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Literacy, Discours~ and Linguistics: Introduction JAMES PAUL GEE

, ''''', l.unes P."Literacy, Discourse, and linguistics: Introduction." Journal of Education 171.1 (11)89): 5-17. Print.

Fr rmlng the Reading I,UtIt ., Paul Gee (his last name is pronounced like the "gee" in "gee whiz") is the 1,I'.hl,lMorgridge Professor of Reading at the University of Wisconsin at Madison. 111'1' has taught linguistics at Stanford, Northeastern University, Boston University, "Id the University of Southern California. His book Sociolinguistics and Literacies (I'I'IO) was important in the formation of the interdisciplinary field known as "New Iltl I.Icy Studies," and he's published a number of other works on literacy as well, uu ludlng Why Video Games Are Goodfor Your Soul (2005). Based on his research, It.·o" ,1 widely respected voice on literacy among his peers.

III this article, Gee introduces his term Discourses, which he explains as "say- IIIH (wrltlng)-doing-being-valuing-believing combinations" that are "ways of being 111 lilt' world" (para. 5). (The capital D is important for Gee, to make a Discourse ,"',I lnct from discourse, or "connected stretches of language" that we use every day II I ( omrnu nicate with each other.) Gee spends a lot of time working to make these d"I,"11 Ions clear, using a variety of examples. A number of other terms crop up as w,·" In his work: dominant and nondominant Discourses, primary and secondary 111',( ourses, literacy, apprenticeship, metaknowledge, and mushfake, among fllh"IS. Probably the most useful way to read this article for the first time is to try III (I) define terms and (2) apply what Gee is saying to your own experience by tltluklng of related examples from your own life.

'here is one particularly controversial argument in the article. Gee insists that Villi can't "more or less" embody a Discourse-you're either recognized by others l' ,I full member of it or you're not. Many readers can't make t ItI.. .ugument line up with their perceptions of their own expe- 111"'''(('5 In acquiring new Discourses; they haven't experienced Iltl .. ",111 or-nothing" effect. It's also possible to read Gee's arti- , h' ,''> undermining itself: He explains that we are never "purely" 111I'Il1bc'rs of asingle Discourse but, rather, that agiven Discourse h IlIfhll'lIcod by other Discourses of which we're also members. Ity Ihi'. Ilw,ol1lng, there may be no such thing as embodying a 1)1\( 0111',(' hilly or perfectly,

1482 Chapter 4

The important thing is this: When you encounter that subargument, or oth ers you might have trouble accepting, your job as a reader is to stay engaged in the overall argument while "setting aside" the particular argument you're not sure about. As you know from your own experience, people can be wrong about smaller points while still being right about bigger ones. Further, scholarly argu ments are made very precisely with very careful language; Gee's argument might work if you read it exactly as he intended it to be understood, without trying to apply it too broadly. But you should also read critically and test his claims against your experiences.

If you are interested in seeing and hearing from Gee directly, you can watch ,. short MacArthur Foundation video of him talking about games and learning by searching YouTube for "James Gee games learning."

Getting Ready to Read

Before you read, do at least one of the following activities:

• Google the term mushfake. What comes up? • Consider two or three activities you take part in that are very different from each other, having different languages and purposes (for example, college, volunteering, and a hobby like gaming). Does one activity influence the way you participate in the others, or do they remain distinctly separate in your life? Explain.

As you read, consider the following questions:

• Why is Gee so concerned with how people learn Discourses? What does this have to do with education?

• Are there alternative explanations for the knowledge Gee describes? Could we have similar knowledge for some reason other than that there are Dis- courses?

• Does Gee's discussion of Discourses sound similar to ideas you've encoun- tered in other chapters in this book? If so, which ones?

What I propose in the following papers, in the main, is a way of talki"Jlabout literacy and linguistics. I believe that a new field of study, intcgrat ing "psycho" and "socio" approaches to language from a variety of disciplines, •• emerging, a field which we might call literacy studies. Much of.this work, I think (and hope), shares at least some of the assumptions of the following papers. These papers, though written at different times, and for diffort'nt purposes, arc, IlOllt' theless, based on the claim that the focus of literacy sludll''i or npplicd linguistic N should not be language, or literacy, hut SOcilllllr.lrllll'\, '1111"vl.iim, I believe, h,III n number of socially impormnt nnd COj\lIiliv!'i)' 11111'11",1111"UIII'C'qllt'IIl'l",

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"Lnngunuc" ,.. ,I 11t1"II·.lllrng term; il too oftcn suggests "grammar." It is a 2 truism thai :1 pen,oll ~,\II know perfectly the grammar of a language and not !-1I0W how to lISC that language. It is not just what you say, but how you say it. II I enter my neighborhood bar and say to my tattooed drinking buddy, as I sit down, "May I have a match please?" my grammar is perfect, but what I have \,1 it! is wrong nonetheless. It is less often remarked that a person could be able 10 lise a language perfectly and still not make sense. It is not just how you say II, hut what you are and do when you say it. If I enter my neighborhood bar .uid say to my drinking buddy, as I sit down, "Gime a match, wouldya?," while placing a napkin on the bar stool to avoid getting my newly pressed designer [euns dirty, 1 have said the right thing, but my "saying-doing" combination is nonetheless all wrong.

E Niyi Akinnaso and Cheryl Ajirotutu (1982) present "simulated job 3 uucrviews" from two welfare mothers in a CETA job training program. The iln.t woman, asked whether she has ever shown initiative in a previous job, u-sponds: "Well, yes, there's this Walgreen's Agency, I worked as a microfilm uperator, OK. And it was a snow storm, OK. And it was usually six people workin' in a group ... " and so forth (p. ,4). This woman is simply using the wrong grammar (the wrong "dialect") 11)1' this type of (middle-class) interview. 11\ a perfectly good grammar (dialect), II just won't get you this type of job in Ih is type of society.

