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94 Literacy in Theory

such as to imply that not only can the goal be achieved, but that it has

been uniquely achieved in the form of writing developed in their own

culture or sub-culture.

A more appropriate model of academic goals, one which does not

construct or require a 'great divide' between an 'objective', written, aca-

demic language and a 'context -dependent ', oral , l ay language, is of fered

by Godfrey Lienhardt, in his attempts to find a language for describing

concepts of ' self in different cultures. He cites a dis tinguished, contempo-

rary Engl ish descendant of the eighteenth century essayists, Gilbert Ryle,

whose account of 'self corresponds in both mode of thought and expres-

sion to that of the non-literate Oinka people of the southern Sudan,

amongst whom Lienhardt did field work. Ryle says of 'the e lusive concep t

of 1': 'Like the shadow of one's own head, it will not wait to be jumped

on. And yet it is never very far ahead, indeed some times seems not to be

ahead of the pursuer at ali. It evades capture by lodging itself inside the

very muscles of the pursuer. It is toa near even to be within arm's reach.'

(Quoted in Lienhardt, 1980, p. 79.)

Lienhardt says of the simila r Oinka way of conceptuali sing 'se lf : 'Thus

in the use of bodily imagery, the Oinka (and probably other African

peoples), and one of the most reformist of modern Eng lish phi losophers,

come together - the Oinka never having been entangled in the entities

and quidities of European metaphysics, the Waynflete Professor of

Metaphysical Philosophy in Oxford having determined to get rid of

them.' (ibid.)

The 'objective' language which Olson, Lyons and others are so con-

cerned to identify, and which they incorrectly assoc iate with wri tten lan-

guage, turns out not to be so functional after alI. The representation and

c1assification of complex concepts may, perhaps , be achieved equally well

in other ways that do not, whether explici tly o r implici tly, pose a 'g reat

divide' between European philosophy and primitive thought. To Lien-

hardt, oral Oinka language can be as effect ive for intel lectua l purposes as

academic, written English: at almost every point the Oinka language

al lows for a wide range of mora l and intel lec tua l di sc riminat ions wi thout

leading into a seemingly autonomous world of abstractions. Words, as it

were, must return to base.' (ibid. p. 78.)

4

THE 'IDEOLOGICAL' MODEL

There have recently appeared some works on literacy that have chal-

lenged elements of the 'autonornous' model: they have attempted to

understand l ite racy in terms of concrete socia l prac tices and to theorise i t

in terms of the ideologies in which different literacies are embedded.

1

would now like to use some of this work in order to explore more explic-

itly than perhaps these wri te rs themse lves have done the theoret ical foun-

dations for a description of literacy, and to put together the elements of

an alternative ' ideological' model.

1 begin with the work of Ruth Finnegan, who has put forward an

explicit and complex programme for future research in this field (1981).

She has argued against the concept of a 'great divide' and in favour of

detailed study of 'specific characteristics or consequences likely to be

associated with orali ty and literacy' (1981, p. 12 ). She writes that when we

look beyond grand propositions and genera li sa tions to spec ifi c li teracies

then we find:

the contras ts between non-industr ial cultures themselves may be as

striking as those between industrial and non-industrial, and the

same can be said of contrasts between cultures (and historical

periods) that, on the

'pure

types' mode l ought to fa li together on one

side ofthe great divide. Once the idea ofthi s kind ofbasic d ivision is

chal lenged it is no surprise to see the interac tion be tween wri tten

and oral modes of communication not as something strange -

representing, as i t were, two radically different types or even 'evolu-

tionary stages' of human development - but as a normal and

frequently occurring aspect ofhuman culture. I t is true that differing

cultures lay different emphases on, say, writ ten learning and that the

I

specific uses and purposes of oral media vary at different t imes and

places - but this is the kind of situation that demands detailed

inves tigation rather than defining out of existence ( ibid. p. 6).

he takes each of the specific consequences attributed to literacy by the

kinds of

writers we

have

been discussing above and challenges each in

t u r n ,

conc1udin that 'rnany

r

the generalisations that have been put

r rward ab ut th

fi

lU n f literacy do not really hold as causal

I luti

n

hip : lit I

h u

Il 18

the

sufficient or necessary condition

r r. rn Iurth r 11 11 1 01 I 1 h r

n

u h x pti n r - at be

t

)

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9

Literacy in Theory

:- -qualifications t~ each of the poss ible generalisations to make them (even

if they do so~etImes apply) very doubtful as defini tive guides to con-

stantly occurrmg associations' ( ibid. p. 31) .

S.h~doe~ not.' however, want to be simply nega tive but rather to suggest

~OSItIve dIre~~~~ns for, research. Firstly, adopting Gough's notion of

~ ht~r~cy a.san 'ena.bling factor' (Goody, 1968, p. 153) Finnegan notes that

this implies studying also 'a large number of other factors _ the current

pol iti cal and economic condi tions, soc ial st ruc ture or loca l ideologies

~ec~me. arguably of equal relevance with the technology of communica-

tron (Fmnegan, 1981, p. 7). Nor does she mind that this means that 'the

enticing simplicity of the strong model i s lost' (ibid. p. 32). Secondly, she

~;vould ~oncentrate on the uses of lite racy rather than on the technology:

Focussing on the uses of literacy and orality means shifting attention

away from the search for universaIs, ideal types or human development in

gen.er~1 t:n~s. to more detail~d .investigation i.nto actual choices in specific

societes. (ibid. p. 34.) ThIS IS cIearly an Important corrective. to the

universal ist ic and technological dete rminist arguments of the autono-

mous' model , but I would suggest tha t the point needs to be taken further.

