths passed orally By God, angels and prophets.
– The absurdity of the quest of one ‘true’ meaning/ multiple
meanings/ legal documents ‘re-interpreted’
Print & Power
 Institutional power ensuring cultural continuity
 medieval times/ monks & scribes… gate keepers &
interpreters of tradition against cultural change.
 Print culture:
 no need to hand copy
 Religious authority decline
 Translation of Bible
meanings & truth accessible to
all
 Church monopoly replaced by secular power
Traditional academic practice imposed its own context of
interpretation/ emphasized form over meaning/
interpretation should be independent of reader’s response/
‘bad student’
Social Construction of Literacy
• Recent types of literacies linked to various genres:
– Literary literacy/ press/ instructional manuals/ scientific/
marketing/ novels & poems
• To be literate
to understand & manipulate social
& cultural meanings of print language in thoughts,
feelings and actions.
• Children from different social
backgrounds
different types of literacies.
(e.g. narrative style)
Text and Discourse
• Written language can be looked at as either text (fixed and
stable) or discourse (interactive and inferential)
• Text:
– A stretch of written language as the product of intention
– has a fixed & stable relation to its context of culture
• Discourse:
– (A) via coherence
• e.g. deictic “this” in poem/ either demonstrative ‘cohesive device’/ or
discourse indicative ‘factor of coherence’
– (B) via internal cohesion
• e.g. Aspirin label considering ‘corporate culture’/ commercial & legal
interests must be included when interpreting text/ coherent discourse
– (C) Cultural coherence
• e.g. ‘American independence’/ most difficult for foreign readers/
drawing on reader’s cultural knowledge
Literacy event, prior text, point of view
• Literacy event:
The interaction of the reader with the text within a social context.
– Defined by (common social practices with written texts/ common ways
of interpretation)
– Includes situational & cultural dimensions
– Situational context
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Events
Audience
Purpose
Text’s register
Its key
Prior text
Point of view
• Discourse
– clip
Genre
• Genre:
– In general ( a class or category of art (or any other
field) having a particular form, content, or technique.
e.g, the genre of ‘epic poetry’)
– A socially approved type of communicative event,
either spoken or printed.
– Dependent on specific context of situation or culture.
– Related to text type & language choice/ e.g. ‘sermon’
register
– Clip
Summary

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