Some Psycholinguistic Components of Initial Standard Literacy

Abstract

Literacy is a linguistic term predicated of individuals. It means ability to use language in the medium of writing. Standard literacy is the particular kind of literacy required by educational systems, viz. literacy in a standard language. Initial standard literacy is a more adequate term for what is commonly called the teaching of reading. Five psycholinguistic components are suggested: knowledge of a standard language; knowledge of its standard orthography (distinguished from other kinds of writing systems); ‘technical concept’ of literacy; ‘habitudes’ of literacy; basic skills of literacy (reading and writing). Literacy is also predicated of societies. The study of it, both as a psycholinguistic phenomenon and as a sociolinguistic phenomenon has been neglected in linguistics generally, just as the concept of literacy has been neglected in educational theory.