Before ~e ~an look at the 'choices' made between di tferent technologies

and their different uses and consequences, we have first to recognise that

what constitutes a particular technology and how it carne to be available

for choice is itself problematic. The technology of communication can

involve many things, themselves the outcome of previous social processes

I and 'choices', and in order to study these we have to examine the struc-

~tural , polit cal and ideological features of the society in questiono

Raymond WiIliams' analys is of the development of television technol-

ogy

(I

97~) suggests how this can be done. The requirements of profit, he

argues, dIrec ted technological inquiry in the early part of this century into

etforts to produce individual vewing

units

for sale to each household

rather than large screens for use in communal halls. He would maintain

that .i~ is false, then; to dwell on the 'influence' or 'consequences' of

television a~ ~hough rt were a neutral t echnology tha t had just appeared

due to the dIsmteres ted work of scientis ts . Rather, the ' influence' of televi-

sion depends upon the particula r form its development has taken and thus

on the commercial practices involved, in the production and dis tr ibution

of that form - in this instance, the nature and context of the individual

\:set'. The material tha t is transmi tted through the set depends, in the fi rst

mstance , o~ t~e purposes for which that technology has been shaped. In

we s te r n s oc r et ie s ,

t?e ~ontent is controlled, produced and dis tr ibuted by

the same commercIal mterests that determined the form in th fir t place

and has th~s to be explained in terms of that larger

per sp uv e , hn ol-

ogy, then, ISa cultural form,

a

social

pr odu ct

wh

h

Ip 111

I nflu nce

depend upon prior poltica nd id I i ai

t

r ,

The Ideological Model

A similar argument can be used in relation to literacy. The pa~ticular

chnologies associated with ditferent l iteracy forms ~ave be~n varied and

rich. They include, for instance, the use of manuscnpts, pnn~ an?

teles-

reen: alphabets, ideographs, syllabaries and various combinations of

them : slate and chalk, quil ls and biros, typewriters and word ~roce~sors;

parchment, linen, cornputer paper e~c. ~ac?' h~s its own spe~If ic hIs to.ry

nd is connec ted with part icular socia l mstitunons and functions, SO~Ial

ontrol has often been exercised by means of control of the matenals

ssociated with it. Clanchy, for instance, sugges ts that t~e ~heer ~x'pense

f quills in medieval England was a major factor in re~tnctmg wntm~ to

lhe wealthy or to those organised to pool resources as

m

the. m?nastenes.

ln nineteenth century

Fiji

the importa tion and control of pnntmg presses

by missionaries helped them to cont rol ais? the di sseminat i~n of knowl-

dge and the power associated with it. But literacy, of course, IS.more than

just the 'technology' in which it. is ma~ifest. No o~e m~tenal f~ature

erves to define literacy itself. It IS a social process, m whIc? p~rtJ~ular

ocial ly constructed technologies are used within par ticula~ mstItut lO~al

frameworks for specific social purposes. We cannot predict the socI~1

concomitants of a given literacy practice from a description of the

parti-

cular technological concomi tants. Goody, then,

is

misleading ~hen he

refers to literacy as 'the technology of the intell~ct' (1977). FI~neg.an

points out that studies are avai lable which in fa~t Ill~st.ra~e the ~iffermg

ways in which certain media can be used adding this IS partJ~ular1y

triking in the case ofwrit ing, when its actual use ISnot t~tal l~ predictable

on the basis of the establ ished general isations' concernmg ItS supposed

technologica l nature and consequences. Something more i s involved, she

says, 'than the mere adopt ion of writing in it sel f' (1981, pp .. 35-6). .

Research into li teracy and orality must take account of thi s complexity

and eschew the determinism exemplif ied by writers l ike Goody.

I

-v

9

One cannot just pick out one variable - say, printed med~a - and

draw consequences from that, but one must also take mto .ac-

count the whole organisation that li es behind thi s (the orgamsa-

tion of writers or printers, say, the oppositions betwee? those

who control ditferent media, the distribution and marketing, the

const raints of particula r materiais, the costs and benefi.t s of ne~

technological processes ... ) not to speak of the ~ay. pnnt ~edIa

are used by various sections of the commumty m. partJc~lar

places for variou purposes at various times, or the mteraction

between, y

th

u

e

of printed books and pape~s and of other

media u

h

m

II t

rm ns, public addresses, pictures or word

f m nh e 11 1 1 11 1 I n. i ido p. 4.)

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IL I t w Ir o u n d r

t

n d l n

of writer in different di iplin li' 11 11 Iltl

1 1 1 k

11 111

am arguing can be taken a the a.'I

r

w I I i al' model of

literacy. A summary of what they have a hi v d ar will help both to

cIarify what such research involves and to disc v r what generalisation

are poss ible at this s tage.

~ \ '

Within anthropology, and apparently independent ly of Finnegan, John

Parry has recently provided both a detailed analysis of the kind she de-

mands of specifi c aspect s of li teracy and orali ty and a general sta tement of

theory. He explici tly challenges Goody's approach and implici tly, I would

argue, the 'autonomous' mode \. Using his own field work in Benares plus

his knowledge of Indian tradition, Parry concIudes: 'None of Goody's

predictions hold unambiguously good for. traditional India' (1982, p. 4).

