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- Volume 1, Issue, 1998
Written Language & Literacy - Volume 1, Issue 1, 1998
Volume 1, Issue 1, 1998
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Literate Design in the Discourses of Revolution, Reform, and Transition: Hong Kong and China
Author(s): Ron Scollon and Suzanne Wong Sgollonpp.: 1–39 (39)More LessIn contemporary China, including Hong Kong, literate design from the choice of writing system or romanization to presentational formats articulates an inter-discursivity among three major discourses: the language reforms of the post-Liberation revolutionary discourse, the Dengist reform discourse, and the discourse of the transition of sovereignty of Hong Kong from Britain to China. Thus literate design represents the polyvocality of utterance in the public discourse of signs, announcements, and advertisements, symbolizing the new wine of reform by placing it in the old bottle of the symbols of the revolutionary discourse. There is also a smaller contrasting trend of re-symbolizing the revolutionary discourse with the designs of the reform discourse.
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Definitional and Methodological Problems in the Cross-National Measurement of Adult Literacy: The Case of the IALS
Author(s): Kenneth Levinepp.: 41–61 (21)More LessThe International Adult Literacy Survey (MLS) offers researchers comparative data on levels of literacy in seven industrial societies, based on an instrument reflecting the "cognitivist" approach to measurement adapted from the work of Kirsch & Mosenthai. 'The use of nationally representative samples and systematically conducted household interviews represents a great advance on previous census and school-based studies, but the research embodies some serious conceptual problems. Some of these derive from the initial adoption of a definition of literacy that is not subsequently operationalized in the study. Others spring from the use of test items originating in North American research which were not demonstrably familiar to the non-Anglophone participants in the study. As a consequence, some of the occupational and international differences detected are likely to be an artifact of the scales used.This paper also examines the survey's findings, explanations, and predictions relating to the role of literacy in the labor markets for lower-skill jobs. It is argued that the single-snapshot design of the MLS study does not support predictions about future labor market developments, and that some of the explanations are not supported by relevant British research. The IALS approach is criticized for adopting a conception of literacy that is over-individualistic and which is too exclusively tied to a partisan view of labor market processes.
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Literacy in Athapaskan Languages in the Northwest Territories, Canada: For What Purposes?
Author(s): Barbara Burnabypp.: 63–102 (40)More LessData on fluency and literacy in Athapaskan (Dene) languages in the Northwest Territories of Canada are reviewed here, with discussion of recent policy decisions regarding implied or explicit roles of Dene literacy and the forms they might take. Emphasis is placed on evidence of trends in Dene literacy development; special attention is given to the extent to which new roles for literacy are created, and to the extent to which literacy conforms to patterns consistent with oral language use. The context is the legitimacy of Dene cultures, languages, social practices, and economic and political power in the face of Euro-Canadian pressures.
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Another Hmong Messianic Script and Its Texts
Author(s): William Smalley and Nina Wimuttikosolpp.: 103–128 (26)More LessAmong several writing systems devised by native speakers of Hmong, the Sayaboury script is of interest because it is the only one in which a body of apparently original mythic religio-political text material has been recorded. It also has an unusually ingenious, elegant, and economical set of vowel symbols, and a convention of doubling all initial consonant symbols in formal writing. Of secondary interest is the fact that this system was produced (and revealed to one of the authors) west of the Mekong River — not in the more focal Hmong areas which funneled refugees through Ban Vinai, Thailand, into the United States. The authors present here their limited joint knowledge about these texts and the system with which they are written, describing how they became known, their messianic nature, the structure of the writing system, its possible origins, and the fit between the writing and the Hmong language.
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Hartmut Günther & Otto Ludwig (eds.), Schrift und Schriftlichkeit: Ein interdisziplinäres Handbuch internationaler Forschung / Writing and its use: An interdisciplinary handbook of international research; Konrad Ehlich, Florian Coulmas, & Gabriele Graefen (eds.), A bibliography on writing and written language
Author(s): William Brightpp.: 137–141 (5)More Less
Volumes & issues
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Volume 26 (2023)
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Volume 25 (2022)
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Volume 24 (2021)
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Volume 23 (2020)
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Volume 22 (2019)
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Volume 21 (2018)
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Volume 20 (2017)
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Volume 19 (2016)
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Volume 18 (2015)
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Volume 17 (2014)
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Volume 16 (2013)
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Volume 15 (2012)
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Volume 14 (2011)
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Volume 13 (2010)
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Volume 12 (2009)
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Volume 11 (2008)
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Volume 10 (2007)
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Volume 9 (2006)
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Volume 8 (2005)
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Volume 7 (2004)
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Volume 6 (2003)
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Volume 5 (2002)
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Volume 4 (2001)
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Volume 3 (2000)
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Volume 2 (1999)
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Volume 1 (1998)
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