The second woman (the authors' "'iIlCCCSS" case) responds to a similar q ucstion by saying" ... I was left alone III handle the office. I didn't really have ,I lot of experience. But I had enough experience to deal with any situations 1 h.u came up ... and those that I couldn't handle at the time, if there was ~cuncone who had more experience than myself, J asked questions to find out what procedure I would use. If something came up and if I didn't know who to u-ally go to, I would jot it down ... on a piece of paper, so that I wouldn't for- '~I'Ithat if anyone that was more qualified than myself, I could ask them about " .ind how 1 would go about solving it. So I feel I'm capable of handling just

r:nguage" is a misleading term; it too often suggests "grammar." It is a truism that a person can know perfectly the grammar of a language and not know how to

use that language. _j 4

1,1111deeply indebted to Candy Mitchell for editing this collection of papers, and to jim O'Brien for copy- ,'d" hIll the papers appearing here for the first time, The following people are responsible (they may be 11111.1\1to hear) for having helped to lead me to the views I hold. First, a set of people whose writings have 1I1'.phI'd me: Wallace Chafe, Michael Cole, john Gumperz, Shirley Brice Heath, Dell Hymes, William Labov, 1!1If1I'rand Suzanne Scollon, Brian Street, Cordon Wells, and jim wertsch. Second, a group of people not Itilly whoso writings have inspired me, but whose discussion ofthe issues in these papers with me, as well ,I. WIiIlM' friendship, has left rY1I' nlway~ in their debt: Elaine Andersen, Maria I3risk, Chip Bruce, Courtney 1 1/(lr'll, I1nvlcl Dickenson, <;1f'vI' KIoI',IIf'n. 51rve Cordon, Steve Griffin, Henry Giroux. Donaldo Macedo, ',,11,111Mldl"('I~, nco MlkulC't ky, 111101MI~III!'I, ( .indy MllCl1cll, Catherlne Snow, and Dennie Woll. fhc\I' 11,111"1',Ilithll,lll'ly nlilltiV(' Ih,'11 111111111Ii, IIII' ~1111111"\"IIldl <;.11 ,Iii Mlch,'f'I~ .mtl Courtney C.l1dl·" c'xll'lICll'd I" 1111'wllc'lll hl',I,lfilvl'clllllh,',11I1I ltv IIIVIlIlIV.III"I!lI,I~1' ,11111111'11'\11"II II-h II)lHl'rll~,

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about any situation, whether it's on my own or under supervision" (p. 34). 'I hl~ woman hasn't got a real problem with her grammar (remember this is SIIl'I'1 h, not writing), nor is there any real problem with the use to which she pUIS I h.II grammar, but she is expressing the wrong values. She views being left in CI1.I'f{l as just another form of supervision, namely, supervision by "other pcoplrv" knowledge and expertise. And she fails to characterize her own expertise iII Ihe overly optimistic form called for by such interviews. Usingthis response m. ,III example of "successful training" is only possible because the authors, 3W,IIr that language is more than grammar (namely, "use"), are unaware that COlli munication is more than language use.

At any moment we are using language we must say or write the right thll'~ in the right way while playing the right social role and (appearing) to hold tilt' right values, beliefs, and attitudes. Thus, what is important IS not language, :llld surely not grammar, but saying (writing)-doing-being-valuing-believing co", binations. These combinations I call "Discourses," with a capita) "D" ("di~ course" with a little "d," to me, means connected stretches of language Ihnl make sense, so "discourse" is part of "Discourse"). Discourses are ways III being in the world; they are forms of life which integrate words, acts, values, beliefs, attitudes, and social identities as well as gestures, glances, body poxt tions, and clothes.

A Discourse is a sort of "identity kit" which comes complete with the appro priate costume and instructions on how to act, talk, and often write, so as In take on a particular role that others will recognize. Being "trained" as a linguist meant that I learned to speak, think, and act like a linguist, and to recognize others when they do so. Some other examples of Discourses: (enacting) being an American or a Russian, a man or a woman, a member of a certain sociocco nomic class, a factory worker or a boardroom executive, a doctor or a hospital patient, a teacher, an administrator, or a student, a student of physics or ,I student of literature, a member of a sewing circle, a clu b, a street gang, a lunch time social gathering, or a regular at a local bar. We all have many Discourse"

How does one acquire a Discourse? It turns out that much that is claimed, controversially, to be true of second language acquisition or socially situ ated cognition (Beebe, 1988; Dulay, Burt, & Krashen, 1982; Grosjean, 19H1; Krashen, 1982, 1985a, 1985b, Krashen & Terrell, 1983; Lave, 1988; Rog(lfl & Lave, 1984) is, in fact, more obviously true of the acquisition of Discourses, Discourses are not mastered by overt instruction (even less so than language .., and hardly anyone ever fluently acquired a second language sitting in a class room), but by enculturation ("apprenticeship") into social practices through scaffolded and supported interaction with people who have already mastered the Discourse (Cazden, 1988; Heath, 1983). This is how we all acquired our native language and our home-based Discourse. It is how we acquire all later, more public-oriented Discourses. If you have no access to the social practice, you don't get in the Discourse, you don't have it. You cannot overtly teach uny one a Discourse, in a classroom or anywhere else. I>i,,~,"ll'se'~ ;\I'C not bodie» 01 knowledge like physics or archeology or lingllislIl ...:I'lu·!t·lull', ironically, while, YOll cn 11 overt Iy ll'ne h ",oml'Olll' li"g/lisli(~. ,I hlld)' III 1,lIlIwl,'dj\I', YOII (.111"

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1I'ILh thl!1l1/0 {IC' a linguist, that is, to usc a Discourse. The most you can do is III It'! them practice being a linguist with you.

