Literacy Discourses

Literacy discourses is an ethnographic study
concerned with people s use and representations of
literacy in two residential quarters in Distrito
Federal, the federation district within
which is the capital city of Brazil. It is a
detailed description of situated literacies in
particular domains such as home and community, and
it involves knowing literacy practices at both
individual and social level. Besides, it is a
critical explanation of how these
literacies relate to other domains such as work and
school. Informal ways of learning
literacy are also given attention as part of the
everyday use. An integration between the New
Literacy Studies and Critical Discourse
Analysis is made for the study of literacy as
discourse in the link between local settings
and global practices. As a main proposition, these
situated literacies are classified as lifeworld and
systems literacies, derived from Habermas s theory.
This classification is meant to show the advantage
of providing ways to understand
relationships between vernacular and dominant
literacies, which do not figure as
discrete elements but exist in hybrid practices.

Autorentext

Guilherme Rios is a technologist researcher at the brazilian governmental body for policy studies and educational assessment, and collaborator researcher at the Multidisciplinary Advanced Studies Centre in the University of Brasilia, Brazil. His PhD was awarded by the Department of Linguistics and Englishat Lancaster University, UK.

Klappentext

Literacy discourses is an ethnographic study concerned with people's use and representations ofliteracy in two residential quarters in Distrito Federal, the federation district withinwhich is the capital city of Brazil. It is a detailed description of situated literacies inparticular domains such as home and community, and it involves knowing literacy practices at both individual and social level. Besides, it is a critical explanation of how theseliteracies relate to other domains such as work and school. Informal ways of learningliteracy are also given attention as part of the everyday use. An integration between the New Literacy Studies and Critical DiscourseAnalysis is made for the study of literacy as discourse in the link between local settingsand global practices. As a main proposition, these situated literacies are classified as lifeworld and systems literacies, derived from Habermas's theory. This classification is meant to show the advantage of providing ways to understandrelationships between vernacular and dominant literacies, which do not figure asdiscrete elements but exist in hybrid practices.