In today’s world, “literacy” is strongly associated with competence: the ability to read and write is the pre-condition for the acquisition of all kinds of knowledge and skills. The basic rule of thumb is: “No literacy, no education.”
A comment on last week’s post “Literacy – the power code” questions this ubiquitous connection between literacy and competence, and asks about other ways of learning: what about the son of a shoe-maker who learns by observation and participation? Or the daughter of a carpenter who is similarly apprenticed into the trade? Even without literacy, are they not competent and educated?
They sure are! There can be no doubt that it is possible to achieve an education, to become competent and to gain wisdom by learning from your elders and without engaging in literacy-mediated learning.
However, in a world that has a literacy fetish, as ours does, this kind of education and knowledge becomes devalued. Where knowledge and competence associated with literacy are highly valued, knowledge and competence associated with traditional ways are simultaneously discounted.
In fact, the elevation of literacy-associated knowledge over other forms of knowledge has long been a part of colonial projects.
Consider the ways we think about our relationship to the land on which we live: you might live on a plot of land or in a house and take good care of it; you might make sure it is maintained well and is a good place to live; you might tend to the plants and animals who live there; and you might make sure it will be a good place to live that provides shelter and food not only for yourself but also for your children and generations to come.
To be able to do that surely makes you a competent person and a wise and good human being. But what if you do all that but don’t hold a title to the land? If you don’t have a piece of writing that says this plot of land and this house is yours? You might not be able to do any of these good things and, even if you do, your efforts will not be much valued by society.
Now let’s consider the opposite case: you hold a title to a plot of land – i.e. you have a piece of writing that says the land is yours – and you go about destroying the land: you despoil its natural resources, exterminate the plants and animals, poison the water and generally ruin it, also for your neighbors and for those who come after you. While this sounds despicable, it happens all the time and, by and large, as a society we approve of such practices because there is that piece of paper that confers ownership and all kinds of associated property rights.
Our contemporary belief in the power of a piece of writing – the title deed – devalues all other ways of relating to the land on which we live, as is well-illustrated by the idea of terra nullius: the idea that, prior to European settlement, Australia was “a land belonging to no one”.
Terra nullius became one of the legal and moral justifications for the British colonization of Australia: the assumption was that the continent had not belonged to anyone until Europeans “found” it. While Aboriginal people had obviously lived in Australia prior to 1788, they were not seen as having a right to the land between Governor Bourke’s 1835 proclamation of terra nullius and the first successful native title claim in the Mabo case of 1992.
One of the indicators why Aboriginal people supposedly did not have a right to their land lay in the fact that they did not have any written ownership records or title deeds. Instead of recording their ownership of the land in written title deeds, Aboriginal Australians had a spiritual relationship to the land which they communicated through stories and songs, as the Papunya School Book of Country and History explains:
When the Tjulkura [= white people] came to Australia, they did not recognise that, between them, different groups of Aboriginal people owned all the continent. Because there were no pieces of paper saying which people belonged to which country, white people decided that the land was terra nullius. […] The Tjulkura did not understand that Aboriginal people had been recording their ownership of their country in songs, stories, dances and paintings since the time when law began.
To Europeans, knowledge recorded in and transmitted via “songs, stories, dances and paintings” seemed primitive and barbaric: in short, worthless.
That only literacy-mediated knowledge has value is, in this case, obviously a self-serving fallacy. However, it is easy to overlook this fallacy in our literacy-obsessed world. Imagine if we routinely thought about the human relationship to the earth not as one of ownership but as one of custodianship. Maybe some of the ecological disasters of our time could have been avoided if we were not so fixated on the power of written documents to establish knowledge and competence? And if we were less keen to discard and ignore all other forms of knowledge?
Can you think of other examples where forms of knowledge and learning that are not mediated through literacy are being devalued in favor of knowledge and learning that are associated with literate practices?
Further reading
If you want to read more about the colonization of Australia as a project that has partly been about imposing British ways of seeing and discarding Aboriginal ways of seeing, you might want to check out Chapter 3 of the newly released second edition of Intercultural Communication. A flier with a discount code is available here.
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The topic poses a wonderfully thought-provoking yet exciting take on the subject. While I was reading, I was able to reflect on my country’s history as well, in relation to literacy and competence since the article relates the concept of literacy in other forms of knowledge that connects with colonialism. In the Philippines, we have been a highly colonized country by three big countries (US, Spain, Japan). No Filipinos held the law during this time because they were devalued of their ways of living which is also the same with knowledge being highly valued with literacy and devalued with the traditional or informal ways. It can be explicitly seen historically that it was the colonizers like US who introduced the value of literacy in the country and since then, Filipinos tend to equate one’s strength with being well literate. I have to say that I agree with the author; literacy became a blinding light of success. It is unfortunate that in society’s standards, your worth is equated with your diploma, your degree, your recognitions or awards. If one does not have any proof of their own competence, their worth is not enough. I happen to think about the relation of literacy and knowledge to the idea of being ‘civilized’ because in today’s world, you practically ‘belong’ in society if people see you as well-educated or well-literate. It also means that there is the opposite side of the coin where if people don’t see you literate enough, you are an outcast. However, I do believe that knowledge is power and there is nothing wrong with attaining degrees or achieving ownership to your own academic excellence but is that all there is in an individual’s worth? I remember a new phenomenon that evolved in this time of a pandemic which is (nonverbatim) ‘productivity syndrome’ where people nowadays equate their worth with how productive they are or how much output they produce in a day. On a surface level, this is seen as good because there is some truth in productivity being a good indicator of success; however, in the long run it can be seen as unsustainable because this kind of thinking might lead to burnout. This phenomenon can also be related to knowledge and competence being equated to literacy because in today’s world, productivity is also equated to competence. It is quite unfortunate that our society has come to this kind of thinking; that one is discriminated just because they were able to attain knowledge in traditional ways. I happen to value people who have great skills in a field that they did not really educate for, which means they just learned it on their own, they were taught informally or they are just that talented. I do hope that all of us continue to work for a safer and accepting world where people are not degraded just because they learned informally since learning or literacy is, unfortunately, a privilege.
Before anything else, I would like to express how this entry was truly eye-opening for me. As I was reading, I immediately reflected on how the past occurrences associated with ownership/custodianship can still be experienced today, and is actually very relevant in my country, the Philippines. Literacy-mediated learning has long been considered the foundation for anything, especially when it comes to establishing and recognizing one’s education, occupation, and social status. Skills and talents alone are not anymore enough in this world where power has permanently taken over every sector of our societies. Not only that I think that power relations have significantly affected social connections, but also our societal perceptions. Although the topic proposed the importance of having written documents for protection of rights, I do think that it still somewhat reduced the value of culture or mayhaps tainted it in some way.
The topic poses a wonderfully thought-provoking yet exciting take on the subject. In my country, the Philippines, we are a conquered land, not by one but by three countries (US, Spain, Japan). No Filipinos held the law during this time because they were devalued of their ways of living and being on that land. I have to say that I agree with the author; literacy became a blinding light of success. In today’s society, you are more than welcome to be successful only if you possess such titles, such as a degree, a diploma, contracts, or even awards, which in return makes it difficult to see how beautiful it is to learn and earn other skills that an individual may or may want to have.
In Jordon, 60% of the population resides in Amman which is heavily influenced by the Western world through pop culture. As such, acknowledgement of literacy is almost purely seen from the perspective of acquiring knowledge through schooling. However, Jordon is rich in culture and tradition as the country itself is the intersection of the three continents of the ancient world. An example of this is Petra, or ancient Jordan. It is a country with deep-rooted traditions in all aspects of social life which are influenced by neighbouring countries such as Syria and Saudi Arabia with its strong Bedouin influence. Relating this to the knowledge and learning not mediated through literacy especially in the Bedouin nomadic culture and its strong connection with the everchanging landscape of the desert, many of the Bedouin information of the land passed through generations is not recognised as legitimate knowledge especially through the eyes of the Western world or as Professor so aptly put “a world that has a literacy fetish”. The infiltrations of the Western influence also means that many Bedouins have abandoned their nomadic and tribal traditions for a modern urban lifestyle.
The author highlights the importance of literate practices. Truly speaking, in the contemporary society in China, the written proof is significant including the degree certification and practices certification. People believe that a person have a positive attitude if he learn something well and gain a certification. As a result, a person can obtain a position and be valuable.
As this article shows that literacy has a broad functions for our society than that its narrow meaning which explains the ability to read and write which leading individulas to become literate. There is another aspect which lietracy can help folks in a particular society to secure and protect their rights, for exmaple, by writing down in a piece of paper in which that written papre will become a strong evidence for their rights. As we have seen in this article about the old residents in Australia, they did not have written paper that points that this land is theirs. But this does not mean that they did not own or have the rights to settel in that land.