'I'hc various Discourses which constitute each of us as persons are chang- 8 IlIg .md of len a re not fully consistent with each other; there is often conflict unl tension between the values, beliefs, attitudes, interactional styles, uses of 1.11I~lIagc,and ways of being in the world which two or more Discourses rep- ,,·..ent , Thus, there is no real sense in which we humans are consistent or well IlIlq,:rarcd creatures from a cognitive or social viewpoint, though, in fact, most I)J~c()urses assume that we are (and thus we do too, while we are in them).

All of us, through our primary socialization early in life in the home and 9 pl'l'r group, acquire (at least) one initial Discourse. This initial Discourse, which I' call our primary Discourse, is the one we first use to make sense of the world and interact with others. Ou.r primary Discourse constitutes our original nul home-based sense of identity, and, I believe, it can be seen whenever we IIll' interacting with "intimates" in totally casual (unmonitored) social interac- 111111,We acquire this primary Discourse, not by overt instruction, but by being ,I member of a primary socializing group (family, clan, peer group). Further, .1'Illl'cts and pieces of the primary Discourse become a "carrier" or "founda- 111111" for Discourses acquired later in life. Primary Discourses differ signifi- 1 .uuly across various social (cultural, ethnic, regional, and economic) groups III the United States.

After our initial socialization in our home community, each of us interacts 10 WII h various non-horne-based social institutions-institutions in the public ""ilere, beyond the family and immediate kin and peer group. These may be 1111.,1 stores and churches, schools, community groups, state and national busi- I(I'~SCS, agencies and organizations, and so forth. Each of these social institutions II unmands and demands one or more Discourses and we acquire these fluently III Ihe extent that we are given access to these institutions and are allowed rpprcnticeships within them. Such Discourses I call secondary Discourses.

We can also make an important distinction between dominant Discourses 11 Illd uondominant Discourses. Dominant Discourses are secondary Discourses Illl' mastery of which, at a particular place and time, brings with it the (poten- u.il) acquisition of social "goods" (money, prestige, status, etc.). Non-dominant I)I\murses are secondary Discourses the mastery of which often brings solidar- II)" with a particular social network, but not wider status and social goods in ",1' society at large.

l'inally, and yet more importantly, we can always ask about how much ten- 12 """ or conflict is present between any two of a person's Discourses (Rosaldo, 1 'JH':»), We have argued above that some degree of conflict and tension (if only Ile'l "lI~C of the discrete historical ori.gins of particular Discourses) will almost .tlw.iy» he present. However, some people experience more overt and direct 1IIIIIIiels between two or more of their Discourses than do others (for example, 111,111)'women academics f{'el conflict between certain feminist Discourses and 1,',1.1111 st.mdnrd ncndcmie Discouracs such as traditional literary criticism). J ,II gIll' 1h,It wl\l'lI Sill II l (1,,11111 (II 11'1I~iCln rxists, it can deter acquisition of onc "' Ih,' lit 111'1 "' hllih III till' IlIlIfllllIlIH 1)i"ulllrsl's, or,;1( 1(';lSI, affect lilt' fllIl'11l'Y

of a mastered Discourse on certain occasions of use (c.g., in stressful situnli(lll~ such as interviews).

Very often dominant groups in a society apply rather constant "tests" of II" fluency of the dominant Discourses in which their power is symbolized. The .., tests take on two functions: they are tests of "natives" or, at least, "fluent uscrv'' of the Discourse, and they are gates to exclude "non-natives" (people who« very conflicts with dominant Discourses show they were not, in fact, "boil," to them). The sorts of tension and conflict we have mentioned here are p.11 ticularJy acute when they involve tension and conflict between one's prim.n Y Discourse and a dominant secondary Discourse.

Discourses, primary and secondary, can be studied, in some ways, like 1,111 guages. And, in fact, some of what we know about second language acquisi tion is relevant to them, if only in a metaphorical way. Two Discourses C.1I1 interfere with one another, like two languages; aspects of one Discourse cuu be transferred to another Discourse, as one can transfer a grammatical fcatuu from one language to another. For instance, the primary Discourse of rnuuy middle-class homes has been influenced by secondary Discourses like tho",' used in schools and business. This is much less true of the primary Discourse III many lower socio-economic black homes, though this primary Discourse h.l~ influenced the secondary Discourse used in black churches.

Furthermore, if one has not mastered a particular secondary Discourw which nonetheless one must try to use, several things can happen, ching' which rather resemble what can happen when one has failed to fluently master a second language. One can fall back on one's primary Discourse, adjusting it in various ways to try to fit it to the needed functions; this response is V('I Y common, but almost always socially disastrous. Or one can use another, pCI haps related, secondary Discourse. Or one can use a simplified, or stereotyped version of the required secondary Discourse. These processes are similar to those linguists study under the rubrics of language contact, pidginization, and creolization. I believe that any socially useful definition of "literacy" must be couched III

terms of the notion of Discourse. Thus, Idefine "literacy" as the mastery of (lr fluent control over a secondary Discourse. Therefore, literacy is always plural: literacies (there are many of them, since there are many secondary Discourses, and we all have some and fail to have others). Ifwe wanted to be rather pedan tic and literalistic, then we could define "literacy" as "mastery of or fluent COli trol over secondary Discourses involving print" (which is almost all of them 111 a modern society). But I see no gain from the addition of the phrase "involving print," other than to assuage the feelings of people committed (as I am not) to reading and writing as decontextualized and isolable skills. We can (.1Ik about dominant literacies and nondominant literacies in terms of whether they involve mastery of dominant or nondominant secondary Discourses, We t';111 also talk about a literacy being liberating (~'pow('rflll") if it can be used ilS .1 "meta-language" (a set of meta-words, meta vnluvv, 1111'1.1 lulicfs) for the 'n i tique of other litcracics and the way Iht'Y UIII ..IIIII1c' II" .1' IWI'OIl\ .uul "III1,lh' 1I'i in sociery, I ilwrillillg lill'r,ltil'" 1.111 n'lllll .. 1111111 1111111 '-1111.111'11'

My dcfinirion of "literacy" may seem innocuous, at least to someone already 17 . uuvinccd that dccontcxtualized views of print are meaningless. Nonetheless, ~I'vcrn I"theorems" follow from it, theorems that have rather direct and unset- IIIII~ consequences.

