Chapter 3 Shaping influence of discourses
3.4 Metaphors for literacy
3.4.3 Literacy as a social practice
If I persist in doing my professional best and teaching them‘ language‘ in the way I have been trained and in the way teaching of language is popularly perceived, I will collude in denying the mass of students in the chapel access to much of what they hope and expect from a university.(Boughey, 2000, p. 280)
Hence, she is aware that reasons for teaching can serve to include or exclude students in higher education. It is important to note that the ways of talking about literacy discussed above therefore, indicate that the nature of literacy is treated as fixed, people either have it or they do not. Furthermore, literacy is only ―visible institutionally when construed as a problem [or deficit] to be solved‖ (Lillis and Scott, 2007 p. 6). Simply put, these metaphors negate the notion of Discourse, as proposed by Gee (1996). This study argues that understandings of literacy that negate Discourse are limited in providing opportunities for students to fully participate in the discourse community of their choice. This is because they prevent students from learning the discursive norms which are appropriate for their membership in these communities by focussed or narrow conceptions about the nature of literacy.
between the students and the overall environment- home, school and society at large. Thus ―the ecological metaphor shifts the focus from the individual‘s inadequacies and emphasises the importance of interactions within the context in which the individual finds himself‖ (Bengesai, 2010 p. 19; see also Barton, 2007).
This metaphor has been advanced by scholars working in the New Literacy Studies, (NLS), who approach literacy as a social practice (Street, 2005; 2003; Barton and Hamilton, 2000; Gee, 1996). This is because literacy cannot be separated from people; it is contingent on the interactions between people and the context in which they engage with literacy. In this sense, literacy is located in ―particular times and places‖ (Barton, Hamilton and Ivanic, 2000 p. 1), implying therefore, that literacy has a spatial and temporal dimension; it has a history, is developmental and contextual.
In this model, written texts, the form of literacy (reading and writing) that is favoured in the other representations discussed above, is combined with other semiotic systems or non-language aspects such as the individual student‘s school which exists in a community, which in turn exists in a larger socio-cultural context. The impact of all these forces on the acquisition of academic literacy, direct and indirect, is examined (Bengesai, 2010). This is borne out of the belief that literacy is always
―embedded in social practices and the effects of learning will be dependent on those particular contexts‖ (Street, 2003 p. 78). Adopting this position therefore, makes it problematic for scholars working within this model to use the term literacy as a unit of analysis, thus, they talk of multiple literacies and place the notion of discourse communities at the centre. As a result, the unit of analysis becomes the literacy event or the literacy practices, rather than the literacy skill (Street, 2003).
McKenna (2004a) reports on how literacy as a social practice manifests itself in the South African context. In a study of the conceptualisations of literacy amongst students and academics at one HEI, she found that the students in her study felt alienated by the higher education curriculum and ―felt that their identities were not given a space in the classroom‖ (McKenna, 2004a p. 274). Implied in this finding is the notion of multiple identities as students negotiate the curriculum. This has led South African scholars working within a social practices framework to view South African universities as alien social spaces in which students are required to negotiate their identities (see Boughey, 2009; McKenna, 2004b; Leibowitz, 2004; Kapp and
Bangeni, 2009). I will discuss this in later sections. University literacy is therefore seen as oppressive and discriminatory and for it to achieve its purposes of enabling students to fully meet the literacy demands of their chosen disciplines, these oppressive tendencies have to be removed (Street, 1995; Gee, 1996; Barton and Hamilton, 2000). This can be done by encouraging students to speak with the significant others in their discipline and denying the elite to speak for them.
3.4.3.2 Drinking from the ‘bar’
To emphasise the social situatedness of literacy, Gee (1996) introduces the notion of participation to his theory building. For him, people learn or acquire literacy by participating in the socio-cultural practices of the discourse communities. Drawing on the metaphor of the bar, Gee posits that when one enters a bar, he has to act and speak in a manner that is considered appropriate to be accepted as a member in the bar. Moreover, one has to share the same values with members of this bar, and demonstrate that they know how to act and speak like the regular members.
Bartholomae (1985 p. 273) succinctly captures the way participation occurs in a Discourse as follows:
[One] has to learn to speak our language, to speak as we do, to try on the peculiar ways of knowing, selecting, evaluating, reporting, concluding and arguing that define the discourses of our community.
Thus, both Gee (1996) and Bartholomae (1985) draw on the Discourses of participation, as well as affiliation, in building a theory of learning. Boughey (2000) extends this metaphor and posits that the university is some kind of a bar, where academics such as professors, lectures and postgraduate students are the regular drinkers. When new students come to the bar, they also have to show that they can speak and relate like the regular members. This is not an all or nothing affair, in the sense that, in order for one to come to understand or affiliate with a particular social group, a process of enculturation has to take place. Hence, social groups, in this case academic disciplines, do not just teach students to read and write in certain ways, but also to act and value in certain ways (Gee, 1996). In other words, students are subjected to the power of the Discourse. To understand this process of enculturation also entails exploring the ways in which disciplines ‗read and write
themselves‘ (Jacobs, 2010b). Whilst students might pretend to speak like the regular drinkers, this pretence will eventually be exposed because
In the university ‗bar‘, they actually award pieces of paper to show that newcomers have been accepted. These pieces of paper are called degrees, and the higher the degree, the greater the level of participation. (Boughey, 2000 p. 281)
The various semiotic representations of literacy that I have discussed above are indeed diverse and carry very divergent meanings. However, what they do have in common is that they attest to the fact that literacy is always contested, not only in meaning, but also in practices (Street, 2003). Cast in this way, literacy is always ideological, and some meanings gain prominence and dominance over others.
Taking this position therefore, I find it very problematic when as academics, we represent students based on our own understandings and ideological inclinations.