A similar situation happened in my country around the year 1500 when Spaniards came to Colombia to colonise the territory. they built houses and founded cities, so as they considered that they discovered the land they were owners. They ignored aboriginals’ rights to own their land for different reasons but one of them, because aboriginals did not have a written document that proof the ownership of the land. this is another case in which illiteracy became a issue that may affect many people and unfortunately nowadays it still happen; many people is rejected in some jobs because they do not have a document that proof they graduated from a recognised institution. here is when I make a distinction in the relationship between literacy and education; a person can be literate and at the same time a person with no education and vice-versa.
As regards the concept of evidence being a “piece of written” paper, I’d like to address the influence of “certificates” granted upon training/educating courses completion. Admittedly, certificates as proof of education bring society, and its members, numerous positive traits: assurance of caliber workforce, proof of achievement, and many more. Under such circumstances, in most cases that happened in Vietnam, employment has been based solely on how much “certified” knowledge the candidates are possessing, while, in reality, the experience (which goes far beyond what being taught in tertiary education) certain candidates gain ever since they started working could hardly be “proven” under a form of a piece of paper. And it’s not often that such candidates are given chances to prove their worth and show the “other unproven knowledge” that they have; thus, the chances that a bachelor winning over a master of the same professional field whose resumes are dense with a long list of “education achievement” are thin. By and large, there are much more positive signals as the Vietnamese employers of the new era are looking for something more than mere pieces of paper as evidence of capability.
This article has reminded me about uneducated children living in the mountainous areas of Vietnam called “Sapa”. Typically, a clip about a-H’Mong girl in Sapa speaking English fluently with native speakers was spread out widely on social media network in 2011. Finding the identity of that girl, people were surprised at her abilities of speaking English. As she is living in Sapa where is thronged with tourists. Then, English proficiency is regarded as an advantage for anyone becoming a tourist guide like her to earn their living. This means that living in such environment helps her practice and improve her English skills though she is not officially taught English or educated. However, she could not write, which puts an emphasis on the importance of a piece of writing.
Not only this article but in many other articles, literacy is closely connected to the ability of reading and writing. This connection is always a positive and ubiquitous. Professor Piller clearly states that in most situation, literacy always mediated learning and has positive value accumulation on ownership, property rights and personal interest. The example of Australian Aboriginal explicitly explain the importance of literacy in recording of personal interest especially in ownership, rights and power.
I can relate to this post so much after reading it. I have got a friend who is at the same age as mine. Because of some financial issues, he had to quit school when he was at the age of 15. He then followed his father and worked as a carpenter at home or worked at the places people hire him to work. The thing is he was such a skillful carpenter that he earned a lot of money to support his family. Acknowledging that he could do better in big cities, he then decided to move to another city to seek for a job related to his field. However, since he did not have any written proofs proving that he has the expert knowledge as being a carpenter, he was refused by many big companies. The only “company” that allowed him to work at was just a small workshop, and he did not get as much as money as he used to earn at the time he worked at his hometown. This story is such a naked truth, but it also shows that how important a piece of writing, or a written document, is, and of course, the necessity of formal education, or how valuable it is to a person’s life.
This article was really interesting for me since I never had thought about the relationship between the property right and human beings. It is actually quite unfortunate that the ownership of the country in songs, stories, dances or paintings are more likely to be devalued since they are not recorded as formal written documents or papers as we can see from the example of Aboriginal. In my country, more than 1000 years ago, there were lots of war among different families or groups. Back that time, in order to hand down those memories and recordings of wars to the next generation, people made a song for the war singing what happened and who won and so on without writing on paper. And there were monks who travel whole country playing traditional instruments and singing this song so as to share the stories and let more people know about the wars. Those songs have been passed down to generation to next generation until when people were able to write those stories. So, in this case, I think, because of these story telling culture, we are able to know about the details of the war and study our history.
This article was a very interesting analysis of literacy and its position in our life. Lack of literacy can have implications that last for years. It can ruin the life of one person or an entire group of people.
Modern life especially is focused on collecting written evidence such as email approvals or text message proofs. People will look for written documents which need the ability of literacy to comprehend – this will continue for as long as judges and courts rely on written evidence more than oral agreements.
In India most people who are skilled but not literate (who do not know reading and writing) are often exploited as they who employ them usually earn more from their skills than they pay to them and they remain underpaid, since they don’t have certificate although they possess skills. Moreover, many skills are extinct on the verge of extinction because they are passed from generation to generation orally such as many art forms are disappearing puppetry Art and craft paintings because no educational bodies like school or private institutes teach these skills and it is practiced by the people of certain tribes and villages
I totally agree that we can learn something from elder people without formal instruction. The example of the son of a shoe-maker reflects my case. My father bought a computer when I was in grade 4. Actually, I did not learn anything from books about how to use computer in a right way. My father just showed me something basic things to turn it on or shut down, and then he just letted me play around with the computer. I learned how to use computer from my father’s instruction and reflecting on my own mistakes.
In China, many skills are inherited in family units. These techniques are not through literacy, but flow between families. These techniques can be song and dance or production techniques. Many excellent works are lost because there is no world record. There are different cultures and dialects in China but they all have a common script, a common government, common measurements, and common shared culture and history since 221 BC under the First Emperor of Qin. The First Emperor of Qin measures to unify the written language have made the written language and writing form a uniform norm, which has become the carrier of transcending the time and space limitations and inheriting Chinese culture. Moreover, it is helpful to form the mental state and culture of the unity of the Chinese nation and has become an important factor to enhance the cohesion of the Chinese nation.
While it could be true that the aboriginal people might be disadvantaged by the British colonization because their literacy was disvalued to some extent, Australia, on the other hand, has benefitted from the literacy of British colonization that helped to improve the literacy of the people and united the states into a developed and respectful country. This is not to support the colonization but to agree that literacy could contribute to the prosperity and peace.
In regard to another example of such phenomena, there are few in Indonesia that might be related to that. One of those is the land ownership. There are a lot of people in remote areas, who have occupied a piece of land, built a house for a shelter and lived with their family for many genereations are expelled by the government because they do not have the proof of their ownership to the land and the government does. Although those local people may be literate, the government mostly claim their level of literacy is better and higher as they may have more access to information and technology which have given them more power than those people.
This post reveals truths from the countries that have been colonized which have experienced the same injustice. The ones who decided to become the owners of someone else’s land deprived the conquered and themselves of the history, beliefs, traditions and knowledge from the place and culture taken. Something similar happens with the possibility of going abroad to study or work, for some countries more than for others. Even with a literacy background, people need special qualifications, papers that show they are capable of studying a course or getting a job in another country. It is essential to have documents that are similar, or likely to meet the standards of education or skills for a job in the target country to be able to get access to these courses or jobs. One example of these are some of the international students who have had considerable experience working in different fields in their home countries and cannot get a job in Australia. It could be for a number of reasons but one of them is the lack of a written document that, according to the standards of the country, shows that your degree and your experience are comparable to the ones needed and recognised by potential employers.
It is undeniable that learning mediated through literacy has been highly valued in very culture. However, there are still many situations when knowledge competence is not associated with this mediator. For example, one of my friends, whose business has gone from strength to strength, did not go to any marketing, business classeses and college. She did not perform really well at school too. In her case, I think her aptitude to opening and running business as well as and chances of learning from her dad contributed to her success.
Thuy Linh Nguyen
The meaning of literacy has been changed and evolved by reflecting the needs of society. Literacy allows people to acquire the necessary knowledge, skills, and understandings which could be needed to take part in the community as an essential member. In other words, literacy can be one of the preconditions and evidence which can be used to demonstrate the qualification and capabilities of the person’s ability in this society. In other words, literacy can be an essential aspect of career advancement or success. For example, degrees and certificates are highly valued in working places. In light of my experience, in order to be promoted, it is true that careers and abilities are important. However, in general, companies offer more opportunities to the people who have high academic qualifications or related qualifications. This is because the document such as a diploma or certificate can prove how competent this person is.
‘One of the indicators why Aboriginal people supposedly did not have a right to their land lay in the fact that they did not have any written ownership records or title deeds’. This article reminds me of the importance of literacy in the issues of territory. The Senkaku Islands dispute concerns a territorial dispute over a group of uninhabited islands between Japan and China. Japan argues that it surveyed the islands in the late 19th century and found them belonging to no one; subsequently, China acquiesced to Japanese sovereignty until the 1970s. China argues that documentary evidence prior to the First Sino-Japanese War indicates Chinese possession and that the territory is accordingly a Japanese seizure that should be returned as the rest of Imperial Japan’s conquests were returned in 1945. I think it’s a good example of a territory issue which not mediated through literacy.