First theorem: Discourses (and therefore literacies) are not like languages in 18 IlIll' very important regard. Someone can speak English, but not fluently. How- "vcr, someone cannot engage in a Discourse in a less than fully fluent manner. You are either in it or you're not. Discourses are connected with displays of ,III identity; failing to fully display an identity is tantamount to announcing Y"U don't have that identity, that at best you're a pretender or a beginner. Very often, learners of second languages "fossilize" at a stage of development signifi- I .mtly short of fluency. This can't happen with Discourses. If you've fossilized 111 the acquisition of a Discourse prior to full "fluency" (and are no longer in Ihe process of apprenticeship), then your very lack of fluency marks you as a //(m-member of the group that controls this Discourse. That is, you don't have Ihe identity or social role which is the basis for the existence of the Discourse III the first place. In fact, the lack of fluency may very well mark you as a pre- tender to the social role instantiated in the Discourse (an outsider with preten- vions to being an insider).

There is, thus, no workable "affirmative action" for Discourses: you can't 19 Ill' let into the game after missing the apprenticeship and be expected to have a fnir shot at playing it. Social groups will not, usually, give their social goods- whether these are status or solidarity or both-to those who are not "natives" or "fluent users" (though "mushfake," discussed below, may sometimes pro- vide a way for non-initiates to gain access). While this is an empirical claim, I believe it is one vastly supported by the sociolinguistic literature (Milroy, 1980, 1987; Milroy & Milroy, 1985).

This theorem (that there are no people who are partially literate or semi- 20 literate, or, in any other way, literate but not fluently so) has one practical con- -cquence: notions like "functional literacy" and "competency-based literacy" .irc simply incoherent. As far as literacy goes, there are only "fluent speakers" .ind "apprentices" (metaphorically speaking, because remember, Discourses are not just ways of talking, but ways of talking, acting, thinking, valuing, etc.).

Second theorem: Primary Discourses, no matter whose they are, can never 21 really be liberating literacies. For a literacy to be liberating it must contain both the Discourse it is going to critique and a set of meta-elements (language, words, attitudes, values) in terms of which an analysis and criticism can be carried out. Primary Discourses are initial and contain only themselves. They en 11 be embedded in later Discourses and critiqued, but they can never serve ,IS a meta-language in terms of which a critique of secondary Discourses can be carried out. Our second theorem is not likely to be very popular. Theorem }. says that all primary Discourses are limited. "Liberation" ("power"), in the sense I am using the term here, resides i.n acquiring at least one more Discourse ill terms of which (lUI' own primn ry Discourse can be analyzed and critiqued.

Thi .. iN nOI to S,lY th.u prun.u y Ili"collr'lcs do not contain critical attitudes 22 uml ~riuc.il l,lIlgll.Igt· (1II1In·d, 111.111)' III thcru 101lI,Iill implicit and explicit

racism and c1assism}. It is to say that they cannot carry out an authentic crit cism, because they cannot verbalize the words, acts, values, and attitudes thq use, and they cannot mobilize explicit meta-knowledge. Theorem 2 is qUilt· traditional and conserva tive-it is the analogue of Socrates's theorem that Ilit unexamined life is not worth living. Interestingly enough, Vygotsky (1l)1{7. chapter 6) comes very closely to stating this theorem explicitly.

Other theorems can be deduced from the theory of literacy here developed, but these two should make clear what sorts of consequences the theory has. II should also make it quite clear that the theory is not a neutral meta-language III terms of which one can argue for just any conclusions about literacy.

Not all Discourses involve writing or reading, though many do. However, 1111 writing and reading is embedded in some Discourse, and that Discourse always involves more than writing and reading (e.g., ways of talking, acting, valuing, and so forth). You cannot teach anyone to write or read outside any Discourse (there is no such thing, unless it is called "moving a pen" or "typing" in the Cil~" of writing, or "moving one's lips" or "mouthing words" in the case of reading), Within a Discourse you are always teaching more than writing or reading, When Isay "teach" here, I mean "apprentice someone in a master-apprentice relationship in a social practice (Discourse) wherein you scaffold their growing ability to say, do, value, believe, and so forth, within that Discourse, through demonstrating your mastery and supporting theirs even when it barely exist .. (i.e., you make it look as if they can do what they really can't do)." That III, you do much the same thing middle-class, "super baby" producing parents do when they "do books" with their children.

Now, there are many Discourses connected to schools (different ones for different types of school activities and different parts of the curriculum) ami other public institutions. These "middle-class mainstream" sorts of Discourses often carry with them power and prestige. It is often felt that good listeners and good readers ought to pay attention to meaning and not focus on the petty details of mechanics, "correctness," the superficial features of language, Unfortunately, many middle-class mainstream status-giving Discourses often do stress superficial features of language. Why? Precisely because such superfi cial features are the best test as to whether one was apprenticed in the "right" place, at the "right" time, with the "right" people. Such superficial feature" are exactly the parts of Discourses most impervious to overt instruction and are only fully mastered when everything else in the Discourse is mastered, Since these Discourses are used as "gates" to ensure that the "right" people get to the "right" places in our society, such superficial features are ideal. A person who writes in a petition or office memo: "If you cancel the show, all the performers would have did all that hard work for nothing" has signaled that he or she isn't the "right sort of person" (was not fully acculturated tel the Discourse that supports this identity). That signal stays meaningful lunK after the content of the memo is forgotten, or even when the content was tit no interest in the first place. .

