The Cambridge Handbook of Literacy

This handbook marks the transformation of the topic of literacy from the narrower concerns with learning to read and write to an interdisciplinary enquiry into the various roles of writing and reading in the full range of social and psychological functions in both modern and developing societies. It does so by exploring the nature and development of writing systems, the relations between speech and writing, the history of the social uses of writing, the evolution of conventions of reading, the social and developmental dimensions of acquiring literate competencies, and, more generally, the conceptual and cognitive dimensions of literacy as a set of social practices. Contributors to the volume are leading scholars drawn from such disciplines as linguistics, literature, history, anthropology, psychology, the neurosciences, cultural psychology, and education.

Part I. Literacy as a Scientific Subject: 1. The literacy episteme (from Innis to Derrida) Jens Brockmeier and David Olson; Part II. Literacy and Language: 2. Grammotology Peter T. Daniels; 3. Speech and writing Roy Harris; 4. The origins and co-evolution of literacy and numeracy Steven Chrisomalis; 5. Are there linguistic consequences of literacy? Comparing the potentials of language use in speech and writing Douglas Biber; 6. Becoming a literate language user: oral and written text construction across adolescence Ruth A. Berman and Dorit Ravid; 7. The challenge of academic language Catherine Snow and Paola Uccelli; 8. The basic processes in reading: insights from neuroscience Usha Goswami; 9. Language and literacy from a cognitive neuroscience perspective Karl Magnus Petersson, Martin Ingvaar, and Alexandra Reis; Part III. Literacy and Literatures: 10. Ways of reading Elizabeth Long; 11. Conventions of reading Heather Murray; 12. Literacy, reading and concepts of the self Carolyn Steedman; 13. Reading as a woman, being read as a woman Lisbeth Larsson; 14. Literacy and the history of science Karine Chemla; 15. Scientific literacy Steven Norris and Linda Phillips; 16. Digital literacy Teresa Dobson and John Willinsky; 17. Literacy, video games and popular culture James Paul Gee; Part IV. Literacy and Society: 18. Ethnography of writing and reading Brian Street; 19. The origins of Western literacy: literacy in Ancient Greece and Rome Rosalind Thomas; 20. Literacy from late antiquity to the early Middle Ages, c. 300-800 Nicholas Everett; 21. Chinese literacy Feng Wang, Yaching Tsai and William Shi-Yuan Wang; 22. The elephant in the room: language and literacy in the Arab world Niloofar Haeri; 23. Literacy, modernization, the intellectual community and civil society in the western world Frits van Holthoon; Part V. Literacy and Education: 24. The teaching of literacy skills in Western Europe: an historical perspective (16th to 20th centuries) A.-M. Chartier; 25. The configuration of literacy as a domain of knowledge Liliana Tolchinsky; 26. Literate thinking: metalinguistics and metacognition Bruce Homer; 27. Cultural and developmental predispositions to literacy Alison Garton and Chris Pratt; 28. Literacy and international development: education and literacy as human rights Joe Farrell; 29. Adult literacy education in industrialized nations Tom Sticht; 30. New technologies for literacy and international development Daniel Wagner; 31. Literacy theory and literacy policy David Olson.