In the time where reading bible is a privilege only reserved for priests and cardinals and printing press was not introduced, a lot of people did not have access to the bible and they believed that hell and Satan are real. After the presence of printing press, regular people could read it and learned how to be Christians and not how they were told Christians should be. For example, people are told to do some Jerusalem pilgrimage; however, if people read the bible, they will find out that Jesus does not command them to go to the holy land.
This was a really fascinating article. So much of our possessions and privileges rely on pieces of paper but what is the standard that we hold the piece of paper too? Permanence of information? That it was bought for money? Many times these pieces of paper allow people the right to advise people on matters of life and death, matters of great personal or national importance but the skills or morals of the person holding the piece of paper may nullify the skills accredited to them thanks to that piece of paper. It is quite eye-opening, just how much faith and trust rides on possession of papers.
If possession of the land was based on how well people used it, society would really be completely different. I guess in Europe and other countries, before title deeds , there were also quite a lot of wars and battles fought and land possession was marked by soldiers and forts and impermanency so even though it is not a perfect system, it affords our individualistic society more stability and an easy way to settle disputes over ownership.
I believe that a strong example of where knowledge and understanding which is not mediated through literacy is being devalued can be seen in many professional working environments. In almost all professions today, an absence of a formal tertiary education will almost immediately exclude an individual from a chance at working in a large organisation. Part of this may be the result of so many young individuals opting to take on tertiary education prior entering the workforce which immediately sets someone who does not have a university background apart, in a negative manner, when looking for a professional job. However, a large part of this may also be in the fact that companies and organisation wish to have a tangible understanding of an individuals qualifications (such as a university degree) rather than understanding or knowledge obtain through their own experience.
I have a story that related to my grandparents` generation. I live in the Inner Mongolian and that part was obviously belonging to Mongolians in songs, words and even environments. However, when the Han nationalities came, they started to take the oath of the sovereign in Inner Mongolia by written literacy and the mongolians were drove by Han nationalities. It can be seen that the high educated and the higher competence come, the old culture will be destroyed and consumed for sure. In this situation, the rich knowledge and learning are not mediated through literacy but are being devalued.
After reading this article and linking with the previous post about the literacy is a tool for power, I do agree that the level of literacy for an individual represents the level of status and power which he or she will hold as a value. It is evident that individuals use the proven evidence of a particular education level or skills (Example: certificate, written documents and medals) to get themselves into certain hierarchy in a company. However, it depends on the country and culture on which the individuals want to use it for. The higher the dominance of the skill set is in the country, the lower the hierarchy which the individual will hold. Of course, there is another method for the individuals to attain an education by learning from the elders without trained in literacy-mediated learning. There are so many cases like family businesses for example well-known restaurants have a long history and were founded by the forefathers.Thus from here, there is indeed a different value in language. Nevertheless, it depends on the individual on how he or she sees the value of language in his or her life.
When I already read this article, I think about indigenous people who have a number of knowledge and skill of their culture but they do not have idea of literacy or reading and writing on the letters. I favour that indigenous people who maintain nature and safe the world more than people who rich knowledge on the books but destroy the nature. I hope people who rich literacy knowledge should use the power of written language to maintain and develop the traditional knowledge for the next generation.
I have heard from the stories of my grandparents that it was by laying pieces of cattle skins in the coastal regions that the early colonisers to Ceylon requested permission to settle in the land. Being a welcoming nation, the inhabitants have allowed them to settle thinking that they would do their trade and leave. But instead , the colonisers have expanded their territories and have managed to ascend to power. This, shows how the colonisers played on the natives unconcern for titled lands to gain access to the land.
Regarding knowledge and learning that are dying out due to not being recorded, are the dance rituals of southern Sri Lanka to ward off evil. There are special kinds of masks worn by the dancers engaging in frenzied dancing from dusk to dawn in front of the affected. Towards the end of the night as the dance comes to its climax, the evil takes leave of the sick, thus ‘curing’ him/her. These, which used to be rituals of everyday life, remains only as forms of art now, practised by institutions working towards preserving them. Another instance is, the many rituals of fertility , surrounding agriculture : protecting the harvest from the weeds,pests etc., imploring deities for favourable weather conditions, respectful behaviour towards the harvest so that it will continue to be plentiful. Some of these are still happening in remote parts of the country, although many remain recorded only in fictional works of writers. Some of these oral taditions like ‘pal kavi'(songs sung at night in a hut on a tree top protecting the fields from the attack of wild animals) have transcended oral practices (maybe due to their musicality) and have been recorded as forms of poetry in Sinhalese.
Another practice of oral tradition is the Latin mass of the Catholic church that was happening during the pre 1940s, in Sri Lanka where the ‘illiterate’ went to church, chanted in Latin without knowing a single word of Latin and celebrated God.They mastered it by listening and repeatingit every week at church. I believe, the strangeness of the words and the musicality would have enhanced their spirituality in these practices. These examples show how knowledge and learning have lost their values due to the lack of being written down, and now exists only as forms of ‘exoticism’.
I do agree that being competent does not necessarily means being literate. Although some people have grasped some practical skills from their parents or ancestors, these kind of techniques could be underestimated by people gradually due to their lack of moderation to the constant change of the contemporary society, or we can say people will not take them very seriously, unless some people made some written materials or documents for them or make some critical plans for them to adjust what they have acquired to the required needs of the modern society. For example, if you search the Guinness Records official websites, you could find that lots of people performed very well in some specific fields, for example, someone is known for starting from being unable to walk to record-breaking football freestyler, 1000 table football fans come together to celebrate the world cup- and break a record, a couple together for 80 years with combined age of 208 set oldest living married couple record, all of which would never be noticed or even appreciated by the world unless it has been literately documented and recorded .
As an aspiring teacher, I immediately had to think of the education system in my country of origin – Germany. Most forms of assessment are highly focused on written tasks, such as summaries, analyses, essays or comments. Education usually disregards other competencies, such as creativity or other personal skills and talents. Even though writing seems to be linked to knowledge to a certain extent, there are numerous areas in which students can be gifted, that are not included within education and its assessment. Literacy practices clearly dominate and shape how we learn across cultures and countries.
This article reminds me of some Chinese oral and nonmaterial cultural heritage such as ancient dramas. A long time ago the most folk artists were illiterate, there was no way to record the music scores and lyrics, older generations have to teach these works to younger generations through words with words. In fact, it is also risky to teach the art verbally because if old artists cannot find the inheritors, the art probably lost. If these artists have literacy skills, they can record the art by text.
With regard to relationship between literacy and competence, there is a biased and dominant notion that competence is guaranteed mainly by literacy. It is believed that only people with literacy are ready to learn something new to acquire. However, in reality, it is possible to acquire a certain knowledge or skill by observation of or actual engagement in activities. This idea reflects what most people put a high value on in society. As an example of this, in Japan, most companies require job applicants to graduate from universities to pass the first stage in the screening process. Only those who pass the first stage can move on to the next stage for taking a job interview. Even if they have great skills acquired through a lot of hands-on practices, it would be difficult for them to get through the first screening unless they also have any proof to show their literacy-mediated knowledge. This indicates how much focus we put on literacy to judge individual knowledge or competency. Besides, writing has a powerful effects on our society.
In Iran, where approximately eight percent of the country’s adults are enrolled in tertiary education, academic literacy was and to some extent is still highly valued by the general public. This is mainly due to the growth of the middle class, urbanisation and employment requirements. Despite this, insufficiency in qualified teaching staff, the lack of appropriate educational and financial resources, and the ‘saturated job market’ has resulted in a crisis in higher education in the past decades. In other words, increasing university graduates cannot be absorbed by the local economy. Not only has this created economic issues, but it has also triggered social and political problems. In the country where higher education was once the sine qua non of social prestige, wealth has now arguably gained more significance than knowledge. This has led to a ‘brain drain’ phenomenon. It seems that more high school graduates tend to join vocational courses with hands-on training, and the general public has started to think differently about the importance of academic literacy.
In morden society, certificate is the representative of ability. Different levels of certificates divide the people into several levels in China. For example, a common phenomenon to differentiate personal ability of English is to set up three types of test including CTE-4(College English Test Band 4）, CTE-6 and TEM-8(Test for English Majors-Band 8）. There are many companies that require employees to have basic English skills and the degree certificate is the only proof. People will receive different treatment at work because of the personal abilities.
