The question of learning to read and write

Abstract

This thesis is an investigation into learning to read and write. It is also an investigation into how learning to read and write is investigated. THE PRESENTING PROBLEM Despite literacy being highly valued by every member of a modern society and the immense personal and social effort directed towards bringing it within the grasp of all, its universal occurrence, it remains an elusive goal. INVESTIGATING LITERACY As with many other valued human endeavours, science, with its refined and disciplined way of looking, is enlisted to help improve the achievement of ends, and research is designed and undertaken with the aim of increasing our control over its manifestation in the world. Yet it is the claim of this thesis that by leaving uninvestigated the nature of learning to read and write itself the gains will never be complete. PHILOSOPHICAL INVESTIGATIONS To open different lines of investigation, into things themselves, questioning must free itself of socially driven exigencies and the patterns of the established disciplines of thought and become self-reflexive. Self-referential questioning is traditionally and essentially philosophical and insight is sought from three well known modern representatives of the field. - Heidegger offers reflections on the importance of how questioning is undertaken, and, with his discussions on the nature of truth and how with 'revealing' comes 'concealing' hints at the darker side of literacy as a activity that 'opens' the world. - Wittgenstein's intense thought on language/world relationships potentially clarifies the dissension so characteristic of literacy acquisition research and provides a construct of language that would allow misrepresentations of literacy to occur. - Foucault's historical analyses provide concepts useful when considering the origins of literacy, and 'power' becomes a better explanation for the literacy fervour than the production of finer human beings. THE FINAL QUESTION Finally their amalgamated insights are used to discuss the phenomenon of illiteracy as it is portrayed in a recent novel by Bernard Schlink, The Reader. In this study of post-war Germany, the way literacy is deeply entwined into our social structures becomes clear, but more crucially we learn this about illiteracy - the highly destructive, exaggerated, and excessive reaction to its occurrence has no ready explanation.