Comments on: Literacy – the power code

By: Siqi

Siqi — Sat, 03 Nov 2018 23:58:42 +0000

In China, being literate basically means that one has the ability to read and write written text. Similar to what is mentioned in this article, the focus of literacy is on written language. We usually call those who are illiterate “不识字“, which literally should be translated to “lack the ability to recognize words”, so for example, if one can speak and understand Mandarin when hearing it but cannot identify the Chinese character in paper, then he/she could be considered as illiterate.

By: Anas

Anas — Fri, 14 Sep 2018 21:31:51 +0000

In Jordon, the main language spoken is Arabic. Arabic is written in its own alphabet – there are twenty-nine consonantal letters and “diacritical signs to represent vowels, as well as subject, object, and other grammatical units” (Alhaddad, 2014). “Literacy” in Arab معرفة القراءة والكتابة or maerifat alqira’at walkitaba, means knowledge, learning and knowing (maerifa).

In primary schools, grades 1 – 4 are devoted to using Arabic and the main aim is to enable students to use Arabic, being the official language, to express ideas both in writing and speaking. In secondary schooling, the attention is in understanding classical and modern Arabic literature. As such, students are encouraged to express their opinions about a particular subject matter being discussed in classrooms. Those in the teaching profession may notice students from Arab nations are able to participate in classroom discussions but lack the ability to express the same thoughts and opinions in writing. This has become one of the main aims of the Board of Education in Jordan – to improve students’ writing ability in particular academic writing.

On the subject of literacy, in the 1980’s literacy rates among the Arab nations were only at 51.3% and today the rates range from 80% and above in nine countries (Jordan, United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Kuwait, Lebanon, Qatar, and Libya), which are relatively small states with the exception of Saudi Arabia, to less than 75% in nine other countries with large populations, with Iraq, Mauritania and Yemen standing as low as 40% and 41.2% and 49% respectively (Hammoud, 2006).

Literacy and power, thus, is a social commodity in which it is further complicated by gender, ethnicity and socio-economic status. Furthermore, due to its location – it borders other Arab countries such as Iraq, Syria, Saudi Arabia, Palestine, and Israel, there is a constant movement of migration for work and the number of refugees is on the rise. As such, approximately 2.9 people out of the 10 million population are non-citizens.

How does this affect literacy and individual power in terms of navigating through the social, economic and political arena? This has raised various heated discussions on Jordanian government’s commitment to literacy, especially among the Palestinian refugees to the number of unemployment rate among local university graduates. This will require a discussion on another forum as I am sure students from other countries have their own related issues in their respective countries.

By: Xinyue Ji

Xinyue Ji — Mon, 03 Sep 2018 01:21:50 +0000

(1) In my language, “literacy” means “识字，读写” .
(2) Honestly speaking, I’m not really sure about the equivalents of read and write of literacy in Chinese and I guess it may is “读”.
(3) In my opinion, in Chinese, most occupations need people who have literacy ability like computer literacy, and these people may have more ability and can be more highly used, as a result, they have much power than other people.

By: Nana

Nana — Sun, 26 Aug 2018 09:14:11 +0000

Considering literacy as the ability to read and write, is a brief definition, understanding the human context it is clear that literacy involves not only spoken and written language, but also body language and many other dimensions that include: financial, environmental, digital.artistic…
In my country (Colombia) there is still illiteracy, people in rural areas do not know how to read their names or read the numbers on bills, they use money based on the bill’s colours. Some others know only how to write their names and they can read the numbers on bills and their ID numbers. This is an unfortunate situation mostly caused by corruption. the government has some programs to alphabetise people and there are certain non governmental organisations that support similar programs with people in areas of difficult access. hopefully, the situations start to improve in my country and each day more and more people can be listened to while communicate their ideas more effectively.

By: Thi Bach Tuyet Nguyen

Thi Bach Tuyet Nguyen — Sat, 25 Aug 2018 11:04:47 +0000

I found this article entitled “Literacy – the power of code” definitely inspirational and valuable. As it does mention a wide range of perspectives on literacy such as reading and writing, knowledge and competences, neutral technology and especially a way of doing things with words. In particular, literacy is exactly considered as a tool of power. Whenever talking about literacy, I myself believe that literacy is referred to the abilities of reading and writing something. Hence, this article helps to broaden my mind to see literacy in different aspects and meanings.