Challenging particularly Goody's technological determinism, he says: ' It

seems to me that it is not so much in terms of literacy, but in terms of a

wider ideological framework that the transformation of mental life to

which Goody alludes must be understood' (ibid. p. 25). { {

Parry looks in particular at the ideological framework within which

Brahmins in India control powerful knowledge, both of anc ient texts and

of current practice. He suggests that Brahmin culture is a culture of the

spoken word, despite what one might be led to expect from its emphasis

on text s. Dominat ion over others i s achieved verbally, by 'rendering oth-

ers speechless by the force of one's own speech and erudit ion' (ibid. p. 11).

This process can be seen in the institution of the shastrath - 'a kind of

formali sed verbal batt Ie over the interpretation of the text s' (ibid.). This

emphasi s i s exempli fi ed by the history of the Veda themselves. There was

a mi llennium between the composi tion ofthe Veda and thei r being writ ten

down, a lthough lit eracy skill s had been ava ilable during that period. The

transmission had been assured by rules for accuracy and precision of the

kind which Goody would associate with literacy. Each verse had to be

endlessly repeated by a pupil until he had completely mastered it and 'an

elaborate system ofmnemonic checks and phonetic rules (vyasa siksa) was

des.igned to ensure the exact replication of the proper sound' (ibid. p. 12) .

This leads Parry to chalIenge Goody's generalisations about literacy:

'rather than the essential character of oral discourse being modified by

intel lectual procedures inseparable from literacy, as Goody predicts for

literate cultures, it would be nearer the mark to say that in traditional

India i t was literary express ion which was subordiriated to the demands of

oral transmission' (ibid.).

As Clanchy sugges ts with regard to medieval England, the development

of writing takes place within an oral framework of thought and this may

continue to domina te the uses ofl iteracy. Parry suggests that 'much of the

d

11 10l1n

nd with a redundancy

I arly intcnd I t

f i

IIlll

I 1 1 1

ri ati n and faithful replica-

I

1 1 1 '

ibid.) and it ha been th rui traditi n which have continued to

.lnminate the uses of text . There i a belief in lhe power of words 'once

1 1 1 are materialised in speech' and 'for that power to become manifest

1 1 1 y rnust be pronounced with preci sion and exactly the right inflexi~n.

r ngly accentuated, they may have an effect opposite to the one

I~-

1 nded.' (ibid.) The words on the page, then, do not in thernselves cons~l-

IIIL the 'text' or its meaning. IfPopper were to discover such li tera ture in

1 1

'World Three ', it would remain meaningless wi thout the accompan-

n s rules of pronunciation and social use and these are oral rules that,

lthout tape recording, could not be stored. For the scholar to ' translate'

L I h texts in the study would not be the unpacking of ancient knowledge

Ihot Popper suggests literacy 'allows in a way that oral cultures do noto

Without the oral tradition in which they are embedded, the writ ing alone

not 'knowledge': i t does not have 'universal' .. .. . .-eaning but only_ that

iven it by the context. The schola r's 'meaning' would be quite different

I' rn that described by Parry' as belonging to indigenous uses of such

ucred texts .

The spread of literacy in modern India does not, then, threat~n the

r wer of the Brahmins over the sacred texts since 'without the gUldance

of a guru book learning is said to be without value and even an obstacle to

Lheacquisition of knowledge' (ibid. p. 14). The Brahmins maintain con-

lr I of the system through 'the stress on oral transmission and corr~ct;, ~

pronunciat ion' ( ibid.) and this depends upon individual tuition which

they monopolise. Such control, however, is not that of a secret soc~ety

maintaining esoteric knowledge for i tself: the Brahmins have an obliga-

tion, within what Parry call s a 'transact ional code' (ibid. p. 15) to dissemi-

nate this knowledge and if they do not then serious penalt ies wi ll follow.

The broad communication of knowledge that this entai ls means that

gainst the tendency for 'experts' to preserve the 'text' in immutable for~

is the counter pressure for each one to offer his own interpretation. This

situation, Parry suggest s, is the exact opposite of that posited by Goo~y.

oody maintains that oral knowledge is volatile and malleable while

literate knowledge is res il ient and ' restricts spontaneity'. Parry points out

that for traditional India at least, oral knowledge is resilient while the

literate tradition allows for a range of interpretation and 'spontaneity'.

Tronically, this var iety rests upon the very character ist ics of ' texts' that

Goody thinks leads to their being 'fxed'. It is the fact that a guru can

appeal to a text as though it were immutable which allows him to dress up

his own inte rpretat ion as lhe authori tative one. With regard to the .Veda,

for instance, Parry points out that they are the ultimate authonty o~

'right conduct' and yet in practice they have little to say about the practi-

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4/17

y l ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ n ~ ~

lt is t . wor.d, n un d r t m 1 1 0

li

1 1 1

1\

of writer

i n diff

rent

dia iplin I

I\

I

rn

Y

that num

~m arguing can be taken a t b II~ I I I

t i

w 1 . 0 and it i thi Ih

literacy,

A summary of what the

ti,

r

.1 n

w

id e 1 gi ai' m d I

clar ify what such research ' I Y have a hieved

80

far will help b I1 I

mvo

ves and to

di

are possible at this stage. iscover what generali atlon

f

r

I

Within anthropology, and apparentl ind '

Parry has recently provided both a ; t

'I

e:endentl

Y

of

Finnegan,

J

h n

mands of specific aspects of lite edal e , analysis of the kind she d

h

racy an orality and

t eory. He explicitly challenges Good ' a ge,nera,l statement I

argue, the 'autonomous' model U y ~,approach and implicitly, I would

his knowledge of Indian tradi~i sm: IS own field work in Benares plu i

predictions hold unambi on, arry concludes: 'None of

Goody's

Challenging particularly ~~~~;'sg~e~~:~~otr,aditional I~d,ia' (1982, p. 4).

seems to me that it is not h . gical determinism, he says: 'It

, . so muc in terms of lit but i

wider ideological framework that th I er~cy, ut m terms of a

which Goody a ludes mus t be underst~~~~~~~~~matlOn of mental ife to

Parry looks m particular at the i p. 25). ~ ,( ( .

