Living and Dying Literacies: Metaphors of Language and Literacy Emergence, Temporality, and Forgetting in Practice

• In Event: Millennium Hotel Roundtable Session 6
  In Roundtable Session: Ways With Words: Theories and Methods for Studying Literacies in (Inter)Action

Abstract

Although theorists conceive of literacy as an active and situated practice (e.g., Street, 1984), many current theories rely on teleological and mechanistic models of literacy, demonstrated by descriptions such as “having” a literacy, possessing a literacy toolkit, or mastering a language (Common Core Standards, 2014; Gee, 2013). Employing a cognitive theory of metaphor (Lakoff & Johnson, 1990; Ortony, 1975) and drawing on dynamic systems perspectives, this paper critiques existing conceptions of language and literacy and offers new metaphors to think with. We review extant literature and draw on our personal autobiographies qua language learners to consider omissions in theory that fail to account for our lived experiences, and propose frames of cultivation and stewardship to situate future inquiries and interventions.

Authors

• Ksenia A Korobkova, University of California - Irvine

• Natalia Smirnov, Northwestern University