By: Natalie Estrella

Natalie Estrella — Fri, 24 Aug 2018 08:30:38 +0000

I would like to comment on a concept raised in the blog that literacy is a means to power and a tool of power, associated with the concept that ‘knowledge is power’. Without the ability to read and write a person becomes dependent on others who have these skills and this can clearly be seen in the case of children who haven’t acquired these skills yet and of tourists traveling to a country where they have no proficiency in the target language. For example, to take a simple every day example, may son and I have always enjoyed cooking together. Before he started school, this would involve me reading the recipe and measuring the ingredients while he would pour and mix the ingredients. Now however, that he is in year 5 at school, he can follow the recipe and bake completely independently. This of course gives him a great sense of achievement, confidence and ultimately power.

By: Lai Ng

Lai Ng — Fri, 24 Aug 2018 05:04:47 +0000

There are multiple meanings of literacy. It can be just a cover term of ‘reading and writing’.It can refer to the all kinds of language -mediated competences of learning and achieving purposes through the written words. Simple speaking, it is a way to do things with words. It is a powerful tool helping us to manage our social affairs and organise our social lives. the brief historical description of English to Latin gives us a good example of how linguists define literacy in old English, its power of enactment and the importance of investigation in the semantic field when its relevant researches are done.

By: Khoa Nguyen

Khoa Nguyen — Thu, 23 Aug 2018 13:57:25 +0000

I found this post very interesting because I can relate what was written to the so-called “Literacy” in my country. In Vietnam, as many of Vietnamese students have stated in this post so far, the meaning of the term “Literacy” is equivalently translated as “Đọc”, which means reading skill, and “Viết”, which means writing skill, and of course, as in many other countries, it is true that the more literate a person becomes, the more respectful he or she gets from the community. I just want to share a story which is related to history about “Literacy” in Vietnam. After Ho Chi Minh, the hero of Vietnamese people, declared ‘The Declaration of Independence” from France for Vietnam in 1945, he launched a campaign called “The Literacy campaign”, which helped to eradicate illiteracy in Vietnam because only 20% of Vietnamese people could be able to read and write at that time, and then, by 1965, 95% of the population was literate as the school system was rescued. Ho Chi Minh is remembered as a hero of Vietnam as the one who realized the importance of “Literacy” and did what he could do best to gain it back for the whole nation.

By: Marie

Marie — Thu, 23 Aug 2018 04:52:23 +0000

As others already commented on the semantic field and the power relations of literacy in the Korean social practices, I’d like to focus on the detailed meanings of the word in Korean and provide some examples of how it differs from that of English. Interestingly, Korean does not seem to have an exact equivalent for the English word ‘literacy’, although the Korean government did its best to increase the literacy rate after the Korean War. The dictionary explains that literacy is the ‘ability to read and write’ but does not provide a word that can be directly rendered into Korean. However, when I searched a few Korean words that convey similar meaning – but with differences – like literacy, 문해(文解/Munhae), 독해(讀解/Dokhae), and 식자(識字:Sikja), they were all unanimously translated into ‘literacy’ in English. It is noteworthy that all of the three examples have slightly different focuses while the general meaning still relies on ‘the ability to read and write’. 문해(Munhae) is to read a text and understand, 독해(Dokhae) is to read and understand the ‘meaning’ of a text, and 식자(Sikja) is to ‘know’ the writings or letters. The usage of these words also varies depending on the context. For instance, the meanings of Munhae and Dokhae seem identical at a glance; however, there is a significant difference as shown in a survey called IALS (International Adult Literacy Surveys) conducted by the OECD in 2001. The survey result indicates that majority of the Korean adult population achieved a high level of Munhae (reading and understanding the text) while only a few of them were capable of Dokhae, which is to grasp the meaning of the text. (Source: http://oecd.kedi.re.kr/FileRoot/LuBoard/B_DATA/Files/B_DATA0000013481F.pdf)

By: Nidhi Dhir

Nidhi Dhir — Wed, 22 Aug 2018 01:08:10 +0000

In India literacy is defined as acquisition of 3R’s i.e. reading, writing and arithmetic. The article made me think about the connection between power and being literate. I strongly believe that being literate helps in becoming socially and financially powerful, since in my country all highly paid or white-collar jobs require high degree certificate which leads to high social status as well. Apart from this in ancient times in India according to caste system only high caste people or royalty had exposure to literacy (reading and writing) which means being educated is more close to being powerful.