After reading this article, the first idea came to my mind is that the written certificates and the degrees are playing the essential roles in individuals’ life. Especially in the modern Chinese society, the main requirement of the employment is the degrees or the certificates of the job seekers. In other words, the written certificates and degrees are the important evidence to testify one’s competence and literacy. Therefore, the written certificates are valued and influential at this time.
This is worth discussing: The previous article “Literacy – the power code” and other notions that I have learned so far in the discipline claim that Literacy is not just only “ability to read and write”. However, this article “Literacy and the differential value of knowledge” seems to deal with the issue based on this traditional understanding of Literacy (ability to read and write). It, therefore, judges the relationships among Knowledge, Competence and Literacy as if these notions are separated, to some extent. However, I do agree that Literacy plays an important role investigating the various values of Knowledge and Literacy is some kind of important knowledge that humans possess. One apparent example I would like to indicate is that: In a language test like IELTS, if someone has no literacy practice, how could they perform their competence in Reading and Writing Skill, despite the fact that they can do Speaking and Listening modules?
Coming from a and Armenian-Syrian background, I relate to the topic of literacy supremacy in several ways. As an Armenian, I have come across a lot of people who have thought that Armenian is just an accent or a dialect and it does not have literature or an alphabet. Every time they saw the distinct alphabet on my mobile keyboard they gave me a reaction that bluntly showed a new level of respect to my ethnicity as they instantly found it more credible. The Armenians not only have a very intricate set of distinct letters, they also have a long and rich history of literature. Of course, it would be unrealistic to expect from people (especially the ones who never had much contact with them) to know these things about the Armenian culture and history as Armenians also tend to socialise more with other Armenians, however, as an Armenian, no matter how integrated I become in other cultures, I always feel a mixture of credibility and misrecognition whenever I encounter such situations because I also am a literacy fetish.
As for my Syrian background, I worked as a Bilingual Support Assistant at English colleges which provide AMEP to the Syrian and Iraqi refugees in areas such as Fairfield and Blacktown. I met and knew a lot of artisans (including my uncle who is a carpenter) and artists including interior and graphic designers whose experience and skills were not recognized just because they could not salvage (from the destruction in the crisis) and translate of equivalate their certificates or degrees and meet the Australian recognition criteria. Artisans in Syria and Iraq usually learn a trade by learning it from their fathers as a tradition or whoever they work for. The problem is that a lot of them do not have English as a second or foreign language, so, they have to start from scratch to be able to do what they did in their country. I know a doctor from Iraq who had just started going to university to study pre-med to eventually become a doctor even though he had years of experience back home because his degrees were burnt in a fire caused by fights during the crisis. I was lucky I could get hold of my certificates and translate them and that English literature was my major. English, has given me more credibility than the other languages I am literate at.
It is very interesting to read this article because of all the examples. I find the same view with Ingrid when she claimed that knowledge and competence associated with literacy are higher valued than those associated with other ways. Take my country as an instance, some people, who did not have a chance to get bachelor degrees in the past, are working for the government and cities’ councils. They are devalued because of this truth, even though they are one of the best employees. As the result, they have to go to evening classes to acquire their needed degrees.
This article defines the literacy from a different point of view as I have never thought like this before reading this article regarding literacy and it really gives a positive vibe to me.
If I mention about Bangladesh, my own county’s picture, it would be little different from this idea. When it comes to applying for a job, the recruiters have the tendency to look at someone’s resume before knowing that person which is common in every country but the difference is that first, they will look for the degree and then from which institutions. It is easy to get a job if someone is from the public university rather than the private university, no matter whether you have the experience or not. Later they will look for the experiences and the skills. So, an institutional degree is more important in some countries, especially in Asian countries but which is opposite in Australia where skills or experiences are more important than having higher degrees. So, it really defers from country to country and culture to culture.
It is very interesting to read about the link between literacy and power from this article. I agree that literacy is the power code, it is somehow like proof for one’s competence. One needs to fulfill the requirement of documents from the employer before they can be considered for an interview, The practical skills are also an important factor but in this modern world, the easiest way to make things become trustworthy and reliable is making it certified.
In my opinion, I think this phenomenon did not happen in the last few decades but it does exist in recent society. For example, in China, some companies pay more attention on the educational qualification of the graduated students who wants to find a job but disregard their working experiences and abilities. So that is one of the important reasons that many Chinese students choose to study abroad in order to improve their qualifications and find a better job or have a better opportunity after they go back to China. However, before the rapid improvement of a society/country, people were more rely on the people’s experiences and product’s quality so that to criticise the abilities of people.
At present times, there is a constant need to validate a certain skill or knowledge by a board, committee or professional of that particular field. Availability of written documents as records of past education and/or employment provides the necessary information needed by one to prove that he/ she has the necessary set of functional skills that would be needed to help meet the demands that society puts on them (especially in terms of employment). This could have been contributed to the fact that information passed on by ‘word-of-mouth’ may sometimes be forgotten over time, or flawed (i.e. through misinterpretation) – in a context of a person from older generation teaching one from the younger generation- without a written record so as to fossilize information passed on (or in other words, words puts weight on knowledge, of those otherwise considered abstract).
Another reason could be a means of emancipation – where these written records may enable people to control their own lives, challenge injustice and become autonomous. It is indeed selfish to only view it in the perspective of those who were, and are, fortunate enough to receive an education and made aware of how it is of great importance at these times to ‘claim’ anything and everything with written evidence, as words by mouth does no longer suffice in the world today.
So was the case of an elderly man I know, who worked as a rubber tapper back in the days and was not given the chance to ‘move up the ladder’ (i.e. to an executive role, or any management position) despite his experience and skills he possessed over the years as they could not be recognized/ validated (i.e. no written documents to prove otherwise). He eventually lost the only job his family had for generations only because he was not a literate, as the people who took it from him were..
Hello,
It is clear that both literacy and competency play a leading role in the modern life of the 21th century. I was thinking about the “experience effects” while reading this paper and assumed that the concepts of literacy and competency have bilateral relations which accommodate one another and experience in any fields may bring a sort of competency without requiring academic-mediated literacies. In the past, many jobs and responsibilities were dependent on the experience acquired from the past generations or by the time working as an apprentice for an expert without receiving academic-mediated knowledge (at least this point is true in my country). However, it is also assumed that academic knowledge can ensure the final results in the field of work that people are working in. Sometimes it may have reverse effects and the certificate received academically can be for the purposes such as bureaucracy, official records, … that do not have any beneficial points for the person and the qualities (non-related or barely related to the expertise or having a written document to demonstrate abilities officially) but provides many opportunities for him to get the most out of this competitive market. To my opinion, people would outperform if they can be both literate and competent in the field they have selected and enjoy the absolute benefits.
Thank you,
Farzaneh Morovati
According to the article, Literacy and the differential value of knowledge by Ingrid Piller, having a “good” in knowledge and skills in literacy practice can change people lives. However, some people get a better chance in their jobs although they are “not good enough” in the ability of knowledge and learning skills. In my point of views, the “not good enough” can be improved by practicing and learning through the literate practices such as training and specific courses in the formal education. In general, it will lead to a high demand that require just only higher professional degrees without reference to higher experienced proficiency. I agree literacy are powerful for the industrial societies with the full ranges of technology, mass production, and a large population with a high capacity of labors.
I agreed with you. We should not judge people just only because they have literacy practice. Everyone can learn and develop their ability. So, we may have to focus on their real capability as well. 🙂
I was sat at my computer pondering the question, and trying in vain to come up with an example of oral education being valued less than the written. As I continued to procrastinate I considered switching on the television and Eureka! There’s an example! It might be a lot less important relative to the example in the blog post, but it is an easy example to show how ubiquitous the greater respect for the written language is in our culture.
Who here values that which is learnt through television anywhere near as highly as that which is acquired through text. Even the news, there is a higher degree of prestige afforded to those sat reading the newspaper relative to those watching it on television. And yet it can be the exact same story, more informative even with visuals to demonstrate the point when delivered orally through the television. Our culture’s great literary works have been animated and filmed, and yet were I to tell you that tonight I read a book many would afford me more respect than had I told them I spent the night watching a movie or listening to the radio, even if it were the exact same story from our history and culture. This higher respect and prestige given to the written language is everywhere we look.
