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Literacy in the U. S.

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  19 November 2008

Rose-Marie Weber
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In recent years the term “literacy” has rapidly expanded its space in the lexicon. Only a short time ago it was an abstract and rarely used noun, usually referring to the state of communities or societies. It was not in the vocabulary of American schooling, along with reading, writing, language arts, or English. The related terms literate and illiterate, if applied to individuals, were limited to adults and to either highly refined or very rudimentary knowledge of written language. Now the word literacy has been extended on the American scene to express knowledge of other domains in such phrases as computer literacy and scientific literacy, and it is even being pluralized as literacies. It is also being used more and more, along with literate (but not illiterate), as an over-arching term for knowledge and activities that were until recently designated separately as reading and writing in discussions of theory, research, and practice. This use of the term reflects a more unified, holistic view of reading and writing as linguistic enterprises situated in social and intellectual contexts, a view that has been expanding with marked consequences.

Type
Regional and Country Overviews
Information
Annual Review of Applied Linguistics , Volume 12 , March 1991 , pp. 172 - 189
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1991

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