Week Six: Discourse is/as Literacy

I apologize for the late post, I thought I successfully post this blog last week. Apparently there must have been a mishap. Thank you Jasmine for letting me know! :)


David Barton and James Paul Gee introduces the idea of discourses and the issues within literacy in "Literacy Embedded in Language" and "Literacy, Discourse, and Linguistics: Introduction." Barton discusses that there is a relationship between literacy and language from various perspectives as we already know from hearing different perspectives of our classmates from various class readings. In greater depth, Barton also discusses the general ideas about language, making points about how language is used in different ways as well as how it is a part of a discourse and how discourse is a part of text. Barton claims that texts are bound to each other through intertextuality; that people are positioned by them; and the study of literacy as of all language is the study of practices and the study of texts (Barton, 72).
Barton believes it is important for us to understand registers within discourses. He explains that registers are identifiable different ways of talking in different situations. People decide naturally what is an appropriate register for a certain group. For instance, as Barton explained, a person would choose an appropriate resister for talking to a professor, or a mother, or child. The idea of a variety of registers is for us to understand that a spoken language does not only have registers but in writing as well. An e-mail to a friend would certainly have a different register than for a professor; people also choose an appropriate register in writing. As we have different forms of writing, we also have different genres. The purpose of the two: register and genre, is to understand the conflicts that have arose in terms of theories for the study of literacy. The problem as Barton brought up is that a person can make more specific distinctions. Barton gives an example that we can make distinctions of the way people speak in a staff room, or in a science room, or at a teacher-parent conference, and so on. He points out
that genres, registers, and discourse can go as narrow as possible or broad as possible.
Discourses differ in how the language is used. Discourse is a important part of literacy and language because it can emphasize that language is only one part of any social interaction, whether it is talking to a good friend, a professor or a classmate. The discourse of the social interaction involves appropriate language as mentioned above, but appropriate behavior and setting. Barton explains to us that the idea of a discourse is suffering from two problems in terms of registers and genres: having very general senses and much narrower ones, and implying them into ceratin theories (Barton, 74). As I agree with Barton, we need to stop focusing on the narrow things about discourse, or literacy forms that have been already mentioned: narrowed registers and genres, and start focusing on the broader aspects of study of literacy.
Then James Paul Gee continues with the theories Barton has discusses about. Gee makes interesting, yet fairly convincing points. Gee begins with a claim that there are some things within the world of literacy that just simply do not belong in the world of literacy. First thing he points out is that the term "language" can be a misleading term; I agree with him. Before being introduced to the issues of literacy in English 329, I was certainly misled with the term "language." The term "language" refers more to grammar than literacy which consists of reading and writing. As sad as the truth is, a person can know clearly of the grammar of the language yet not know the usage of language. Gee believes that the misleading claims and theories about language has led us here today with an issue that many people are lacking the formality and understanding of literacy. Gee provides a perfect example of how a person may know perfectly of a grammar and not know how to use that language: if a person walks in saying "May I have a match, please?" The person had all the right grammar, but what the person said was considered wrong. If he had said, "Gimme a match, wouldya?" then it would be a correct (Gee, 5). But Gee tries to point out that it is not the language or grammar that is important but the combination of saying (writing), doing, being, valuing, believing–Discourses. Any time we use language, we must say or write the right thing in the right way while playing the right social role and (appearing) to hold the right values, beliefs, and attitudes. Therefore Discourses are ways of being in the world; they are forms of life which integrate words, acts, values, beliefs and because of that thought, Gee believes that we should capitalize "discourse." Gee makes a good point that a Discourse is not a body of knowledge such as physics or even linguistics. So that means someone cannot be taught to use a Discourse since we cannot teach them to be a linguist even though we can teach them the knowledge of linguistics. That is exactly what is happening throughout classrooms–teachers believe they can teach students a Discourse, when in reality they cannot. Like Gee said, the most a teacher can do is teach English, practicing to be a good reader and writer with you. Then Gee complicates the subject by adding to his theory about secondary Discourse. He says that we can learn the secondary Discourse just as if we were learning another language but if that does not work well, then we always have the primary Discourse we can fall back on. Therefore Gee defines literacy "as the mastery of or fluent control over a secondary Discourse" (Gee, 9). Which means, literacy is always plural–literacies. Frankly, Gee is right. We can see that for ourselves right in our English 329 class, when we discuss our perspectives and definition of literacies because we all come from different Discourses and some of us may be fluent in a secondary Discourse and some of us may not be fluent with a secondary Discourse.
Overall, Barton and Gee point out very good points about discourses, and shows us that we need to understand the bodies of literacy–which a discourse is not necessarily the body of literacy according to Gee. They point out that we need to understand what is and what isn’t part of language, linguistics, and literacy, and better yet, what exactly are those three? They are all part of our spoken and written language. But what we can do as teachers is work with the students with discourses they already have and teach them literacy. But even then, can literacy be taught? Gee mentions there are multiple literacies, if that is the case, then what literacy do we teach them? Going back to our previous readings, when we looked at formal and informal literacy, I believe we need to keep those in mind in terms of what to teach when it comes to being aware of multiple literacies. The informal literacy can be multiple in my perspective, but formal literacy, I cannot see how it can be multiple. There is only a certain way that can be considered formal literacy. I think that is where teachers come in–working with the discourses that are already established within students, and teaching them the formality of literacy. What I mean by the formality of discourse, I mean the formal discourse we are use among classrooms. To conclude to my views of Barton and Gee’s readings, I have been pondering with a question: can informal literacies be considered as a secondary Discourse, or is formal literacy at this point considered a secondary Discourse?