It is sad but true, that nowadays, having a great ability and skill isn’t enough for people when they want to find a job if they don’t have any recorded/written proof which validates that certain skill, competence or expertise. However, I noticed that some people might be lucky enough to have a good even a better job although they did not have this required written qualification, but as the time changes and and people started being aware of the importance of “the proof” in today’s literacy practice for the sake of competitiveness, then quite many of those lucky people also started to pursue the title and qualification through any related training or course that can provide them with it. Despite the ability and skills they have, at the end of the day they still will be questioned and may be doubted by others if they do not hold “the title” related to the field of expertise they work in. For this reason, I agree with Luis’ comment that this situation has made people see formal education as a “currency” that is used for a “better life”.
In general, in the region,I currently reside (the northern region of Iraq) there is an incredibly high value placed formal knowledge obtained through literate practices for all forms of work. Due to tremendous instability in the region, employment levels are very high, particularly amongst youth.
This situation has created a highly competitive job market with a high demand for degrees, preferably in English, in all jobs. This is despite whether the job would traditionally require formal qualifications or not. For example, lower level office work and administrative positions where experience and organisational skills may be of the most benefit are being filled by people with higher degrees, often in unrelated fields, regardless of their actual experience.
Dear all,
According to Professor Ingrid Piller, “literacy is not only about language, but what we do with language. In order to be engaged in a differentiated Modern society, you need to be literate in many ways to learn and access the information” (link between language and knowledge). It seems that nowadays everything is assessed based on your education, knowledge, and your presentation in society. The higher position you are allocated to, the higher respect you receive from people. However, in old days everything was based on “oracy,” even the contracts they made was based on verbal vows which is not at all applicable in 21st century. In those days not all were educated and not all were allowed to be educated, just people from upper-middle class could enter that pathway, thus societal, cultural, political, educational, and economic aspects are of great importance which influence one’s whole life.
Moreover, regarding the proper education in academic and practical education, it seems likely that both head to learning but not in the same way. Entering academic leads one’s life to a brighter future probably and higher positions for in this era education is considered something valuable. But practical learning just allows you to enter that specific trade not the whole society. Also, because of technology and all the changes, without education it is hard to survive and understand the context. All in all, it seems that being literate in many aspects can help one a lot in this era to conquer the 21st context and as Professor Ingrid Piller believes “access the knowledge.”
With regards,
Pegah
As Piller posits, the “literacy-obsessed world” we all live in has made us see formal education as a currency which we can exchange for a ‘better life’. However, I would like to raise the question, what does it really mean to be educated? Take for instance the Inca culture in Peru, they had the ‘amautas’, a knowledgeable man/teacher, who transmitted his wisdom to the children of the nobility, and who also received his knowledge through the same way. This type of education was considered formal and oral, due to the fact that Quechua did not have a writing system at the time. Could we argue that the amautas were educated? Surely not. However, due to the Spanish invasion a large amount of knowledge was lost and the literacies practices –as we know them– were established, devaluing said oral practices and the knowledge they carried.
In Australia, literacy is almost essential in any field of work. Consider the tradie: carpenters, electricians, concreters, plumbers and the like posses a level of knowledge and learning in their own fields which far surpasses that of the layman. Few of us would be educated enough (or brave enough!) to rewire the electrics in our house, or fix the S-bend in the bathroom. Yet even those with seemingly exclusively ‘practical’ jobs rely on literacy in their day-to-day life, to read and write invoices and quotes, read manuals and communicate electronically with clients.
Regarding the importance given to knowledge associated with literate practices and the documents that ‘certify them’ in my country (Colombia) it is easy to find examples of people who use false degree certificates to obtain a job. These examples can even be found in politics (with the major of the capital city as an example) and in academy (with scholars that obtain important positions in universities thanks to false degrees). This shameful practice is a reflection of the excessive value that has been given to a document that ‘certifies knowledge’ over the knowledge that it should represent.
I really agree that literacy is the power code which is heavily related to individuals’ competence and capabilities. This is because if an engineer wants to prove he can build a house, he cannot only tell people how to build the house. In contrast, he should firstly design the building plan which is based on the relevant architecture knowledge and this means this engineer has learned relevant education. Also, he has the skill and ability to build the house. For example, in ancient China, when people created a new skill, they would record this new skill on the paper in order to teach later generations to master this new skill. Then, after these people had been educated the certain knowledge, new people could have a new competence.
This article, seeing the role of literacy form a different perspective makes me think out of the box and critically as I have always perceived literacy as an important and positive impact on the life of individuals. I can think of several common contexts in which written documents are regarded as the proofs of the literacy, resulting in degrading the competencies unrecorded, specifically in my country, Myanmar. A common example is a workplace in which the certificates are the first priority to have a chance for an interview in that if an applicant cannot provide impressively written proofs, even though he or she is qualified for the position, that applicant will be rejected in the first place. The other example is related to legal issues. Whenever there is a legal issue such as contract, marriage or license or property rights, only those that can present written documents are usually favoured.
There is definitely a link between power and literacy in the past and to a good degree today as well. There are a lot of basic jobs you can’t get without some form of formal education whether it is relevant or not.
But with that being said there has been a slight shift in Australia to recognising skilled jobs such as plumbing; where a formal education isn’t needed. They are now valuing the skills passed on through observation and hands on work. i.e. carpenters and forms of apprenticeships. The government has recognised this and has decided that these skills need to be formalised in the form of a certificate or diploma. Such credit as RPL recognised prior learning has leant itself to such formalities. So, the point I am trying to make is that these skills and knowledge were not originally associated with learning or mediated through literacy and were devalued but now have links and expectations associated with literacy for future generations.
I hope this makes sense.
Sri Lanka where I was born and grown up is a beautiful country. It is is rich with natural resources but financially poor. While I was reading this article I thought of my own experience working in a rural area. Villages were farmers and depended on Agriculture. Owners of the paddy fields were rich. I was boarded at the village tailor’s place. Both husband and wife had not gone to a school, but they were rich because of their skill which they gained from parents and through experience. Although I earned very little money as a teacher, they respected me because of my education and profession. I had a social value. On the other hand politicians ruin the country. Famous cricketers, monks, actors join to rule the country. Because of their popularity they become leaders. They have developed totally different skills prior to politicians. They exploit the country with out proper knowledge.
The reason of the emergency of writing is ‘Rcording keeping’. Because of this, we seem find a way to communicate with our ancestor and our ancestor can also remain their wisdom to us. We can not deny that the son of a shoe-maker can learn by observation and participation, but does this means that the skills of making shoes can just be inherited in a family? In other words, without writing or what we called ‘literacy’, we may limited within a particular history or place.
Therefore, it may reasonable to argue that literacy may means a kind of fair because everyone have the opportunity to learn the same things, and it can also be viewed as a kind of power that promot social progress since ‘we can stand on the shoulder of our ancestor’.
I really enjoyed reading the example about the title of a plot of land which strikes me a strong impression on the increasing power of literacy in our society. As I noticed, there are many circumstances where knowledge and learning that are associated with literate practices is clearly higher valued than what are not mediated through literacy. When it comes to applying for any job, it is true that recruiters tend to look at your resume before getting to know you and have in-person interview. Undoubtedly, they would prefer such applicants who have existing general and specialized knowledge and skills in the field which is assumed to often go with their degrees/certificates. For example, we, graduated as Master in Applied linguistics and TESOL, have more chances to get accepted in teaching English in centres or institutions compared to those who haven’t been certified. Similar to title of a plot to land, written documents such as articles or journals are significantly important to mark the ownership of researchers on their work, which can help prevent plagiarism and copyright infringement. Other examples can be passport, ID card or driving license which certainly can’t be orally presented to prove our identity.
This blog clearly shows the relationship between literacy skills and power. Like artworks, written records stay longer and hand down easily even after the writer passes away. In this modern world, having a literacy skill is indispensable to have proof of making a contract or preserving cultures. Providing enough literacy skills and knowing how to keep record mean keeping their existence or contracts alive as a record. That’s why literacy education is important and literacies have played a crucial part for authorities to keep themselves alive in the record.
This topic is very important and fascinating. I can provide an example from my country Bangladesh. In Bangladesh, written certificates are being more valued than individual’s experiences and skills. Most of the institutions ask for certificates, acknowledgements or degrees to support individual’s expertise. If some people could not get a certificate or degree due to time limitations or personal problems, they would have very less opportunity to get a better job despite of their high competence level.
I can see the link between power and literacy from this post. Because of the power and literacy-monger society we live in, written documents as evidence of literacy are more valued than the actual literacy skills a person may be possessing. The contention of early Europeans (white people) that because of the absence of documents as proof that the aboriginals own the land, they assume its ownership as a result of their discovery is happening in present times. Let’s take for instance a work of a brilliant mind whose creation is taken or “stolen” by someone who has PhD diploma. Although his work is wonderfully crafted, it may be credited to someone whose “literacy proof” is more substantial.
