Literacy, Narrative and Culture

ISBN-13: 9780700714971 / Angielski / Twarda / 2002 / 332 str.

Opis

An important contribution to the multi-disciplinary study of literacy, narrative and culture, this work argues that literacy is perhaps best described as an ensemble of socially and historically embedded activities of cultural practices. It suggests viewing written language, producing and distributing, deciphering and interpreting signs, are closely related to other cultural practices such as narrative and painting.

The papers of the first and second parts illustrate this view in contexts that range from the pre-historical beginnings of tracking signs' in hunter-gatherer cultures, and the emergence of modern literate traditions in Europe in the 17th to 19th century, to the future of electronically mediated writing in times of the post-Gutenberg galaxy. The chapters of the third present results of recent research in developmental and educational psychology.

Contributions by leading experts in the field make the point that there is no theory and history of writing that does not presuppose a theory of culture and social development. At the same time, it demonstrates that every theory and history of culture must unavoidably entail a theory and history of writing and written culture.

This book brings together perspectives on literacy from psychology, linguistics, history and sociology of literature, philosophy, anthropology, and history of art. It addresses these issues in plain language – not coded in specialized jargon – and addresses a multi-disciplinary forum of scholars and students of literacy, narrative and culture.

Written language is closely related to other cultural practices such as narrative and painting. This book suggests that there is no theory or history of writing that does not presuppose a theory of culture and social development.

Spis treści

1: Introduction: What is a culture of literacy?; Part I: Written culture; 2: The literacy episteme: The rise and fall of a cultural discourse; 3: Literacy and the future of writing: An integrational perspective; 4: The construction of mind and self in an interpretive community 1 2; 5: Hunting, tracking and reading; 6: Narrative distancing: A foundation of literacy; Part II: The shaping of modern written culture; 7: Letters and pictures in seventeenth-century education; 8: Painters and literacy; 9: “Dumb significants” and Early Modern English definition; 10: The spread of culture: Subscription libraries in France in the nineteenth century; 11: The essay as a literary and academic form: Closed gate or open door?; Part III: Literacy as cultural learning; 12: Writing as a form of quotation; 13: Children's conceptions of name: A study on metalinguistic awareness in Italian children; 14: The distinction between graphic system and orthographic system and their pertinence for understanding the acquisition of orthography; 15: Children's analysis of oral and written words; 16: Young children's “clever misunderstandings” about print; 17: Literacy and metalinguistic thought: Development through knowledge construction and cultural mediation; 18: Making new or making do: Epistemological, normative and pragmatic aspects of reading a text