Now, one can certainly encourage students to "illlply "Il'~ist" such "iHllwrh cial features of language." And, indeed, they will ~I'I Itl dn .,0 (Will till' bottom

CIt ~()I.:IClY,WIH.'I·l· 11)("11 l.u l, III nuistery of such superficialities was meant to ,,1,ll'c I hem an ywny. 1\111, 01 COIII'SC, the problem is that such "superficialities" ,.IIIIlot be caught in a regulo r classroom in any case; they can't be "picked up" 1.11t·r,outside the full context of an early apprenticeship (at home and at school) III "middle-class-like" school-based ways of doing and being. That is precisely wily they work so well as "gates." This is also precisely the tragedy of E. D. 1lll'sch,11.'s much-talked-about book Cultural Literacy (1987), which points 11111 t hat without having mastered an extensive list of trivialities people can be (.llId often are) excluded from "goods" controlled by dominant groups in the III icty, Hirsch is wrong in thinking that this can be taught (in a classroom of til plcccst) apart from the socially situated practices that these groups have IlIl'orporated into their homes and daily lives. There is a real contradiction 11t'I'l', and we ignore it at the peril of our students and our own "good faith" (no rukldlc-class "super baby" producing parents ignore it).

Ill-yond changing the social structure, is there much hope? No, there is not. 27 ", I we better get on about the process of changing the social structure. Now, \\ huse job is that? I would say, people who have been allotted the job of teach- IIIH Discourses, for example, English teachers, language teachers, composition 11.1\ hers, TESOL teachers, studies-skills teachers. We can pause, also, to remark "II I he paradox that even though Discourses cannot be overtly taught, and I umot readily be mastered late in the game, the University wants teachers III overtly teach and wants students to demonstrate mastery. Teachers of Dis- IIUIISCS take on an impossible job, allow themselves to be evaluated on how \\ I,ll Ihey do it, and accept fairly low status all the while for doing it.

'-to what can teachers of Discourses do? Well, there happens to be an advan- 28 IW· to failing to master mainstream Discourses, that is, there is an advantage III lx-ing socially "maladapted." When we have really mastered anything (e.g., , I )l ...course), we have little or no conscious awareness of it (indeed, like dane- Iltg, Discourses wouldn't work if people were consciously aware of what they WI'I(' doing while doing it). However, when we come across a situation where WI urc unable to accommodate or adapt (as many minority students do on 111111).\faced, late in the game, with having to acquire mainstream Discourses}, WI' become consciously aware of what we are trying to do or are being called "1'"11 to do. Let me give an example that works similarly, that is, the case of 11.,,~room second language learning. Almost no one realJy acquires a second 11I11I1I.lgein a classroom. However, it can happen that exposure to another lan- Mlhlf{C,having to translate it into and otherwise relate it to your own language, III v.iusc you to become consciously aware of how your first language works

(hllw it means). This "meta knowledge" can actually make you better able to IIltllllplilatc your first language.

Vygotsky (1987) says that learning a foreign language "allows the child to 29 IlIldl'l srnnd his native language as a single instantiation of a linguistic system" (I' ) )).}, And here we have a clue. Classroom instruction (in language, composi- uun, sllIdy skills, writing, criticnl thinking, content-based literacy, or whatever) I III It'lld to nu-t.ikuowlcdge, 10 M't'ing how the Discourses you have already got 111.lh· til IhOM'yllll :In' .lttl'lIIl'lill~: til .rrquin-, .uul how till' O1ll'S you nrc uyiru;

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to acquire relate to self and society. Metaknowledgc is liberation and POWl'l, because it leads to the ability to manipulate, to analyze, to resist while advancing, Such meta knowledge can make "maladapted" students smarter than "adapted" ones. Thus, the liberal classroom that avoids overt talk of form and superficial! ties, of how things work, as well as of their socio-cultural-political basis, is 110 help. Such talk can be powerful so long as one never thinks that in talking about grammar, form, or superficialities one is getting people to actually acquire Dis courses (or languages, for that matter). Such talk is always political talk.

But, the big question: If one cannot acquire Discourses save through active social practice, and it is difficult to compete with the mastery of those admitted early to the game when one has entered it as late as high school or college, what can be done to see to it that metaknowledge and resistance are coupled with Discourse development? The problem is deepened by the fact that true acqui sition of many mainstream Discourses involves, at least while being in them, active complicity with values that conflict with one's home- and community based Discourses, especially for many women and minorities.

The question is too big for me, but I have two views to push nonetheless. First, true acquisition (which is always full fluency) will rarely if ever hap pen. Even for anything close to acquisition to occur, classrooms must be active apprenticeships in "academic" social practices, and, in most cases, must con nect with these social practices as they are also carried on outside the "cornpo sition" or "language" class, elsewhere in the University.

Second, though true acquisition is probably not possible, "mushfake" Dis course is possible. Mack (1989) defines "mushfake," a term from prison cul ture, as making "do with something less when the real thing is not available. So when prison inmates make hats from underwear to protect their hair from lin', the hats are mushfake. Elaborate craft items made from used wooden march sticks are another example of mushfake." "Mushfake Discourse" means partial acquisition coupled with metaknowledge and strategies to "make do" (stratc gies ranging from always having a memo edited to ensure no plural, possessive, and third-person "s" agreement errors to active use of black culture skills at "psyching out" interviewers, or to strategies of "rising to the meta-level" in an interview so the interviewer is thrown off stride by having the rules of the game implicitly referred to in the act of carrying them out).

