Discourse, Literacy, and Power

Even though I am not in total agreement with Paul Gee's ideas about Discourse, as a student of linguistics, I am more or less familiar, but not necessarily in agreement with, his ideas that he explained in his article "Literacy". So, this writing should not be seen as an arguing for Gee's sake, but more about my way of interpreting his work from the perspective of a student of linguistics.

The first thing that came to my mind when reading this article was that his notions of Discourse was no more than an expansion of how linguists--at least under some traditions--understand language. First, what I understand from his idea of Discourse is extended from the notion of language. There were times in the history of linguistics that language was attempted to be separated from its social context. Under Saussurean's tradition, for example, language was divided into two aspects: langue and parole. While langue is defined as the abstract system of language, parole refers to its actualization in the real world. Saussure and his proponents was more interested in studying langue instead of parole. One of the problem was Parole was often considered heterogeneous and less stable (see for example, Fairclough, 2001). However, by doing so linguistics had abandoned social structure as a factor that influenced its heterogeneity and unstability. Later, linguists started to understand social factors as influential in the use of language and started to learn those factors to account for language. Gee's proposal of Discourse was not really new,  as under Hallidayan functional tradition, language is considered as a social practice and thus cannot be separated from social structure.

Second, Gee's dichotomy of primary and secondary Discourse is parallel to the distinction of first and second language (As he admitted himself). He characterizes primary Discourse as being acquired through primary socialization and covert instruction. This resembles the ideas of first language acquisition in much sense. Secondary Discourse(s), on the other hand, are acquired through our interaction with other social institutions where we start as an apprentice. Even though immersion to a non-home institutions is not necessarily connected to acquisition of a second language, many sociolinguists believe that such interaction with other institutions may expose an individual to different linguistic repertoire (for example, Holmes, 2001).

Third, dominant and nondominant discourse which very much resembles the polarity between standard and vernacular language (Holmes, 2001 p.74-5). As stated by Gee, dominant Discourses are secondary discourse which mastery entails 'social' goods  while nondominant (primary) discourse represents solidarity within a society (8). This is also what happens to standard and vernacular forms of language.

Furthermore, I agree with Mathews who argues that Gee's ideas are too deterministic for saying that being a member of a Discourse is a "to be or not to be" matter. Yet, I still think that there is some degree of truth to this claim in a sense that Gee's idea seems to be to deterministic and not ideal, but not  necessarily wrong.

What I am more interested about Gee's article is that how power and ideology is embedded in language. Following the tradition of Critical Discourse analysts (For example, Fairclough, 2001), I always believe that there is such a latent power that controls social interactions. We should question, for example, how a certain Discourse is considered to be dominant while the others are not? Who actually determines this dominance and subordination? Why do we HAVE TO comply with these rules?, etc.

Let me discuss about literacy to exemplify this argument. Gee defines literacy as "a mastery of or fluent control over a secondary Discourse" (p. 9). Not really so long ago, in many places, including my country, Indonesia, literacy was commonly defined as three R's --Reading, wRiting, and aRithmatics'. During that period, those who did not have a mastery on this would be considered illiterate. Who determined this? Why should a person master the three R's, otherwise denied their membership of literate society? Who actually 'forced' them to master these literacies?  Furthermore, the advancement of technology gave birth to computer which in turn gave birth to another kind of literacy: Computer literacy. I remember how around 1990s when computer became popular in Indonesia, everyone was forced to learn to use computer or else would be considered ineligible for many--most of them privileged--positions in companies, institutions, etc. Those who were not able to use computer were simply left behind, being denied of their rights to get 'decent' jobs. This is what also happens with languages. English, being one of the most widely spoken language in the world and considered as the language of academia, is growing into a greatly important and valued. Those who master English, in many developing countries, are highly valued and English illiteracy may lead to deprivation from labor force. One of my classmates, Ranga Kalugampitiya, in a class discussion once articulated this in a very interesting manner: "For native speakers of English, learning a foreign language is much of a choice, while for non-native speakers, learning English is a necessity. And then again, who determines this? Why are native speakers of English, not feeling necessary to learn another language?  And, I believe, one of the possible answer is a latent power which is called ideology. So, once again, it indeed sounds too deterministic but not necessarily nonexistent.

Another argument proposed Gee is that there is often a conflict when one learns a secondary Discourse. I think I agree with this. If we agree that Discourse is the way we live and view life, then there should always be a conflict when one learns a secondary discourse, especially one which is very much different from our Primary Discourse. This notion is very much influenced by linguistics' notions of interlanguage and transfer: The idea that first language may interfere the acquisition of a second language--and later some linguistics such as Pavlenko and Jarvis (2001) argues on the bidirectionality of this process, and during the acquisition process the learner will develop a system that might not resemble any of the language. So, once again it shows how Gee's article is very much an expansion of what linguists understand about language, or at least under some tradition, and I think this is very much influenced by the discourse in linguistics during the year he wrote the article (1989). It might not be necessarily true and acceptable, but perhaps represents the scholarship in that era.

References

Fairclough, N. (1989). Language and power. London: Longman.

Gee, J. P. (1989). Literacy, discourse, and linguistics. Journal of Education, 171(1), 5-176.

Holmes, J. (2000). An introduction to sociolinguistics. Harlow: Longman.

Pavlenko, A., & Jarvis, S. (2002). Bidirectional transfer. Applied Linguistics, 23(2), 190-214