Brahmins in India contro l power f e

l

~eol~g lcal f ramework with in which

of current practice. He suggests t~at ;owhed~e, both o~ancien t texts and

spoken word despi te what o . h b

ra

mm culture IS a culture of the, ne mig t e led to from

i

on texts. Domination over othe 'h' expec t rom ItS emphasis

rs IS ac ieved verball b' '

ers speechless by the force of ' y, y rendenng oth-

Thi one s own speech and di .

IS process can be seen in the instit . eru ition (ibid. p . 11),

formalised verbal battle o the i I ution of the shastrath - 'a kind of

ver e interpretati f h

emphasis is exemplified by the h' t f IOn o t e texts' (ibid.). This

a millennium between the com IS't~ryo the Veda thernselves. There was

d

pOSI IOn ofthe Ved d h' ,

own, a lthough l ite racy ski lls h d b ,a an. t e rr being wri tten

transmission had been assured ~ elen~vallable during that period. The

kind which Goody would assoJa~~ :~t~r,accuracy and precision of the

end les sly repeated by a pup il un til he had literacy. Each verse ~ad to be

elaborate system of'rnnemoni h k completely mastered it and 'an

d

. ICc ec s and phon ti I

esigned to ensure the exact replic ti f h e ICru es (vyasa siksa) was

his leads Parry to challen e G~~~n,o t e pr~per. sound ' ( ibid, p. 12).

,rather than the essential ch;racter

o r

s gen~rahsat lOns, about l iteracy:

intellectual procedures inseparabl f orl~1discourse being modified by

lit e rom rteracy as G d .

I erate cultures it would b '

00

y pred icts for

I di , ' e nearer the mark t h'

n Ia rt was literary expression which b ~ ,say t at m traditional

oral transmission' (ibid.). was su ordinated to the demands of

As Clanchy suggests wi th regard to mediev

of writing takes place within a I f ai England, the development

, nora ramework of th h '

continue to dominate the uses of lit oug t and this may

Ieracy. Parry suggests tha t 'rnuch of the

I I

' / 1 /1 '0 1 0

1 1 '1 /1 ' t i l

o t l l l

w l ' Illpll t i 11 1 h

1'11 )

1 1 < . 1 wlth a rcdundan Y

I I

t u

11

ri ',ti n

and

faithful replica-

I li I.

11

d it ha b n th rultraditi n which have continued to

111\

I 1 h li f tex ts. There i a belief in the power of words 'once

u T I \l riali ed in peech' and 'for that power to become manifest

'11111 pr nounced with precision and exactly the right inflexion,

1111 I I

centuated, they may have an effect opposite to the one in-

11

I L' (lbid.) The words on the page, then, do not in themselves consti -

1 1 1 1 1 'text' or its meaning, If P o p p e r were to disco

ver

s u c h l iterature in

11 1

'W rld

Thr ee ',

i t would

remain

meaningless without

the

accompan-

1 1 1 Iul of pronunciation and social use and these are oral rules that,

111 ut

tape recording, could

no t

be stored. For

th e

scholar to ' translate'

1 1 1 11 x ts in the study would not be th e unpacking of ancient knowledge

111

Ii

Ipper suggests literacy'allows in a way that oral cultures do not.

li ut the oral tradition in which they are embedded, the writing alon~

n t 'knowledge': it does not have 'universal''''''peaning but only that

n it by the context The scholar 's 'mean ing' would be qu ite dif ferent

I1 m that

descr ibed by Parry as belonging to indigeno

us

uses of

suc h

I' ed texts,

he spread of literacy in moderri India does not, then, threa ten the

I wer of the Brahmins over the sacred texts since 'without the guidance

lf

a guru book learning is said to be without value and even an obstacle to

he acquisition of knowledge' (ibid. p, 14). The Brahmins maintain con-

Ir I of the system through 'the stress on oral transmission and correct; ( .

pronunciation' (ibid.) and this depends upon individual tuition which

th ey monopo lise. Such con trol, however , is not that of a secret society

maintaining eso ter ic knowledge fo r itself: the Brahmins have an obliga-

tion, within what Parry ca ll s a ' transac tional code' ( ibid. p, 15) to dissemi-

nate this knowledge and if they do not then serious penal ties wi ll fol low,

The broad communication of knowledge that this entai ls means tha t

agains t the tendency for 'experts' to preserve the 'text' in immutab le forrn

is the counter pressure fo r each one to o ffer h is own in terpretation, This

situation, Parry suggests, is the exact opposite of that posited by Goody.

Goody maintains that oral knowledge is volatile and malleable while

literate knowledge is resilient and ' rest rict s spontane ity'. Parry points out

that, for traditional India at least, oral knowledge is resilient while the

literate tradition allows for a range of interpretation and 'spontaneity'.

