Literacy Practices in Working Life

www.nordiska.su.se/skriftbruk

• Swedish Research Council 2002-2004

• Anna-Malin Karlsson, Stockholm University• Per Ledin, Örebro University (project leader)• Olle Josephson, Swedish Language Council

Literacy Roles

• Roles assigned (or offered) to participants in - and through - a literacy practice

• C.f. “It is in certain roles people need particular literacies (---) People learn that socially there are appropriate and inappropriate practices for specific roles.” (Barton 1994, pp 41-42)

Communicative Roles on the Meso-Level

• Discourse Roles: speaker, addressee, “ratified overhearer”, audience etc

• Activity Roles: doctor - patient (in the medical consultation), interrogator - interrogated (in the police interrogation)

Linell (2005)

Literacy Roles through Genre

Discourse Roles:• writer/author - reader/addressee – complementor+Activity Roles• describer/storyteller - recipient• planner - performer• controller - controlled• information demander - information provider

The Carpenter

Wall markings> performer

Time report> information provider,

controlled

The Groundworkers

Drawing> re-contextualisers

interpreters, performers

Reinforcement texts> re-contextualisers,

problem solvers, (authors), performers

The Truck Driver

Cargo Information> recontextualiser, adjuster,

planner, problem solver, information provider, controlled

The Shop Assistant

Weekly letter> recipient of information,

performer, recipient of ideas, intermediary, partner

(Notes> author, re-contextualiser,

intermediary)

Literacy Roles and the Knowledge-Based Economy?

• New roles for workers– Right to re-contextualise – Access to authorship (also of genre texts?)– Recipients (and intermediaries) of ideas

• More and varying roles– Plan and perform, control and be controlled– Access to a larger part (and different aspects of) of the

literacy practices