Literacy, Language and Learning:The Nature and Consequences of Reading and WritingDavid R. Olson, Nancy Torrance, Angela Hildyard Literacy is an important concern of contemporary societies. This book offers a comprehensive survey of recent efforts to understand the nature of written language and its role in cognition and in social and intellectual life. The authors represent a wide range of disciplines - cognitive psychology, linguistics, anthropology, sociology, education, history and philosophy - and address a wide range of questions. Is literacy a decisive factor in historical and cultural change? Does it alter the mental and social lives of individuals? If so how and via what mechanisms? Does learning to read and write change children's speech, thought or orientation to language? What are children and adults learning when they acquire literate skills? Are there differences - linguistic, psychological and functional - between speaking and writing? And are there differences between oral and written languages? |
Contents
Introduction | 1 |
On the printing press as an agent of change | 19 |
The concept of literacy in print and film | 50 |
Linguistic differences produced by differences | 105 |
Relative focus on involvement in oral and written | 124 |
Are there really no primitive languages? | 148 |
universal and culturespecific | 167 |
creating worlds or shunting | 195 |
Oralwritten differences in the production and recall | 285 |
Development of dialectical processes in composition | 307 |
Effects of printed language acquisition on speech | 333 |
Interactions between spelling and sound in literacy | 368 |
some | 389 |
Phonology in reading | 404 |
an annotated | 412 |
Subject index | 427 |
a psychogenetic perspective | 217 |
Preschool literacyrelated activities and success | 229 |
Oral and literate competencies in the early school | 256 |
Author index | 433 |
Common terms and phrases
activity analysis appear argues aspects beginning chapter child clause cognitive communication concerned consequences consider context conversation culture devices direct discourse discussion Education effect English essay event evidence example expected experience fact function idea important included indicate individual interaction interpretation involvement kind knowledge learning less letters lexical linguistic listener literacy literate look meaning memory mode narrative nasals nature objects occur oral organization particular person phonetic phonological position possible present Press problem produced pronunciations questions readers reading recall reference reflect relationship relative seems segmentation sentences skills social society sound speaker speaking speech spelling spoken story structure subjects suggests task theory thought topic tradition turn understanding units University verbs vowel words writing written language York