Ironically, this variety rests upon the very characteristics of 'texts' that

Goody thinks leads to their being 'fixed'. It is the fact that a guru can

appeal to a tex t as though it were immutable which allows h im to dress up

his own interpretation as lhe authoritative one. With regard to the Veda,

for instance, Parry points out that they are the ultimate authority on

'right conduct' and yet in practice they have lit tle to say about the practi-

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I()()

UIItl/ 11/ n/ ol I

cal, veryday w rld. Thi imrnun l '10111 f the

mundane world is preci ely what

U

li

th Ir

iuth rity; ais

precisely what allows, indeed requires, tl h uru l It r hi own interpre-

tation of how it is relevant to everyday life: 'It i kn wledge of texts that

have nothing to say about dharma ( right

conduct)

that authorises him

to rule on it. The way would seem to be open for him to say what he likes.'

(ibid. p. 16.)

This malleabi lity of l ite racy is, according to Parry, true not only of the

Veda, where the 'content is fixed but it s di rect appl ica tion to pract ica lli fe

is minimal' but also of texts where the opposite is the case. The Garuda

Purana for instance, a much later text than the Veda, is the last word on

matte rs relating to dea th, mourning and the conduct of mortuary rites,

providing detailed practical guidance on these everyday matters in a way

that the Veda do not. There are, in practice, many written versions of this

book each under the same titl e but with different content. Yet each ver-

sion cJaims the same ultimate authority that Parry showed was associated

with texts where the content did not change (although, as he points out,

even in that case interpretation varied). Parry compared an English trans-

lation of the Garuda Purana with its Indian source and found that 'virtu-

ally the only thing that the two versions have in common is the cJaim that

unsurpassable benefits accrue to those who hear them, and the exhorta-

tion to give liberally to the Brahmin who recites thern' (ibid. p. 17).

Otherwise the content is quite different. Moreover,

'it

is dubious whether

either of them bears any relationship to the ancient texts of the same name

since the content s of none of the exi st ing versions conform to what is said

about the Garuda Purana in better authent icated Pura nas' (ibid.). Parry

also carne across a trust in Benares set up to produce 'authorised' versions

ofthe cJassica l t ext s, which is now using western scholarship to resto re the

Puranas to their 'or iginal' formo The western techniques employed to this

end had, he points out, been developed with relation to different kinds of

'text', where a single author could be identified and different versions of

his or her text were to be compared. In the case of the Puranas, however,

'it is very doubtful that there ever was a single original written text - the

probability being that we are dealing with a number of quite different

recensions which evolved out of the oral traditions of the regions from

which each comes' (ibid. p. 18).

Apart, then, from Parry's point that written discourse is as likely to be

as 'rnalleable' and 'volatile' as oral discourse, we might also note here the

way in which the conventions associated with one particular literate tradi-

tion are applied to another where the original aims were quite different.

The comparison highlights the extent to which the uses of l iteracy res ide

in conventions rather than being 'universal', 'technical skills', as expo-

nents of the 'autonomous' model would have us believe.

101

n an, h w ver, tak P li y' P nt r garding western scholarship

Il I rlh r in lhe light of re ent internal riti ques , While Indian students are

\ I

r

nt ly

applying western conventions to traditional Hindu texts, some

tud nt in Europe are rethinking ,those conventions and proposing ways

'reading' texts that are moreakin to those of the Indian tradition, at

I I

tas described by Parry. Recently structuralists have attempted to pose

h

relationship between Iiteracy and literature in terms of 'malleability'

tnd reader construction rather than of 'fixity', single versions and au-

t i l

r's authority. They argue that our particular education and political

tems make use of the writ ten forms in such a way as to promote the

'llterising' of experience. This has implied that a literary text represents a,

'r ai' world which we can have concrete knowledge of. The wri tt en form

h

been taken simply as an external dress of speech, a reduced 'coded'

V

r ion ofthe voice. The reality according to such cri tics as Derrida is that

writing is not a transparent window onto an established reali ty: writigg jn

our society has certain s tructured propert ies which are employed.in.such.a.

way as to provide an iIIusion of a real ~whole' world. _An analysis of -

writing in st ructuralist terms leads to a break-up of the Iimited view of

meaning inherited in our culture and offers an extension of the potential

meanings (Derrida, 1978). The idea, for instance, tha t an individua l

r ader relates to an individual author is in fact a construction derived

rom our 'literising' of experience. Derrida i s saying something similar to

vi-Strauss' famous contention that he does not read myth but myth

ads him (J 968), but Derrida, unlike Lvi-Strauss, believes that this in-

l rpretation holds for written forms as well as ora l (ibid.).

The emphasis on the 'structured properties' of writing does not, how-

ver, lead to cJaims for 'autonomy' of the kind discussed above. Rather

errida and others are led by this emphasis to recognise even more

ucutely the ideological and poltical nature of our use of written forms.

ike the sociolinguists ci ted above (Chapter 3) they recognise that any

independent analysis of the properti es of writing, as distinct from those of

ral language, must avoid the reifi cation apparent in what I have termed

lhe 'autonomous' model of literacy. In recognising as problematic the

relationship between the analysis of such properties and the analysis of

lhe ideological and political context in which written forms are produced

and used, they are helping to develop, I would argue, an a lternative

'ideological' model of literacy.