"Mushfake," resistance, and metaknowledge: this seems to me like a good combination for successful students and successful social change. So I propose that we ought to produce "mushfaking," resisting students, full of metaknowl edge. But isn't that to politicize teaching? A Discourse is an integration of say .ing, doing, and valuing, and all socially based valuing is political. All successful teaching, that is, teaching that inculcates Discourse and not just content, i!l political. That too is a truism.

As a linguist I am primarily interested in the functioning of language in 1)is courses and literacies. And a key question in this sort of linguistics is how Ian guage-within-Discourses is acquired (in socially shunted .rpprenticcships) alld how the languages from different Discourses tr.lmlel uuu, interfere with, ,wl! otherwise influence each other to form tlw IiIlJ,\lIi~III tl'lll III I' of whole sod"tll'tj

uul to iutcn cl.uo VdIIlHI\ HI OUPI> in society. To see what is at stake here I will III it'f1y discuss one 1(1)(1, one which dearly brings out a host of importantissues III this domain. The text, with an explanation of its context, is printed below. l'llt' text is dema reared in terms of "lines" and" stanzas," units which I believe 1111' the basis of speech:

CONTEXT OF TEXT A young middle-class mother regularly reads storybooks I() I~othher 5- and 7-year-old daughters. Her 5-year-old had had a birthday party, which had had some problems. In the next few days the 5-year-old has told sev- 1'1'01 relatives about the birthday party, reporting the events in the language of her primary Discourse system. A few days later, when the mother was reading a ~torybook to her 7-year-old, the 5-year-old said she wanted to "read" (she could nor decode), and pretended to be reading a book, while telling what had hap- pened at her birthday party. Her original attempt at this was not very good, but eventually after a few tries, interspersed with the mother reading to the other girl, the 5 year-old produced the following story, which is not (just) in the language of her primary Discourse system:

STANZA ONE (Introduction) I. This is a story 2.. About some kids who were once friends t But got into a big fight 4. And were not

~'I'ANZA TWO (Frame: Signalling of Genre) 5. You can read along in your storybook 6. I'm gonna read aloud

[srcry-reading prosody from now on]

STANZA THREE (Tide) 7. "How the Friends Got Unfriend"

s rANZA FOUR (Setting: Introduction of Characters) H. Once upon a time there was three boys 'n three girls 9. They were named Betty Lou, Pallis, and Parshin, were the girls 10. And Michael, Jason, and Aaron were the boys 1I. They were friends

STANZA FIVE (Problem: Sex Differences) 12.. The boys would play Transformers I LAnd rhe girls would play Cabbage Patches

STANZA SIX (Crisis: Fight) 14. 1\lIt then one tiny they AOI inro a fight on who would be which team I~, It WH'l ,I vl'ry hnd light

r492 Chapter 4

16. They were punching 17. And they were pulling 18. And they were ?banging

STANZA SEVEN (Resolution 1: Storm) 19. Then all of a sudden the sky turned dark 20. The rain began to fall 21. There was lightning going on 22. And they were not friends

STANZA EIGHT (Resolution 2: Mothers punish) 23. Then urn the mothers came shooting out 'n saying 24. "What are you punching for? 25. You are going to be punished for a whole year"

STANZA NINE (Frame) 26. The end 27. Wasn't it fun reading together? 28. Let's do it again 29. Real soon!

This text and context display an event, which I call filtering, "in the nCI" III actually taking place. "Filtering" is a process whereby aspects of the language, attitudes, values, and other elements of certain types of secondary Discoursea (e.g., dominant ones represented in the world of school and trans-local govern ment and business institutions) are filtered into primary Discourse (and, thul. the process whereby a literacy can influence home-based practices). Filtcrllll& represents transfer of features from secondary Discourses into primary 1>,. courses. This transfer process allows the child to practice aspects of dominant secondary Discourses in the very act of acquiring a primary Discourse. It ill • key device in the creation of a group of elites who appear to demonstrate qui\;k and effortless mastery of dominant secondary Discourses, by "talent" or "native ability," when, in fact, they have simply practiced aspects of them longer.

The books that are part of the storybook reading episodes surrounding th'l child's oral text encode language that is part of several specific secondary 1>,. courses. These include, of course, "children's literature," but also" literature" proper. Such books use linguistic devices that are simplified analogues of" liter- ary" devices used in traditional, canonical "high literature." These devices nr. often thought to be natural and universal to literary art, though they are nllt Many of them have quite specific origins in quite specific historical circum stances (though, indeed, some of them are rooted in universals of sense m.lklllM and are devices that occur in nonliterary talk and writing).

One device with a specific historical reference is Ihe so-called "symputhct II.; fallacy." This is where a poem or story treat S 11,11111,.1 l'Vl""S (e.g., sun ..hiue IIr storms) as if they reflected or were "ill hnriuony' (II "III ~I('P"with (SYI1lP,ltlU'lI~

Wllh) luunan cvcnrs and emotions. This device was a hallmark of 19th-century 1{111I1HIlIi<.:poetry, though it is common in more recent poetry as well.

Notice how in the 5-year-old's story the sympathetic fallacy is not only used, 38 11I11 I~, ill fact, the central organizing device in the construction of the story. The tt",h, between the girls and boys in stanza 6 is immediately followed in stanza 7 hy Ihe sky turning dark, with lightning flashing, and thence in line 22: "and ,!tI'Y were not friends." Finally, in stanza 8, the mothers come on the scene to 1'II111Sh the children for their transgression. The sky is "in tune" or "step" with 11111111111happenings.

l'he function of the sympathetic fallacy in "high literature" is to equate the 39 \\ odd of nature (the macrocosm) with the world of human affairs (the micro- II "IIII) as it is depicted in a particular work of art. It also suggests that these 11111111111affairs, as they are depicted in the work of literary art, are "natural," p.1I I of the logic of the universe, ratber than conventional, historical, cultural, "' c l.iss-based.