I like this article as it reminds me of what we all know “degrees and certificates” to prove that a person is officially qualified for a particular job. Regardless of how much knowlegde one may gain from previous working environment or from elder people, the opportunities to obtain a job interview is very rare if they do not have any degree or certificate that matches the job requirements. This could illustrate that knowledge associated with literacy practice is highly valued in contemporary society throughout the world.
Further on the emergence of a specific literacy, Xanthaki (2013) writes on the recent emergence of legislative drafting as a sub discipline of law. Are we then to equate the emergence of such a sub discipline as simultaneously an emergence of a specific literacy. Perhaps the better question is, what exactly is the criteria for a specific literacy? Taking the certificate of title as an example, we may allege that a person literate in legislative practices would read the certificate differently to a person illiterate in such practices. The difference lies in the assumed knowledge brought to the certificate’s reading.
Such an interesting point! In German there is only one translation equivalent for “fiddle” and “violin” (“Geige”) and I remember trying to figure out the difference between what I thought were two different instruments when I read “Little house on the prairie” (where dad often plays the fiddle) … up until now I thought they were somehow different instruments expect that the difference somehow escaped me … your explanation makes much more sense. Thanks! Ingrid
When I asked him, my grandfather told me the difference is “You don’t spill beer on a violin.” I don’t think the differentiation exists in French either, and the similarity between the words (“violon” and “violin”) is probably where I got confused when talking about it in English! I wonder if there are other distinctions like this for musical instruments in other languages. In this case it seems to fall along the same lines as the pig/pork distinction in English, so it seems to be a result of the influence of the French language on English courtly life.
I am totally agree with the idea that language is related to power, particularly written languages. It is a common phenomenon in our society that you have to possess the required documents in order to to be employed. Sometimes, you feel like the employers are valued more on your certificates and documents rather than the employee’s actual working experience and working skills. One of the example is my personal experience, several years ago I applied for a job to teach speaking for a language center which mainly offer PTE exam preparation course. The interviewers said that I demonstrate good speaking skills and my score of speaking is good, however my writing skills is not good as the other skills (reading, listening and speaking), therefore they asked me to take the test again to obtain a higher score for writing and also the CELTA certificate, and then they’ll consider employ me.
Need and instincts prompts human and animals alike to evolve ways and means for survival. In this quest homosapiens have entered an era of computorisation, artificial intelligence , algorithms etc. The beggining of the journey searched for the shelter food and protection from the dangers. Stone age thinkers invented tools, no body taught them any engineering, college workshops how to give a desired shape to the pottery , weapons etc. No schools advised them how to sow and reap. These great ancestors paved the way of todays literati or literacy.
In a way the literacy of the past is the father of todays literacy. Society is obsessed for literacy, doesnt know actual meaning education , competence. Literacy can not be defined or confined to any particular belief or methodology. Its spectrum and scope is far beyond the reach of universities , college and modern research institutes.
Thank you for bringing this topic. It reminds me to some people that I know who studied IT and pursue careers in IT sector. To get a better job, they can not only depend on their university diploma. It will be privilege for them to finish a specific IT certification program and hold the certificate. Even though learning through experience is valued by the companies who will recruit them, they need to prove their skills and attach that proof in their resume. Therefore, a certification program and the final certificate is like getting a ticket to enter a community of practice and the individuals need to nurture their knowledge within that community for their professional development.
I can totally relate this topic to what I have read before, a book about the cultural invasion and assimilation in Tibet, China. As a matter of fact, far more Chinese variations are now on the edge of extinction, due to the nature that they are only handed down in the form of saga or legend stories, without a well-developed semantic or written system, let alone some dialects scattered in diverse rural areas. It is true that the promotion of standardised mandarine plays a positive role in improving civilian education as well as the enhancing the connection of the whole race, lingua-diversity cannot be overlooked, for every segments of language represents a piece of history and an element of culture.
I cannot agree more with the strong relationship between written language and power. As one of participants of diverse kinds of communities, I always have to prove myself as a qualified one by providing relevant document. Most people who need to be hired and want secure jobs are required to write a resume and a cover letter, in organised and fairly typical ways. If the individual applicants fail to construct those forms, they are not likely to get any opportunity to have job interviews. That is why many proofreaders for academic writing can easily earn money in some countries, for which I would like to cite Ingrid’s word, ‘literacy obsessed world’. The ongling trend of heavy zeal for obtaining power of literacy proficiency do not seem to be stoppable as long as human being seeks for betterment in life.
I totally agree with the idea that the ability to read and write is the most important prerequisite for the acquisition of different kinds of knowledge and skills. In our real life, there are hundreds thousands of so-called ‘certificates’ that prove a person’s ability and it always requires the act of reading, listening, writing, and sometimes even speaking. It is not limited to the linguistic competence. Even driving license, for example, can be acquired by those who should be able to read and write, because there is also a written test as well as pratical driving test. We are living in the world with power of literacy. However, as shown in the example of Aboriginal people in the article, it should be assured that other kinds of competence can be exist aside from the literacy.
This article reminds me of my experience as a homeroom teacher in a public secondary school in South Korea last year. There was a girl I was in charge who had psychological issues, originated from the experience of being bullied at a primary school and exposed to the violence from her parents. Her mental state was very unstable and that made it hard to form a close relationship with her classmates who even tried to get close to her first. As the girl kept saying about ‘death’ and ‘suicide’ in everyday conversation, I, as a homeroom teacher, and a consultant of student’s behaviour took super care of her, letting her to come and say whatever she wanted to say. I tried to be on her side to support her mentally. However, though I spent countless hours on caring her, I found that I had no written version of our conversation, which got me in trouble when she disappeared during the school hours and a vice-president of the school asked me what I had done for her to keep this from happening. Everybody around me, including co-teachers and students, knew the endeavour I made but that didn’t mean a proof that I tried to keep her on a right track. This experience helped me notice that we value writing more than other modes of literacies in our social practices. Fortunately, she returned without any harm and became a university student majoring in social wellbeing, though.
I do agree that there is a strong connection between literacy and competence. In modern societies, literacy-associated knowledge is evaluated by written documents acknowledged by separate authorities. The power lay behind simply “claims” one`s competence, which is understandable in this efficiency-oriented society. It is especially obvious to notice when one has to show all the certificates, qualifications and other documents as he manages to find a job or apply for certain positions. The actual ability and other forms of knowledge which take time to demonstrate are discounted at the first sight. This is the reason why the debate between exam-oriented education and all round development education is so heated.
Hi Tiya,
Thanks for your comment. I like the points you’ve made as for the suggestion for keeping the e-documents in case lost, but with the devices humans don’t need to have when they’re reading a book, I’m just thinking that a book is also a technology that’s pretty much the same as a device in terms of the functions for this matter. That might have something to do with prestige, but e-books nowadays are also very much possible to be sold online to acknowledge the right of authorship, in my opinion.
when I think about literacy I remember about the film named “God must be crazy”. In this film the lifestyle and the knowledge of the tribal people who live in the dense forest of Africa is shown. Their encounter with the modern world and invention is shown in a very funny way. They are surprised and shocked to see the discoveries made by the modern man. But, there is another side of the story, too. The modern man who is proud to be literate and knows to read and write do not have the knowledge which is lying in the nature. The tribal group who do not know how to read and write have unlimited knowledge about the nature and are aware about the mysteries related to it through observation. They have passed their knowledge from one generation to another generation through observation without any script, class and book. Therefore literacy cannot be defined as knowing how to read and write only but it can be explained as the knowledge which we can get through observation and experience.
Dear professor, Piller and everyone,
In the modern world, when we talk about knowledge or learning, we immediately include in these concepts ‘literacy’ that often borders with competence. In the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, the ancient Arab tribes strengthened their authority and spread the unique culture. Until now, there are hugely revered age traditions. This fact explains the great influence on people, how they learned and conveyed knowledge which in turn affected the present situation in the kingdom. It is well-known that some individuals in the country are illiterate. Today, this issue is still solving at the state level, which requires the involvement of different programs and impacts on the population. “The Saudi education system has faced considerable international and local changes in recent years” (Elyas & Picard, 2010). This fact has increased the popularity of the study of English and general education programs that extend and include compulsory literacy study. At the same time, trade and crafts are also one of the main wages of the population, which is why the government takes its way for improving vocational training.Many people in the country are going to work in this sector. All in all, literacy affects the country, people, society and can have different consequences.
Thanks.