They are , then, challenging the concept of the 'original text' even in

contexts where a single author can be identified. They suggest that we

should be as sceptical of cJaims regarding sing le 'authoritative' texts in

ur own culture as we tend to be in relation to the more apparent 'mythol-

gies' of other cul tures. ln the Indian case these cJaims took the form

f accounts of mythica l heroes and gods. The 'original' version of the

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1 0 Lt tcr u I I ltl (/ / ,

ar uda

Pu rana,

r i n tun -,

f i li

til 11

1 1

11

li

\li I d d

wn y th'

god, Siva, to a mythical h r ,

Vy I I, 111

I

til

n l lh urr nt r

it I,

Parry comments: 'the whole apparatu

th - r iU \1

ditl n i dire

d .

to the essentially rel igious purpose of re v rin as ncarly a possiblc rh

divine inspiration of a purely mythical character. The objective re ult,

however, is a complete ly new recension of the work.' (ibid.) The appli

8

tion of this comment to the interests of weste rn scholars in 'original' text

might well lead us to some important insights into western Iiterary pr

duction. We might, for instance, apply to it something Iike the account

given by Parry, for traditional India, of different 'versions' and 'interprc-

tations' of a 'text' in different contexts. The text is, says Parry, 'Iike ao

empty box into which an enormous range of possible contents might bc

poured' (ibid.). Such an account, as we have seen, applies to oral and

Iiterate 'texts' alike and indicates what is the predominant social practice:

a 'rnix' of the two and continual reworking of material in them.

Ali of this, of course, represents a challenge to the view of literacy

proposed by Popper which, as we have seen, assumes an association

between writt en texts and 'object ive knowledge '. In fact the 'objective'

features of the text reside not in their content but in the social facts of

their use in specific contexts: the 'new recensions' to which Parry refers. If

there is any universal pattern to be discerned, it is that both oral and

written tradit ions combine the cont inual reworking of key 'texts' with the

cont inual assertion tha t each new version is fixed, immutable and thereby

authoritative. In both modes a variety of devices is employed, ranging

from mnemonics to print, to preserve the 'accuracy' of a purported 'origi-

\ nal' while at the same time altering that original to suit current interests

without appearing to do so. It would seem, from the kind of evidence now

being produced by anthropologists, literary cri tics and others, that we

should not expect the acquisi tion of writing, nor i ts appl icat ion in a given

context, to take any one direction. In particular, we should not expect it

to result in greater 'fixity', 'objectivity' or ' truth'.

I t is not only within social anthropology, then, that a challenge is being

mounted to Goody's view of literacy and to the 'autonomous' model in

general. Indeed, recently a number of writers, though ident ified wi th

specific disciplines, have deliberately attempted to cross disciplinary

boundaries in posing alternative views of l iteracy. Since much of the work

on the 'cognitive' consequences of l iteracy, to which writers in other

disciplines often appeal for more grandiose c1aims, has come from within

various branches of psychology, it is significant that one of the most

powerful challenges in recent years has come from the psychologists Cole

and Scribner . Their book The Psychology 01 Literacy (1981) consolidates

research that they and others have been engaged in over a number of

years, only some of which has been available in England. They point out

1 '1 1

I

' I/ N I I /,1 ' ( 1 1 ' t ,M

/0

1 1 It

til a umpti n

ml 0 1 1 1 1 1 I) n

ulture' thinking due to

1 1 1

ntr du ti o r litcra y r qulr vi n f change in the thinking of

111

vidu I in that culture. h ir hallenge, as psychologists, is to provi de

H

- h

vidence which has been notably lacking - to 'turn other social

ntist ' hypothetical mechanisms into demonstrated mechanisms' (ibid.

~ .5). They conclude that there is little evidence to support the grander

,lII\Jm~e have been considering.

he problem they encountered was that which we have seen as integral

to ali questions about the 'consequences' of li teracy: name.ly, ho~ to

late literacy in order to test whether it was a significant vanable. Since

t

lintroduction of literacy is always accompanied by the int roduct ion of

11

w forms of social organisation, differences in thinking processes cannot,

\ we have seen, be attr ibuted to literacy per se. Cole and Scribner point

ut that most attempts to test for the 'cognitive consequences' (or even

ust 'implications') of literacy have foundered at this hurdle. The Ieaders

n the fie ld (from Luria and Vygotsky to Greenfield, Olson and Bruner)

have ali tested schooled as opposed to unschooled subjects rather than

literate/non-l iterate ones. The ir findings, however, have not infrequent ly

I een used to make generalisations about I iteracy itself.

Cole and Scribner, nonetheless, believe that they ma)' have found a

ituation where literacy can be

solajed from

.scllQQ]jng_and_wMre,Jhere-

r re ali the grand theories (and Unesco expendi ture) can be tested as 'in

lhe

laboratory'.

The Vai people of Liberia have developed an indigenous

writing system which i s learnt through individual teaching not in schools.

o Cole and Scribner, a long with a number of colleagues and students, set

up an elaborate project, which ran from 1974-9, in order to investigate i~

us an independent variable. They engaged in the team members of the Vai

thernselves, anthropologists and experts in questionnaires, data pr?cess-

ing and computers. The story of the enterprise i tself isworthy of soclOlo~-

ical inquiry and, indeed, they invite such consideration by the form m

which they present their material. They summarise grandiose theory, and

et up agains t i t the specifics of their own thorough investigation, down .to

such de tail s as personal ised descriptions of the team's expenence, preci se

accounts of ethnography, how the questionnaires were constructed and

the def init ions of specific 'cognitive skills' that were tested for. One can

thus set ot to check their findings in a way tha t, I have suggested, is often

not possible with the work done by exponents of the 'autonornous' model.

