Currently working with a first-grade teacher whois using reading and writing
workshp approaches and who's classroom is filled with supporting and
sometimes competing semiotic means, i wonder the same as David too. And
while we are on generalizations, how about learning symbolic mathematics, or
leanrning a programming language? How might these inform the discussion?
Granted, one does not enter into a classroom speaking math or perl fluently
when learning to wite them, and this one difference from learning to read and
write a first language, but is there more? Are mediations for all semiotic
means related?
bb
On Monday 22 September 2003 7:49 pm, David Preiss promulgated:
> Following up on the debate on lteter oedr, as I am not an expert on the
> phonics/whole language debate I was wondering whether somebody could
> provide some information regarding how that debate generalize to languages
> other than English and where the relation between sounds and letters is
> more consistent (e.g. Spanish). Is the issue of phonics still relevant
> there? What about writing systems that are not alphabetical?
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Judith Vera Diamondstone" <JDiamondstone@Clarku.edu>
> To: <xmca@weber.ucsd.edu>
> Sent: Monday, September 22, 2003 8:07 AM
> Subject: RE: Lteter Oerdr?
>
> > Thanks for this, Jay & the Roy Haris reference.
> >
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: Jay Lemke
> > To: xmca@weber.ucsd.edu
> > Sent: 9/21/2003 11:51 PM
> > Subject: Re: Lteter Oerdr?
> >
> >
> > It was fun reading all those fractured orthographies ... and the
> > discussion
> > of how, depending on language and writing system, we read by combining
> > "bottom up" (orthographic-phonological) and "top-down" (genre, register,
> >
> > discourse, intertextual) strategies.
> >
> > Perhaps also worth noting that how we learn to read, how we read
> > initially
> > unfamiliar words and text, and how we read after long practice and on
> > familiar ground, are all pretty obviously very different practices,
> > including at the neurological level. No doubt also somewhat different
> > depending on language and writing system, and on schooled practices and
> > some aspects of the general culture of reading (e.g. its relation to an
> > oral tradition, the sacredness of texts, the cultural salience of
> > accuracy,
> > etc.).
> >
> > I happen to be teaching a course at the moment that deals with changing
> > definitions of literacy, reading, writing, etc. and in part with what it
> >
> > means to read something that counts as writing. An interesting thought
> > in
> > this vein is that "a reading" of a text has not historically always, or
> > perhaps even most often, meant a verbatim recitation word-for-word, but
> > rather a performance that counts in a community as rendering the
> > culturally
> > important aspects of the meaning of the text, even when we have to fill
> > in
> > words not there, gloss as we read, correct errors in print, interpret
> > ambiguities, and make a "good reading", regardless of the marks on the
> > page.
> >
> > Roy Harris (Oxford, linguistics), who has perhaps thought and written
> > more
> > on these matters than anyone in the last decade or two (Signs of Writing
> > is
> > the best of his books on the subject, I think) makes a very good case
> > that
> > in general writing is NOT a notation of speech, but rather a prompt that
> > we
> > use to produce a good performance of the sense of the text. At the
> > moment,
> > and in some quarters of one culture, "good" has come to mean a rather
> > limited and literalist verbatim-ism. I think there are excellent reasons
> > to
> > reject that "fundamentalist" position as naive and limiting
> > intellectually.
> > It has, unfortunately, made common cause with both religious textual
> > fundamentalism (Christian mainly, I don't know about Muslim) and with
> > the
> > politics of recent linguistics, which turned away from a view of the
> > autonomy of written language to a fetishism of oral language as
> > fundamental. Harris knows that history very well and points to the
> > blinders
> > it has put on our current view of literacy. (For the links to religious
> > textualism, see David Olson's _The World on Paper_.)
> >
> > I don't think one can properly pose questions about the relationship
> > between orthographic-phonological and discursive-semantic reading
> > practices
> > outside some fairly sophisticated view of what defines "a reading" of a
> > text in a particular community for a particular purpose. Sometimes
> > writing
> > is a notation for speech. But not usually.
> >
> > JAY.
> >
> > At 06:10 PM 9/19/2003 -0400, you wrote:
> > >I just don't get it. I tried scrambling the following abstract and it
> >
> > did
> >
> > >not
> > >help to make sense of it at all:
> > >
> > >"Txet-only CMC has been cialmed to be iiaecotrtalnlny inenocerht due to
> > >laitnomtiis imeposd by mengiassg sstymes on trun-tnkaig and rfceeenre,
> >
> > yet
> >
> > >its ptploauriy cotniunes to grow. In an amtetpt to roeslve this
> >
> > aapnrpet
> >
> > >pdaraox, this sutdy evueaatls the cerechone of ctpouemr-meaitedd
> >
> > itocaienrtn
> >
> > >by sivruenyg resaecrh on csors-turn cronechee. The rteslus revael a
> >
> > high
> >
> > >deerge of dtseirpud adjenaccy, ovalepnpirg egnhxaecs, and tpioc dcaey.
> >
> > Two
> >
> > >eitnopalxans are ppsrooed to aocucnt for the prtiplouay of CMC diepste
> >
> > its
> >
> > >rlateive iecreconhne: the atbliiy of usres to aapdt to the miuedm, and
> >
> > the
> >
> > >aaevtngads of lonoseed cochneree for hgeeenthid itaetiicvntry and
> >
> > luagnage
> >
> > >paly."
> >
> > Jay Lemke
> > Professor
> > University of Michigan
> > School of Education
> > 610 East University
> > Ann Arbor, MI 48104
> >
> > Tel. 734-763-9276
> > Email. JayLemke@UMich.edu
> > Website. www.umich.edu/~jaylemke
-- ----------------- bb
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