The example that i can think of is the common culture and perception that exist in some workplaces in Indonesia, which highly regard individuals’ competence based on the recorded proof. Individuals’ expertise is normally disregarded if it is not supported by certificate, acknowledgment, or degree, which oftentimes inhibit people from having better job or position in a company or institution. Hence, there is a growing number of institutions, which currently provide training, short course, or degree and offer certificate of completion or participation that could not be afforded by some people due to limited capital and time constraint. As the result, these type of individuals could not obtain better job or further their career prospect despite their competence level and long-time experience as well as shifted intention of some people to enroll in certain course for merely obtaining certificate instead of enhancing their competence level.
This article raises a thought-provoking issue which our society grapples with, at present. I have encountered many such situations in day to day life in different towns and cities I have been to. Some of them are personal experiences related to family members too. Just as the article vividly points out how a legal document holds umpteen value and persons with real skills acquired without a legal certificate for it are devalued. A real life situation I recently encountered is a man who did not speak English that well was an excellent operator of a machine at a pharmaceutical industry, which he had done for almost a decade but the newcomers with an engineering degree are given preference over him to do other sophisticated tasks in the factory. The irony is that sometimes he needs to teach them how to work on the machines and to execute other complicated tasks. But he himself cannot expect to be promoted or any incentives.
Dear Ingrid Piller,
Having read your article and discussion in the classroom, I have actually acquired the concept and meaning of literacy in a broader spectrum. There are in fact, a lot of such instances in my country, Nepal where knowledge and learning are devalued when it is not mediated through literacy. Basically people in the countryside consume some naturally available herbs in the form of medicines as these are all year-long practices and they cure the diseases indeed. On the other hand, people who are really conscious of their health and understand the medicinal values prefer allopathic medicines which in fact use the same herbs as the ingredients. This shows the latter too are attracted towards the consumption of these herbs following their processing. To our dismay, this is devalued comparing the homeopathy with allopathic medicines as the latter is based on specific study and formulation. I think the only way that procures power to the former would be systematic preparation and documentation prior to their supply.
In the case of intangible heritage recognition, the role of literacy to mark ownership is very important, all the while ethically questionable. There are many forms of cultural or ethnic performances, which have been handed down through generations, on the verge of disappearing just because they are not recorded or recognised on paper. Once they are “discovered” and noted down, they have a higher chance to be preserved. Indeed, words put weight onto the existence of these abstract forms of knowledge. However, such written words usually reflect the interpretation of the “authorised people” rather than the indigenous’ actual voice. Interestingly, the legitimacy of such interpretation is rarely questioned. Similar to “terra nullius”, the right literacy in the right context allow people to claim ownership to other forms of knowledge by framing and shaping them in the way they deem fit. Although this may seem unharmful, such overuse of literacy is in fact an exploitation of resources, which would lead to the reduction of the ways we perceive the world. A concrete consequence is that people who never really experience a certain art form but have read about it may think that they already “know” that art form. Since they “see” it, they “own” it!
An example I can think of is when we write essays or papers for university. The research we draw upon has to be referenced and the references are all associated with particular and exclusive literary practices. In subjects such as history this can devalue the knowledge and life experiences of people that have lived through certain events but are not in a position to publish work that can be considered as a relevant reference. In this case it is difficult to reference some indigenous histories. Indigenous histories and experiences are devalued as a consequence of such practices. As are the experiences of other marginalized groups in society that are excluded from the learning and knowledge associated with traditional literary practices.
Hi Dee,
I think this is a great example of how while written literature may equal power, it may not always be the most ethical or the most inviting, inclusive form of research, and that marginalised groups are vastly excluded from the literature which in turn may devalue their history that could add quite a lot of raw experience to the mix. While there are many research articles written from a white-Australian point of view (and of course there is nothing wrong with that), it would also be extremely worthwhile to somehow reference Indigenous Australians through another channel, as they do not put as much importance or power in the written word – for as long as they have been in Australia, oral traditions have been of the utmost importance to them. Imagine if our society put more emphasis on the spoken word – I would love to be able to somehow incorporate that into an essay.
One example I think of where forms of knowledge and learning that are not mediated through literacy are being devalued is a traditional nursery rhyme passed down orally generation by generation in my hometown. It tells stories of national heroes along the Chinese history in a rhyme way, which serves as an interesting history briefing to the children. However, with the development of mass media, nowadays children are no longer attracted to this kind of nursery rhyme in front of all the animations, games on electronic devices. As a result, the way passing down knowledge and learning knowledge by rhyme is dying out, although it did contribute to the literacy among general public in the old days.
I strongly agree with the idea that some forms of literacy are meant to limitedly acknowledge ownership rather than custodian. This purpose now has shifted to economic interest as well. The access to literacy practices have been widely misused to send away traditional people, who do not have anything to “hold on to”, from their lands to build factories or privatised plantations for mass-production of goods such as palm oil. Their hereditary beliefs in taking care of the land are viewed as old-fashioned. Even they are convinced that those beliefs would not benefit them economically or raise their social status at all. Here, literacy is also glorified as one symbol of someone’s quality in the society. It is sad to think that these people are basically competent and knowledgeable in their own “land” with their own standard but they have to struggle to be another type of competent and knowledgeable in lands that are not theirs and standards that sometimes are not made for them.
This article has made me think differently about literacy. I always considered literacy as the ability to read and write. It made me think about the success of ancient civilisations such as the Greeks and Romans who laid the foundations of contemporary western civilisation. The Greeks and the Romans were predominately illiterate – only the elite in many cases could read and write and this was for political gains and power. However, no one can doubt the ancient Greeks’ and Romans’ competencies and legacies across countless disciplines. Many ancient Greeks were illiterate but were extraordinary critical thinkers. Incompetent? Surely not!
In most remote and secluded areas of Indonesia, on which are usually inhabited by various tribes or people of the forest, the literacy level is still very low. Many of them do not have the knowledge of how to read and write, and many people from a “luckier or better” area of Indonesia (or big cities) really pity this situation and try to teach them regular school subjects. However, little did many people know, these tribe people are actually well educated. They learn many things about the forest and survival lesson through stories, songs, and practical skills their ancestor taught them. Still, this knowledge were devalued by big cities people because these forms of knowledge are considered primitive, not like economic, English and other common subjects that are actually, in my opinion, are only useful for city people and almost useless for these tribes. The forest is their home, and their stories, songs and practical skills are what they actually need in order to survive in the forest, not in the cities, and even though their knowledge are not highly mediated through literacy, it should be valued equally in order to preserve their cultures.
Thank you for very fascinating points and examples in the article, Prof. Ingrid. They have made me think about an example where non literacy-mediated forms of knowledge and learning might have been devalued. It is the story of people from a minority group whose broidery is known as very unique and special. While those people have learnt and gained good skills in such broidery, they were required to show evidence that they were literate or they could not get recruited for some broidery-related jobs in the city. Actually they are not asked to be specialized in what they are doing, but still need to prove that they have completed their high school diplomas, for example.
Dear Ingrid,
I found this topic to be quite relevant to this age, as the definition of literacy has significantly changed over time. Being literate is now not only limited to just being able to read and write, it has become more complex. The term is observed with a broader perspective and people even associate it to the fluency in language with analytical skills and other competencies such as knowledge of modern technologies.
If one is capable enough of doing things correctly, what else do we need? I mean, ultimately if the goal is to get the job done in most accurate ways.
I totally agree with you that even though you are competent enough, nobody accepts that you are a professional unless you present a document to support yourself. There are many skills I also have gained in different traditional ways but unfortunately that do not count much.
I find this article so interesting! It addresses a topic and issue that is so important and also quite frustrating at times, depending on what side of the fence you are looking at it from. As a student who is still in the process of finishing my studies, it is frustrating when a job may require some sort of tertiary qualification (be it a TAFE diploma or a university degree), and disregards any previous experience had, or knowledge of the profession, purely because you don’t have a little piece of paper saying that you are officially “qualified”. This is an example of written literacy knowledge on a larger scale, but there are also smaller scale examples. A close friend of mine is a performer in musical theatre, a profession where an official “degree” is not a necessity, and to be good in this field of work you can progress by hard work, practice and training that does not require traditional ways of learning (such as being in a classroom, etc).
Overall I think that the value placed on needing an official literate learning of knowledge/skills is all dependent on the field in which the learning is taking place.