In any case, their conclusion is more modest and more preci se than much

of the lite ra ture we have been considering. Specific uses oUiteracy, th~y

conclude, have specific implications: 'par ticular practices promote parti-

culanKirrs'. Resisting the poles of 'no difference, ali thought is the same'

and 'the Great Cognit ive Divide', they opt instead for a framework which

they call 'a practice account of literacy' and which, in fact, provides a

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7/17

1 O . f .

ba i f r th ap pll a li 11 th

I

I 1 I 1 1 I 01 IIt r

y

t th

particular interests of

psychol

gi

t

(I ( H I

p.

I

Comparing ~ai, Arabic and Engli

h

llt

,11

which are found

amo~gst.the Va~, they found that some 'cognitiv kills' were enhanced by

practice m specific scripts. What they mean by uch 'skills' i s precise and

not lodged at general levels of human logic et c. It approximates more to

what 1have bee~ ~escribing ~~'social practice'. Knowledge of Vai scr ip t,

t?ey. suggest~ ~aclhtated explici t verbalsa tion skills, as tested by an exer-

cise I? explaining the rules of a board game to another person. The leveI

of skill demonstrated by Vai literates on this test, however was not the

same as ~hat indic~ted by school ing, where Vai lit eracy was ' not a signifi -

cant vanable. Scnpt associated skills, then, were more localised than

those developed b~ schooling, which contributed more to performance on

most tasks. Scho.olmg, rather than l iteracy, they conclude isthe significant

cause of any major changes in 'cogni tive ski lls' .

The main body of their research findings consists of numbers of such

tests, with similarly precise conclusions drawn from them. Those who

kn.ew Arabic script, for instance, were tested for certain kinds of memory

skill. They performed better than others on 'incremental recall' but on

'f ree reca~l ' they had no significant advantage despi te the character is tics

often. attnbuted to the experience of rote learning of the Koran.

.T~ls work.' t?e~, provides an important development in l iteracy studies

within the discipl ine of ~sychology and wil l, hopefu lly, check the propo-

nents of th~ more grandl~se and sentent ious cla ims for l iteracy .

Such claims and associated hopes for the practical 'success' and conse-

~uen~es of literacy have formed the basi s for much of the theoreti cal work

m this area. As we saw in relation to the researches of Hildyard and

Olson, ~he ' consequences ' o fl iteracy are seen as the major justi fica tion for

expenditure on educat ion programmes in general. Where Cole and Scrib-

ner's work forces us to rethink the basic concepts whereby such 'conse-

q~ences ' have been described, much of the recent challenge has been

p~tche~ at a more expl icitly 'po l tica l' leveI. Harvey

J.

Graff, a social

hlstona~, has re.centIy ~ut forward a powerful and explicit challenge to

such cla ims for h~eracy m a book provocatively cal led The Literacy Myth

(19?9) . He .~uestlOns the 'myth' that the acquisition of literacy leadQyg

social mobility, overcoming poverty and 'self-fulfilment'. Making use of

data and methods from a number of fields, Graff argues that such claims

are not supported by the evidence which he examined in relation to nine-

teenth century Canada and he suggests that this may be the case more

generally too. While examples could be found from his detailed s tatistics

that some. individuai s had gained by acquiring literacy, he demonstrates

that depnved classes and ethnic groups as a whole were, if anything,

further oppressed through i t.

11 / ll t.

I itru ' 1 I t 1 - /

1 0

th P qui iti o for

n r nt thni and \I t ti Ii up In '1 l1 dian ill in the ni~e-

, nt h entury,

he

argu th t

r

at r lil ra

y

d es no t

~~rrelate

with

If a ed equality and demoeracy nor with better eo?dlttons. for .the

rking cIass. Rather it eorrelates with continuing soel~1 stratlficatlOn.

racy was bound up with the ideology of t he educators m the s~nse that

--- 't-w-as used as part of the elaboration of the moral bases of hehaviour and

oeial control . Particular approved forrns of literacy were employed by

\ particular c1ass as socialising agents fo~particular oppressed groups and

a means of imparting to them a speclfic moral cod~ '.Graff arg~es that

he analysis of l iteracy entai ls, then, a politically sensitrve analysls of the

cial structure within which it is embedded.

In nineteenth century Canada, the concept of a 'literate' or 'iII~terate'

person was seldom an independent, neutral one. It was a n~rmatlve one

which 'can only be understood in the specific conte~t of s.oclal structural

processes' (1979, p. 52). I so la ted f rom its social relatlOn~, hteracy takes on

