Never hold a pencil: Rhetoric and relations in the concept of "preliteracy"
Author(s):
Duffy, John Michael
Format:
Journal article
Citation:
Written Communication, Volume 17, Issue 2 (2000-04). pp. 224-257.
Language:
English
Abstract:
The category of preliterate has been applied to cultures in which reading and writing practices are said to be nonexistent or restricted. This article argues that preliterate can be understood as a rhetoric or a socially constructive narrative (a) that devalues that cultures and peoples to whom it is applied by situating them within a 19th-century narrative of primitiveness and (b) that mystifies understandings of how literacy develops by representing the absence of literacy as an expression of inherent cultural values rather than an outcome of relationships among cultures of unequal power.