ABSTRACT
The study of literacy from a microethnographic discourse analysis perspective incorporates theoretical frames and constructs from scholarship on literacy as a social and cultural process (e.g., Barton & Hamilton, 1998; Cook-Gumperz, 1986; Gee, 1996; Heath, 2012; Street, 1995). With roots in social and cultural anthropology and sociology, literacy is defined as a set of social and cultural events and practices in which the involvement of written language is more than trivial (cf., Heath, 1980). From this perspective, literacy is always literacies (referring to multiple and diverse social and cultural events and practices involving written language; hereafter referred to as literacy events and practices) and literacies are always a part of reflecting and refracting the cultural ideology of institutional and broader contexts. A microethnographic discourse analysis perspective views literacy events and practices as constructed by people acting and reacting to each other with, through (and possibly about) written language. Literacy events and practices may involve spoken language and other modes of communication, and the relationships of written and spoken language and other modes of communication to each other vary depending upon the nature of the social events and practices themselves (and as people adapt and change those events and practices). Thus, there is no a priori characterization of the nature or functions of written language or an a priori framework for the interpretation or meaningfulness of written language. Rather, what written language is used for, its nature, and how it is interpreted depend on what people in interaction with each other do with it and what frames of interpretation they construct (Santa Barbara Classroom Discourse Group, 1992). And, while these constructions are not predetermined, neither are they indifferent to the history of the use of written language within local and broader contexts. Indeed, people may hold each other accountable for using written language in ways consistent with its history of use in particular types of social situations.
