Literacy and Identity

For this final exploratory Caitlin and I chose to create an extended ven diagram to illustrate the factory that we saw as contributing to literacy. Because we did not have the opportunity to share our composition in class I feel it necessary to briefly describe the way that we went about creating this diagram. After working through the reading with one another four concepts seemed to jump out at us. Literacy seem to us to be influenced by community, education, revolution, and technology. We concluded through the process of creating this diagram that if we going to talk about these for factors contributing to literacy then we not only had to talk about them as separate entities but their connection to one another. Once we created all of the circles and the connections between them we concluded that literacy as concept was untimely tied up in identity. Below I will provide further analysis on how we saw the concepts illustrated in our map working in this week’s reading.

            The two concepts that jumped out to me the most in this week’s readings were societal effects on literacy and educational effects on literacy. In Ohmann’s text he argues that “   the term "literacy" offered a handy way to conceptualize an attribute of theirs, which might be manipulated in one direction or the other for the stability of the social order and the prosperity and security of the people who counted” (677). Literacy, in its historical context was a way to separate those who matter from those who did not. Ohmann goes on to argue that literacy is inherently tied to a monopolistic and capitalist society. The term literacy Ohmann argues “came in to use roughly at the beginning of the epoch of monopoly capital” (677). This capitalist society where workers could easily be replaced and where scientific management thrived, became a way to keep those who were literate and in power and allowed those who were not literate the opportunity to work, but also the constant threat of being replaced. This capitalist society, in which I would argue that we still live, can be used to allows certain groups of people access while keeping others on the periphery. If we think about capitalism in terms of language use then it is the same ideal that prioritizes “English” or really what people deem to be educated or academic English above all else.

            This brings me to Ramanathan and Atkinson’s text. In this text, the authors highlight how Asian students from collectivist societies (which they lump all together) have a different orientation towards voice than U.S. students do. Students educated under the U.S notion of voice tend to learn that their individual and unique voice is valuable, while students who are educated in collectivist Asian cultures tend to honor only the voices of experts (Ramanathan and Atkinson 54). While I do agree that many collectivist cultures do value the “we” over the “I” Ramanathan and Atkinson seem to be reinforcing the U.S. centric approach that they are arguing against. The labels that the authors ascribe to these collectivist cultures centered student popultions are “ESl, NNS, L2, and EFL. All of these labels take an English centered approach and take students acquisition of the English language as the goal. ESL and L2 forces on the fact that English is a second language for the students, which often is a limiting label because students often speak multiple languages, never the less the label seems to prioritize English. NNS labels these students as non-native speakers of English (again prioritizing those who are native). The label EFL is the one that troubles me the most. Often English is not this foreign concept that these students know nothing about. Many students that I have come in to contact with actually grow up learning English alongside the language of their country. While it may seem trivial to focus on labels here, I feel that the labels that Ramanathan and Atkinson use undermine their argument. Rather than seeing all languages other than English in opposition to English I argue that we need to theory that allows us to seem how students’ languages build on and influence one another. For, no language is neutral; all languages are influenced and shaped by one another.

            Elaine Richardson in “English Only: African American Contributions to Standardized Communication Structures and the Potential of Social Transformation” argues against English only centered pedagogy by illustrating that there really is no such thing as English only. English only pedagogy has as its goal the “naturalization of immigrants” (97) in to standard language practices, but does not question how these standard linguistic practices became standard in the first place or what cultures play a role in the creation of this “standard” language. First, all languages are socially constructed and all languages are equal in linguistic terms. Thus, it is society that put one language above another. If we are to get away from an English only or even and English centered model then we need to think about all of the various languages and cultures whose language has contributed to what we know call “Standard English”.

As educators, we all need to remember how tied to identity language is. Richardson reminds us “language use [is] an important part of identity and knowledge making, that should not be taken lightly or marginalized by official politics” (100). When we ascribe to an English only approach towards language we further marginalized those marginalized voices that we often fail to credit when with having any influence on “standardized” languages. If we fail to see language as contributing to identity then we reinforce a colonialized approach to language where one language dominates over another instead of an approach where languages influence and build on one another. Essentially if we approach language in this way then we are taking a capitalist approach where those who are literate in the dominant discourse are in positions of power and where all others are marginalized.

           

Works Cited

Ohmann, Richard. "Literacy, Technology, and Monopoly Capital." College English, vol. 47, no. 7, Nov. 1985, pp. 675-98.

Ramanathan, Vai, and Dwight Atkinson. "Individualism, Academic Writing, and ESL Writers." Journal of Second Language Writing, vol. 8, no. 1, 1999, pp. 45-75.

Richardson, Elaine. "English Only: African American Contributions to Standardized Communication Structures and the Potential of Social Transformation." Cross-Language Relations in Composition , edited by Bruce Horner, Min-Zhan Lu, and Paul K. Matsuda, Southern Illinois University Press, 2010, pp. 97-112.