The "function" and "notion" of literacy may be considered the keystone, a "filigree" principle underlying the educational, social, and cultural organiza tion of the societies of the twentieth century. It is therefore interesting to try to pinpoint the notion and its implications at the tum of the century by focusing the attention of scholars from various disciplines-sociolinguistics, psychology, psycholinguistics, and pedagogy-on the subject. This is the purpose of this volume, which originated from an inter disciplinary meeting on trends in and problems of research on early literacy through mother tongues and/or second languages, held in Venice under the auspices of the University of Venice, and in particular of the Seminario di Linguistica e di Didattica della Lingue and the Centro Linguistico Interfacolta, and the Municipality of Venice, together with UNESCO and AILA. A first far-reaching question touches on the role assigned to or fulfilled by mass "literacy" in modem society. The concept of literacy considered as a social achievement, an essential component in the process of education to be institutionally prompted and controlled, fluctuates between two opposite poles. A polemic-destructive view considers the notion and the educational "prac tices" connected with it as a potent instrument of social control, a tool for social reproduction and consensus. On the other side, a plurifunctional con structive view considers the acquisition and maintenance of different languages via educational institutions as a concrete possibility for the defense and main tenance of cultural pluralism and identity, be it social, ethnic, or religious.
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Verlagsgruppe
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Dateigröße
ISBN-13
978-1-4899-0909-1 (9781489909091)
DOI
10.1007/978-1-4899-0909-1
Schweitzer Klassifikation
I. Sociolinguistic Analyses and Perspectives.- 1: On the Notion and Implications of the Concept of Mother Tongue in Literacy Education in a Multilingual Context: The Case of Zambia.- 2: Issues and Trends in Early Bilingual Literacy in Brazil.- 3: Non-English-Language Ethnic Community Schools in the USA: Instruments of More Than Literacy and Less Than Literacy.- 4: The Development of Bilingual Literacy Skills: Experiences with Immersion Education.- 5: Ancestral Language Training and the Development of Bilingual Literacy: A Canadian Perspective.- 6: The Use of Creole as a School Medium and Decreolization in Haiti.- 7: Catalan and Castilian in School: A First Evaluation.- 8: Implications of Defining Literacy as a Major Goal of Teaching the Mother Tongue in a Multicultural Society: The Dutch Situation.- 9: Literacy Problems in Hungary.- 10: Multilingual Education in Britain: The State of the Art.- II. Psycholinguistic, Linguistic, and Educational Issues and Problems.- 11: Psychoeducational Language Awareness Assessment and Early Reading.- 12: The Development of Metalinguistic Awareness and the Acquisition of Formal Speech in Mother-Tongue Education.- 13: Evaluation of Text Reading Comprehension: Results of a Research at the End of Primary School and in Junior High School.- 14: Problems of Written Comprehension and Production in Children: A Textual-Pragmatic Study.- 15: Standard Language Acquisition by the Swiss-German Dialect-Speaking Child.- 16: Oral Reading Practice: An Institutional Constraint on the Development of Functional Literacy.- 17: The Initial Reading Scheme: Is There an Alternative?.- 18: Learning to Read and Write: The Results of an Experiment.- 19: Early Bilingual Reading: Retrospects and Prospects.- 20: Problems of Language Growth and the Preparation ofSchoolbooks in Africa.