III the 5-year-old's story, the sympathetic fallacy functions in much the same 40 \\,IY ,IS it does in "high literature." In particular, the story suggests that gender tlllh'fences (stanza 4: boy versus girl) are associated with different interests ( ',111'1.<15:Transformers versus Cabbage Patches), and that these different inter- I~I'iinevitably lead to conflict when male and female try to be "equal" or "one" III ~ort themselves on other grounds than gender (stanza 6: "a fight on who wuuld be which team").

l'he children are punished for transgressing gender lines (stanza 8), but only 41 ,'/(1'/' Ihe use of the sympathetic fallacy (in stanza 7) has suggested that divi- 1111/ IJYgender. and the conflicts which transgressing this division lead to, are

\11 III Iioncd by nature-are "natural" and "inevitable" not merely conventional III construcred in the very act of play itself.

Notice, then, how the very form and structure of the language, and the lin- 42 ~11I~t rc devices used, carry an ideological message. In mastering this aspect of II,,~ I)iscourse, the little girl has unconsciously "swallowed whole," ingested, a whole system of thought, embedded in the very linguistic devices she uses. This, II)' Ihe way, is another example of how linguistic aspects of Discourses can never 111'1~()lalcdfrom nonlinguistic aspects like values, assumptions, and beliefs.

I ('I'S consider how this text relates to our theory of Discourse and literacy. 43 IIII' child had started by telling a story about her birthday to various relatives, 11\'1'1,1 couple of days, presumably in her primary Discourse. Then, on a given d.IY. in the course of repeated book reading episodes, she reshapes this story Itll() another genre. She incorporates aspects of the book reading episode into 111'1vtory, Note, for example, the introduction in stanza 1, the frame in stanza 2, tlH' title in stanza 3, and then the start of the story proper in stanza 4. She closes illl' lr.uue in stanza 9. This overall structure shapes the text into "storybook I" 1.111114,"Ihough, in fact, there is no book and the child can't read. I cannot help ]tilt put III nn aside here: note Ihal this girl is engaged in an apprenticeship in II... I)1~l'(llirSl'of " ...toryhook rending," a mastery of which I count as a literacy, IllIlIlgh III IIlls UI~\' 11\('1\'" 110 hook .md no rending. Traditional accounts of

11)1)4'1, (hulltet Ii

literacy are going to have deep conceptual problems here, because they trolllll .. themselves too much over things like books and reading.

Supported. by her mother and older sister, our 5-year-old is mastering rh secondary Discourse of "storybook reading." But this Discourse is itself 1111 aspect of apprenticeship in another, more mature Discourse, namely "Iitt'n, ture" (as well as, in other respects, "essayist Discourse" but that is 01/(11",., s~ory): T.his child, ~hen she g~es to school to begin he: more public appn-n tlces.hlp into the Discourse of literature, will look like a "quick study" indi"'il It Will ap-,?:~r that her success was inevitable given her native in tell igence 111141 verbal abilities. Her success was inevitable, indeed, but because of her carlu-r apprenticeship. NO.te too ho~ her mastery of this "storybook reading" I )I~ course leads to the mcor-,?oratlOn of a set of values and attitudes (about gender and the na~llralne~s of middle-class ways of behaving) that are shared by "',IllY other dom~nant D~scourses in our society. This will facilitate the acquisition lit ~t~er dom~~an~,Dlscourses, ones that may, at first, appear quite disparate front literature or storybook reading." It is ~lso cle~r that the way in which this girl's home experience intcrpo

lates pnrnary DIscourse (the original tellings of the story to various relatives] a~d secondary Dis~ourses will cause transfer of features from the secondary DI~course to the primary one (thanks to the fact, for instance, that this i~1111 go~ng on at home in the midst of primary socialization). Indeed, it is just Sill h episodes that are the locus of the process by which dominant secondary J)I~ courses filter from public life into private IHe.

The 5-year-old's story exemplifies two other points as well. First it is rather point~ess t~ ask, "~id she really i~tend, o.r does she really know 'about Sll~h meanIngs? .The Dlsc~urses to which she IS apprenticed "speak" through bt'r (to other Discourses, In fact). So, she can, in fact, "speak" quite beyond ht:r self. (much like "speaking in tongues," I suppose). Second, the little girl ingestN an Ideology whole here, so to speak, and not in any way in which she could anal~ze it, verbalize it, or critique it. This is why this is not an experience (If learnIng a liberating literacy.

T? speak to the educati?nal implications of the view of Discourse and litera,y herem, and to close these mtroductory remarks, I willleaye you to meditate (In ;,he words of <?scar Wilde's Lady Bracknell in The Importance of Being Eamesl, ~ort~n~tely, III England, at any rate, education produces no effect whatsocvl'r.

If It did, It ~ould p~ove a serious danger to the upper classes, and probably lead to acts of VIolence ill Grosvenor Square" (quoted in Ellman, 1988, p. 561).

References

Akinnaso, F. N., & Ajirotutu, C. S. (1982). Performance and ethnic style in job intervews. In I. J. Gumperz (Ed.), Language and social identity (pp. 119-144). Cambridge: Cambridge Univ('r~lIy Press.

Beebe, L. M. (Ed.) (1988). issues in second language acquisitioll: Mllllillil' "I'I·SPlfctiIlUS.N\:w Yllik. ~~~~~ .

Cazde~. C. ('1988). Classroom discollrse: The ImlJ.:/{(IR~·. ,./ ,,',1< I",,~ 1111.1 /""IIIIIIR. 1'011 ~IIIOCIIh, NI II IlclI1cmann.

