Literacy, Emotion and Authority

Reading and Writing on a Polynesian Atoll
Erscheinungsjahr 2002
ISBN: 978-0-521-48539-5
Verlag: Cambridge University Press

Buch, Englisch, Band 16, 254 Seiten, Format (B × H): 152 mm x 229 mm, Gewicht: 421 g

Reihe: Studies in the Social and Cultural Foundations of Language

Literacy continues to be a central issue in anthropology, but methods of perceiving and examining it have changed in recent years. In this study Niko Besnier analyses the transformation of Nukulaelae from a non-literate into a literate society using a contemporary perspective which emphasizes literacy as a social practice embedded in a socio-cultural context. He shows how a small and isolated Polynesian community, with no access to print technology, can become deeply steeped in literacy in little more than a century, and how literacy can take on radically divergent forms depending on the social and cultural needs and characteristics of the society in which it develops. His case study, which has implications for understanding literacy in other societies, illuminates the relationship between norm and practice, between structure and agency, and between group and individual.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Besnier, Niko

Irvine, Judith

Schieffelin, Bambi

Fachgebiete

• Sozialwissenschaften Ethnologie | Volkskunde Ethnologie Physische Anthropologie
• Sozialwissenschaften Ethnologie | Volkskunde Ethnologie Ethnographie
• Geisteswissenschaften Sprachwissenschaft Soziolinguistik
• Sozialwissenschaften Soziologie | Soziale Arbeit Spezielle Soziologie Sprachsoziologie

Inhaltsverzeichnis

1. Introduction; 2. The ethnographic context; 3. The domains of reading and writing; 4. Letter writing and reading; 5. Letters, economics and emotionality; 6. Between literacy and orality: the sermon; 7. Literacy, truth and authority; 8. Conclusion.