Literacy the power code. Yes I agree it is a means to an end in this modern societies. Roman saying ” Knowledge is power”, In what means do you acquire power. Power is something you posses that gives you an edge above others. What is that edge? I do agree to a certain degree. The means to power has we have learnt in the last three lectures is writing. The secret to power is writing. All sorts of writing, Chinese, Greeks, Arabic, etc. In history a society with a developed writing system has advantage edge over other societies or civilisation. Writing has shaped the society to what we commonly say ”civilisation” or civilised society. On the contrary is a society without writing is a barbaric society or uncivilised. So from this civilised societies have the comparative advantage of writing to those without writing. Though the aboriginal society were great painters they never developed a writing system and when the whites arrived they had this comparative edge. ”Terra Nullius” a land belonging to know one, though the native aboriginal lived in Australia 40-50 thousand years, even before the pyramids of Giza was constructed, even before the Phoenicians invented the alphabet, before the Romans build the colosseum and even before Great Britain become great. So what was the edge that they did not have in this vast land called Australia, a writing system. If they had it, it would be a different Australia when the British arrived. But did they need a writing system? No they did not, they survived along with the nature. The salient point is that those civilised empires rose but perished, so did their writing. The empires become so consumed with power of knowledge of writing that they became greedy. A literate nation is a nation of consumption, knowledge burns the desire to know more and have more. In the effort to know we are consumed by time making it the centre of life. So, a literate person is a person with less time for self and more time to gain power. Learning is a process of gaining power and that comparative advantage over another. So this gives you a sense of competency in life. So knowing how to read and write is positive tool to have over others. However it does not make the illiterate incompetent, more so less educated because they are different types of acquisition of knowledge as the Aboriginals have shown us through their survival in Australia. It requires certain skills and perfection of these survival skills that they learnt from observation. Having said that, in this modern society, reading and writing is vital but in certain places and traditional or native societies in the third world it is not necessary.
I agree there is a strong connection between written language and power, particular in relation to legal documents. The great irony to me, however, is that so many ‘lay people’ cannot understand legalese, thereby requiring them to employ the services of a lawyer to make sense of their important documentation. This allows the legal profession a great deal of power and prestige – which they are unlikely to voluntarily divest anytime soon!
In terms of another example of learning which is being overtaken by written language, I have noticed a significant difference in the maths homework that my children complete in comparison to the work I did as a child. Long gone are the stencils with numerically based equations to be calculated. All maths problems now seem to be ‘problem-based’ (even from years 1 and 2), which require the children to read several sentences to identify the correct mathematical operation to use (either plus, minus, multiplication or division). Although this is great practice from the perspective of applying their learning to real-life problems, I can’t help but think of children who are struggling with reading, or come from a non-English speaking background, who may have traditionally found solace in the non-linguistic nature of mathematics, but can no longer do so.
Salmat, I note since at least the late 1980’s the plain English movement has had an impact on the language of the law. In Australia, the Law Reform Commission of Victoria’s 1987 report entitled ‘Plain English and the Law’ marked a milestone for the advancement of plain English in the law. One of the ongoing challenges for drafters of the law is how to express complex policies clearly. The sheer volume of law is also driving a demand for plain English in the law because of the administrative burden of the law. Those whom administer many of our laws also need to understand the law especially when responding to questions from the public or other government agencies. This later point was likely influencial in Obama’s Plain Writing Act of 2010. That said, there is still a great deal of work to do to improve the accessibility of the law to lay people.
Civilization holds its progressive growth to basically the fundamental development of writing over the centuries has we have covered in our lectures form the Egyptians, Phoenicians, Romans and to recent empires in the later part of common era (BCE) like the Ottomans. Great Empires have risen in human history because they have developed a superior writing method that has helped them to administer their empires. Their government and public system were able to function because of their sophistication in their writing. Did this empires survive? I don’t think so, they rose and fell and history has its own way of repeating itself. They felt behind archeological evidence of their past that we can study and appreciate. Why did the empires fall? In my opinion if one culture becomes too dominant then it becomes too greedy. The superiority of the culture is envied by all that in the long run it losses it taste. For instance, in during the roman empire Latin was the envied language to learn, but slowly it died away. In this modern world English is the language that many people wan to learn but will it survive or die as did Latin. If English becomes the dominant language of trade and commerce in the world, it is in human nature for people to revolt and form smaller groups identifying their own language to give meaning to their existence and belonging has becoming part of a bigger group. Naturally there are called separatist or fundamental groups. Why do we have so many groups like this going against America and rest of the Western culture. It is because of the dominance of the written culture. For instance McDonald and Coco Cola are Multi-National Companies. They are billion dollar companies operating all around the world. The dominance of this companies is seen as westernization and bullying of once culture over the other. So, with it is attached the language so if English is to be dominant language, leftist would say it’s its imperialism of once culture over the other. And so with it comes greed and power, eventually empires collapse. Take the current situation between North Korea and USA. Yes its is an international crisis but at the end it a case of a war between who has the superior language and culture. Is it the English speaking nations or another Non-English speaking nation. Which culture is more superior, which culture is more powerful, which culture can exploit more resources, which culture can exploit the poor directly or indirectly. These are the empires that become more competent in their society through the development of their writing system that their pride is the collapse of their society. Is the recent development of Trump versus North Korea a phenomenon of political superiority. Becoming Literate is good but it comes with cost of life’s and environment. Look at what literate human beings have done to the planet in the last 400 years. Global climate change, wars, famine, ice melting, pollution to air, water and sea. Where will it lead to in the next 400 years to come? I better be a simple life that is environmentally friendly.
In my opinion, literacy has been a tool to justify human being’s greed. When Columbus arrived at North America, Europeans called the continents of North and South America ‘The New World’. Although there were people who had already lived and developed their own civilization, the Europeans regarded the continents as the new place. This is because, in the view of the Europeans, there were no evidences to prove the native people’s the right of the land. Of course, the Native Americans, including Inca Empire, had their own system to display their possessions. However, the Europeans ignored because of their greed to take over the land. Therefore, the Westerners claimed the Americas as ‘terra nullius’ and drove out the native people who originally settled down throughout the American contents. So the above examples are enough indicators of literacy as the device to justify human desire.
Dear Ingrid,
It is a very thoughtful post about how knowledge and learning are devalued under some particular cases of literacy practice. When you mentioned Aboriginal people in Australia, their history seems to be pretty tragic. They did not have an legal or written ownership records only because they have not developed their own writing system. When I was in secondary school, I have studied a short article The Last Lesson by Alphonse Daudet in Chinese class when I was in secondary school. This essay is about how French is taken away by German people from their classroom. In this essay, the teacher finally wrote “VIVE LA FRANCE” on the blackboard to remind their students shall not forget about their mother language. Imaging that a nation’s literacy’s skill has been entirely deprived by another invasion of a new language, and we could sentence this nation’s orginal language to death. Similar case happened to the three northeast provinces of China from 1931 to 1945, those three provinces is a part of Japan, and the Chinese people in there, which is also taught by Japanese. The question is how we could hold a title to our “Land”, and how we could claim to the world that this “Land” is mine. The only way to achieve this is to create our own langugage, and more importantly language is a part of our own cultural recognization. Only by writing letters and characters, the history could be recorded.
This article reminds me a concept that I have encountered before when I taught an English course for my Vietnamese students: the “oral contract”. Its definition states that an agreement between individuals can be made and legally recognized by spoken words. It is also noted that this kind of contract may not have any legal effect in many cases. To be honest, I have never had an oral contract in my life and I support the predominance of written documents in most of our social practices due to the sense of security it brings to us.
However, in terms of knowledge recognition, I totally agree that literacy fetish can lead to some social irrationality. For instance, the government in my country has been struggling with the disappearance of many national traditional trade villages and the dying of several ancient hereditary crafts. Obviously, in the modern society where knowledge mediated through literacy is highly appreciated, holding an official certificate, degree or diploma is more attractive to young people than spending time learning difficult skills passed down orally through generations.
This post quickly brought to mind the latest Filipino independent film I watched as part of the Cinemalaya Festival in Manila. “Ang Guro Kong Di Marunong Magbasa” (My Teacher Who Doesn’t Know How to Read) by Perry Escano shows the sad plight of children in Mindanao who are forced to carry arms instead of books because of the incessant fights between the military and rebel groups in the area. The story highlights the heroism of Aaquil, a no-read-no-write farmer who takes up the challenge of teaching the children in their barrio with a little help from the “smarter” kids who know how to read. But this advocacy is quickly arrested when Aaquil is held hostage by the rebels, and his students take up arms to fight the people who are keeping them from their dream of having a decent education. This story, which is inspired by true events, affirms the prevailing idea in the Philippines that literacy–particularly, the ability to read and write–is the key to success. Those who are willing to sacrifice their life in pursuit of this ideal are hailed heroes.
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