Minami 1991

Minami, Masahiko). 1991. "Review of 'Literacy as involvement: The acts of writers, readers, and texts' by Brandt, D. 1990." Review originally appeared in various issues of HER. In Minami and Kennedy 1991. Interest level: academic.

Examines the "strong-text" view of literacy, in which one must be logical, literal, detached, and message-focused, like an expository text. Reanalyzes literacy issues; presents an alternate perspective of literacy in which metacommunicative skills are acquired through writer-reader involvement. Discusses Bernstein's ideas of an explicit, elaborated literate style versus an ambiguous, restricted oral style.

Critiques theory that students from middle-class families use an elaborated, decontextualized speech mode that matches school language. Theory also states that students from working-class families use a restricted code, an elliptical and context-dependent speech that does not correspond with school language. Brandt advocates that "literacy must be seen as a context-making rather than a context-breaking ability" because "skilled literates pull together and maintain situated meaning" (page 38).

• Bibliography module: Minami 1991
• In overview module: Bibliography (Literacy): M
• In modular book: Bibliography (Literacy), by Doris Gallemore, Trudi C. Hunt, Jeanne Swanson, and Stephen L. Walter
• In document collection: Reference materials
• In bookshelf: Literacy

This page is an extract from the LinguaLinks Library, Version 4.0, published on CD-ROM by SIL International, 1999. [Ordering information.]

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