By: Tingting Li

Tingting Li — Tue, 21 Aug 2018 12:55:37 +0000

“literacy” in Chinese refers to the ability to use language and words, that is, to hear, read and write. Acquiring this ability needs people to be educated from the early age. Writing ability is the foundation of academic literacy, and that speech is only meant to promote understanding, and that understanding will eventually be “transcribed”. The main factors influencing the development speed of students’ literacy and proficiency include the nature of the project, students’ age, their environment (such as urban, urban, rural or suburban environments), learning time, class size and course design.

By: Thuy Linh Nguyen

Thuy Linh Nguyen — Mon, 20 Aug 2018 13:28:16 +0000

The Vietnamese translation of “Literacy” is ” Sự biết đọc, sự biết viết”, which means ” the ability to read and write.”. As you know, Vietnamese alphabet today is a Latin alphabet with additional letters and diacritics for tones. However, some words are borrowed form Chinese and even some pronunciations are based on ” chữ Nôm” a manipulated set of Chinese characters. I’m not sure about the origin of ” đọc” (read) but “viết” is a word borrowed from Chinese used in Vietnamese ways and written in Latin alphabet. Its original writing in “chữ Nôm” is 曰 and its meaning is speak, ask, answer or placed at the beginning to start a topic.
Thuy Linh Nguyen

By: Au

Au — Mon, 20 Aug 2018 06:15:00 +0000

Before reading this blog, my definition of “Literacy” is also the ability to read and write which is rarely related to two other ability-speaking and listening. I prefer the way “literacy” is defined in this post which is a way to do things with words. As far as I am concerned the four macro skills are actually hard to separate them because they support the progress and the development of each other so in this case I totally agree that the ability to read and write is closely related to spoken language. For example, people have to prepare a script for an important speech which there is a connection between written language and spoken language.

By: Yan Yan

Yan Yan — Mon, 20 Aug 2018 05:19:24 +0000

I’m from China, and the translation of literacy in my language is “识字“. Literacy meaning that basic reading and writing skills in China. Long times ago, literacy is a symbol of the power, the education is a noble capitalists the patent, the general civilian population, absolutely no chance to get by. In 1880, there are 20% people have literacy skill in China. At present, literacy wasn’t the patent of noble or rich family, but symbolic power, such as law and stipulation must to using in written form.

By: Cami

Cami — Mon, 20 Aug 2018 00:37:51 +0000

The link between literacy and power was an idea that I had never explored intellectually in any depth until now. On reflection I realise that I couldn’t do many things in my life at all without the ability to read and write. Being able to find work in newspapers and on-line, apply for work – usually via the written medium of a resume, find basic information about bus times, shops, opening and closing times etc, would all be impossible without literacy skills. I lived in Japan for sometime too and even though I can read and write Japanese quite well, I still haven’t mastered all of the kanji. Not being able to read everything really made communicating and knowing what was going on in a world where so much information was communicated via email difficult. At first when I saw the amount of kanji in an email I wouldn’t even try to read it but I eventually I realised that I was missing out on so much information I had to try to read all the emails that came. When I go to the shops in Japan too, there are still many products that I have never seen before and I am not able to read the labels and understand. I often have to stop and ask fellow shoppers and when I first moved to Japan I had to ask about how to cook things too because I couldn’t understand the cooking instructions on the packets too. Not being literate in a society means that you have to rely on other people to explain things – and they are not always right either. It can be extremely frustrating and really locks you out from many opportunities.

By: Pegah Marandi

Pegah Marandi — Sat, 18 Aug 2018 12:16:09 +0000

In reply to Yang.

Dear Piiigah,
Thank you for your thorough comment.
With regards,
Pegah