IAMI

IllddY. II., 1~1I1t, M., & Krashcn, S. (19!!2). I.allgl~tlgetwo. New York: Oxford University Press. I IiII"",, It. (I <J!II!).Oscar Wildc. New York: Vintage Books. 1'"I~I"lI'" F. (I '.Ill6). Life /IIith two languages. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. II, uh, 'I. II. (t !lll3). Ways with words: Language, life, and work in communities and classrooms.

(.""Il,idge: ambridge University Press. III", It, E. I). (1987). Cultural literacy: What every American needs to know. Boston: Houghton

M !fl IIll. ~ I I~h~·'l,!\. (1982). Principles and practice in second language acquisition. Hayward, CA: Alemany

1', c~~. f I 'Irlhell, S. ( 1985a). The input hypothesis: Issues and implications. Harlow, U.K.: Longman. ~hl~hcll, S. (198Sb). Inquiries and insights. Hayward, CA: Alemany Press. I "INhcII, S., &. Terrell, T. (1983). The natural approach: Language acquisition in the classroom.

l luywurd, CA: Alemany Press. I IVI" .I. (t 988). Cognition it) practice. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ~"IL k, N. (1989). The social nature of words: Voices, dialogues, quarrels. The Writing Instructor,

II, IS7-.l65. "liI,oy, J., & Milroy, L. (1985). Authority in language: Investigating language prescription and

aundardisation. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul. "tlIIllY, l.. ( 1980). Language and social networks. Oxford: Basil Blackwell. '" hh oy, L. (1987). Observing and analysing natural language. Oxford: Basil Blackwell. 1I1I1\01r, B., & Lave, J. (Eds.). (1984). Everyday cognition: Its development in a social context.

Carnbridge: Harvard University Press. I(l",tld(), R. (1989). Culture and truth: The remaking of social analysis. Boston: Beacon Press. VI'lIotsky, L. S. (1987). The collected works of L. S. Vygotsky, Volume 1: Problems of general psy-

(Imlogy. Including the volume thinking and speech (R. W. Rieber & A. S. Carton, Eds.). New York: Plenum.

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Questions for Discussion and Journaling

What does Gee mean when he says that you can speak with perfect grammar and yet be "wrong nonetheless" (para. 2)? Does this conflict with what you've been taught in school about grammar?

') Gee argues that you can say something in the right way but do the wrong thing, which he calls the '''saying-doing combination'" (para. 2). What does this mean?

t I xplain Gee's distinction between Discourse with a capital D and discourse with ,I lowercase d. Does it make sense to you? Why or why not?

t1, What does Gee means by the terms primary Discourse, secondary Discourse, dominant Discourse, and nondominant Discourse?

". What does it mean to say that "Discourses are connected with displays of an IdentIty" (para. 18)?What Me the Implications of this claim, if it is true?

(,. (lef' ,Irgllcc; that reading ,lllel WI 1I1ilfJ,never happen, and thus can't be taught, ,IP,lI t hOIll '00111(' Di',t ou,",' I 1111111 I, til' ,II HlJes, teaching someone to read or

write also means teaching them to "'say, do, value, belteve'" as member', of that Discourse do (para. 24). How is this connected to his claims about till' relationship between Discourse and identity?

7. In paragraph 13,Gee argues that members of dominant Discourses apply "constant 'tests'" to people whose primary Discourse is not the dominant one. Later, he explains that members of dominant Discourses often pay elm' attention to how mechanically "correct" others' language is because these features are the "best test as to whether one was apprenticed in the 'right' place, at the 'right' time, with the 'right' people" (para. 25).What is Gee talk ing about here? Can you think of an example you have seen or experienced that illustrates what Gee is describing?

8. Why do you think dominant Discourse "tests" happen?What is the benefit to members of the dominant Discourse?

9. How does Gee define literacy?What is his attitude toward print-based llt- eracy, specifically?

10. How does Gee define enculturation? 11. What ismetaknowledge and what is its value, according to Gee? 12. Consider a Discourse that you consider yourself to be already a part of. How

do you know you are a part of it? 13. Consider a Discourse to which you do not belong but want to belong-a

group in which you are or would like to bewhat Gee calls an apprentice. What is hardest about learning to belong to that Discourse?Who or what aids you the most in becoming a part? Do you ever feel like a "pretender"? If so, what marks you as a pretender?

Applying and Exploring Ideas

1. Write a dialogue between John Swales and JamesGee in which they discuss their concepts of discourse communities and Discourse. In the work represented in this chapter, Gee pessimistically argues that it is not possible to join a dominant Discourse once you've been enculturated into a nondominant one, whereas Swalesseems to believe that people not only join new discourse communities all the time, but can even successfully pretend to be part of a discourse community that they really do not want to join. Imagine what Swales and Gee might say to one another about this topic. Do you think it would be possible for them to establish common ground? If so, how?

2. Write a description of the "saying (writing)-doing-being-valuing-believing" of your own primary Discourse (the one you were enculturated into at birth). Be sure to note things like grammatical usage,common phrases, tone of voice, formality of speech,and values related to that Discourse.Once you havedone this, write a description of the "saying (writing)-doing-belng-valuing-believlng" of academic Discourse asyou have encountered it so far. finally, discuss sources of transfer (overlap) and sourcesof conflict between tl1('.,(' two Discourses..

(,('(' ,II BU!'sthat t ngllsl: le,1C.hcl S MC the ones who have to do something .ibout tbc Iect that people from nondominant Discourses can't join dominant I >I~COUl ses late In life. Write a letter to one of your high school or college Eng- Ihh teachers In which you explain what Discourses are, describe the difference between dominant and nondominant Discourses, and ask the teacher to take ..ome specific action of your choosing to better help students from nondorni- n.mt Discourses. oce notes that there are often conflicts and tensions between Discourses. Conslder different Discourses you belong to that have different values, beliefs, .rultudes, language use, and so on. How do you navigate between or among these Discourses?