The Literate Writes and the Nonliterate Chants: Written Language and Ritual Communication in Sociolinguistic Perspective

Akinnaso, F. Niyi

doi:10.1007/978-1-4615-9302-7_2

Cited by 22 publications

(27 citation statements)

References 25 publications

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“…In this study I have shown how young children explore the social practices associated with telephone discourse. These practices can be analysed according to the five domains set out in the introductory section (from Akinnaso, 1982) and used to challenge the divide between oral and written language.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…These are features that are clearly associated with print literacy, reflecting the language structure and degree of complexity (Akinnaso, 1982) of telephone discourse.…”

Section: Charlotte's Monologue -Perhaps To a Doctormentioning

confidence: 98%

“…In order to open up for scrutiny, in this context, telephone discourse as encountered by the young child, I will draw upon the framework of challenge to the traditional oracy/literacy dichotomy provided by Akinnaso (1982). He considered a corpus of recordings of sixteen-cowry divination in Yoruba, collected in 1951 by William Bascom (see Bascom, 1969Bascom, , 1980 in a village at that time little affected by literacy.…”

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confidence: 98%

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Moves in the Territory of Literacy? The Telephone Discourse of Three- and Four-Year-Olds

Gillen

2002

Journal of Early Childhood Literacy

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The concept of the 'new communication landscape ' (Kress, 1998) is propelling a re-examination of what is meant by literacy, and the ways in which we seek to identify and promote literacy practices in young children.This article reviews theoretical moves to destabilize the dichotomy between oracy and literacy. Challenges posed by an examination of new technologies are set against those that draw on evidence from diverse cultural and historical contexts.The telephone presents a contemporary context that has been largely overlooked in child language research -yet this medium possesses its own specific constraints and opportunities for discourse, necessitating a shift away from the 'here-and-now' characteristic of very young children's talk, to a consideration of the interlocutor's distance characteristic of literacy. An analysis of the practices of three-and four-year-old children's spontaneous telephone play demonstrates many ways in which their oral practices in this communication channel may be conceptualized within an understanding of their symbolic meaningmaking practices that is related to literacy, rather than a separate domain of activity. Finally, it is proposed that Bakhtin's notion of 'speech genre' provides a particularly useful characterization of this important aspect of language development in the context of communication technology.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…These are features that are clearly associated with print literacy, reflecting the language structure and degree of complexity (Akinnaso, 1982) of telephone discourse.…”

Section: Charlotte's Monologue -Perhaps To a Doctormentioning

confidence: 98%

mentioning

confidence: 98%

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Moves in the Territory of Literacy? The Telephone Discourse of Three- and Four-Year-Olds

Gillen

2002

Journal of Early Childhood Literacy

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“…Using data from Yoruba, Akinnaso (1982) demonstrates that many of the structural and functional differences between spoken and written language, generally considered consequences of literacy and associated respectively with nonliterate and literate societies, also serve to distinguish between ordinary conversation and ritual language in nonliterate societies. Two major differences between spoken and written language are intrinsically involved in the acquisition of literacy.…”

Section: Spoken and Written Languagementioning

confidence: 99%

Linguistics and Literacy

Kindell¹

1983

Ann Rev Appl Ling

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In the good old days, when learning to read was equated with breaking the written code and linguists were content with delving into the mysteries of phonemes, morphemes, and sentences, it was not too terribly difficult to define the scope of linguistics applied to literacy. Now the task is somewhat more complex thanks to both the diversification of lingustics and current concepts of the nature, function, and goals of literacy.

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“…The adoption of the distinction between oral and literate culture as the given starting point, leading to a focus on the differences and conflicts between the two cultural traditions, is perhaps the major reason for the lopsidedness in literacy research. Against this dichotomous stance, some researchers have set up polar typologies which reify orality and literacy, putting their faith in the latter and, therefore, emphasizing its essential elements (for further discussion and critique of the typologies, see Akinnaso 1981Akinnaso , 1982aAkinnaso , 1985Street 1984;Finnegan 1988;Ewald 1988;Schousboe and Larsen 1989). Although all researchers agree that literacy involves major changes in forms of communication and the organization of knowledge, they do not agree on the social, political, economic, and, especially, cognitive consequences of these changes.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Schooling, Language, and Knowledge in Literate and Nonliterate Societies

Akinnaso

1992

Comp Stud Soc Hist

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The relationships among schooling, language, and knowledge-especially through the systematic comparison of the organization, form, function, and acquisition of institutionalized knowledge-in literate and nonliterate societies has hardly been examined. This essay attempts such an analysis, focusing on knowledge acquired through the use of language, because language is the major medium for imparting knowledge in schools and for social reproduction in the larger society, because knowledge acquired through the use of language is readily identifiable and testable, and because language is one of the major terms of the present analysis. The proposed elastic concept of schooling views schooling as a cover term for institutionalized learning in any society, literate or nonliterate. It thus questions the analytical adequacy of the received, Euro-American, concept of schooling as a unitary phenomenon based on the dual assumption that the school specializes in the transmission of literate knowledge and that literacy education is coterminous with formal education.The logical corollary to this literacy-based concept of schooling, an oversimplified view of education in nonliterate societies, denies that schooling and This essay developed out of an earlier one of the same title prepared for an international symposium on the cognitive consequences of literacy, organized by Pierre Darsen in 1986. As more and more data were collected and analyzed, the emergent findings and ideas were presented to various audiences at the University of Wisconsin at Parkside (1987

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The Literate Writes and the Nonliterate Chants: Written Language and Ritual Communication in Sociolinguistic Perspective

Cited by 22 publications

References 25 publications

Moves in the Territory of Literacy? The Telephone Discourse of Three- and Four-Year-Olds

Moves in the Territory of Literacy? The Telephone Discourse of Three- and Four-Year-Olds

Linguistics and Literacy

Schooling, Language, and Knowledge in Literate and Nonliterate Societies

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