reified and symbolic significance unwarranted by ItS own, m~re re-

tricted influences. Thus, to the middle class, 'illiterates' were conc~lved. as

dangerous to the social order, as alien to the dominant culture, mfenor

nd bound up in a culture of poverty. As such they represented a threat ~o

lhe established order and the effort to increase literacy rates was a polit-

ical move to maintain the position of the ruling group. However, the

teaching of l iteracy involved contradict ions. The potential it ies of. reading

and writing for an under-c1ass could well, they feared, be radical and

inflammatory, so the framework for the teaching of liter~~~ had to be

severely contro lled and only those consequences of i ts a~~U1slt lOnthat ~he

ruling c1ass were concerned with were to be al lowed. Thls m.vol~ed spe~lfic

forms of control of the pedagogic process itself and specific ideological

associations of the literacy being purveyed. The workers had to be co~-

vinced that it was in their interests to learn the kind ofliteracy on offe~, m

the kinds of institutions in which it was taught, but had to be restramed

from taking contro l of i t for themselves or developing thei~ own a~terna-

tive conceptions of it. Although the consequences of the kind of lteracy

being provided were not, according to the figures Gr~ff pr~duces, 111

reality advantageous to the poorer groupS in ter~s .of el.ther mcome or

power, they had to be persuaded' that they were. It ISm th.ls sens~ that the ,

concrete forms and pr~ttices ~f lite~acy. are bound up ~Ith an Ideology,

I

with the construct ion ~nd dlssemmatlOn of conceptlOns as to what

literacy is in relation to the interests of different classes and groups. \

Indeed the power of the conception of literacy that was successfully

convey~d in contexts of the kind Graff is describ~ng is such t~at ma~y

sociologists and writers have themselves accepted rt as the startmg pomt

for their analyses.

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10

Lttora c 1 11 T tt o o

Graff argue that, a a re ult of the contemp

U'I

ptuu

11 1 li

h

conceptions of l it eracy, the initial view of literacy in nln I llllh ntury

Canada tends to be that it was necessary for the devel pm nt

f

indi-

viduais and for the collect ive good. A superficiallook at the facts eems to

support this since they demonstrate that those who were 'illiterate' were

also most commonly'impove;i;hed. A closer look, however, undermines

the myth and demonstrates its ideological nature. Comparing levels of

literacy achievement, as defined at the time, wi th such fac tors as migra tion

patterns, social origins , wealth, ownership and fami ly fo rmat ion, Graff

concludes that literacy is not an independent nor a determining facto r but

served rather to mediate these primary processes and interacted with

them.

The figures can be read, for instance, as they were at the time, to

indicate that literacy improved an individual's chances of acquiring

skilled jobs. In fact , however, Iit eracy it self, as learnt in State schools,

proved not to be sufficient to overcome ascribed characteri st ics rooted in

age , gender and race. Certain ethnic groups were disadvantaged, whatever

the ir Iit eracy rates, while others mainta ined disproportionate c1aims on

skilled jobs, despite higher 'illiteracy' rates. Irish Catholics did badly,

regardless of their education: of 'illiterate' Irish Catholics 63% were in

unskilled jobs whereas only 50% of 'illiterate' English Protestants were

s imilarly 'underachieving ' (1979, p. 60) . Amongst black people, those who

were 'illiterate' did relatively less badly than those from other ethnic

groups, but 'l iterate' black people did relatively less well than others. In

other words, the extent to which literacy was an advantage or disadvan-

tage in relation to job opportunities depended on ethnicity. It was not

~ .because you were 'illiterate' that you finished up in the worst jobs but

because of your background.

;: The pattern i s confused by the fac t tha t most jobs, even lower unskil led

ones, had a majority of 'literates' working in them: 75% of labourers and

93% of serni-skilled workers were 'li te rate ' (ibid. p. 72). Despite these high

literacy levels, not ali skilled jobs were filled by 'Iiterates'. The work of

arti sans, blacksmiths, ta ilors, carpente rs and even some higher cornmer-

cial positions could be taken by 'illiterates' if they came from the 'right'

background. Literacy, then, was not as intrinsically necessary for such

jobs as the ideology through which l ite racy attainment was being encour-

i aged was suggesting. As in medieva l England, quite signi ficant positions

that would appear to us to require Iiteracy skills can actually be filled by

'il li tera tes' in certa in condit ions. In medieval England (Clanchy, 1979),

hi red scribes could perform the task ofwri ting and reading documents for

the lord of the manor, authors could 'write' by dictating aloud, and

students could 'read' degrees by lis tening in lecture halls. In contemporary

England, blind people , wi th diffe rent li teracy skil ls than those assumed to

7

be prer qui il

101 I

11 1 1

1\

an hold po ts such as the leader

fa

city

c un

il,

In n

l nth ntury anada, many rewarding commer-

cial posts could b h ld by an 'illiterate' person if he could get the bureau-

cracy performed by omeone else: the ski lls expec ted for such post s were

social skills, of the kind imparted by particular socialsation processes

such as private education and middle-c lass va lue tra ining. In the Iranian

village similarly (see Section 2), entrepreneurs could run complex business

enterprises, record transactions, and make profit s without having reached

levels of Iiteracy that could be guaranteed, via formal tes ting, to figure in

the national statistics. Literacy, then, i s onl)' important for spec ific posi -

tions if that is how they are defined in the particular.society.. burghers,

kings and councillors have, in many societies, managed perfectly well

without it. Ifmany tasks do not intrinsical ly require lit eracy, then we must

search other than in u til ita rianjob descriptions for exp lana tions as to why

it is believed that Iiteracy will lead to better job opportunities. Graff

c1aims that, with regard to nineteenth century Canada, the answer lies in

the ideological inte rests and construc tions of the middle c1ass.

The same, he argues, i s t rue of be liefs about the re lat ionship of lit eracy

to wealth and poverty. He attempts to demonstrate that the acquisition of

Iiteracy was not correlated with improved wealth, any more than with

improved job opportunities. For instance, of ali the poor in Hamilton in

the 1861 census, only 13% were ' il li terate' (1979, p. 84). If most of the

poor were 'Ii ter ate ', one could hardly att ribute poverty to 'illiteracy'.

-Th e

main cause of poverty was, in fact, ethnic origino Stratification, Iikewise,

varied wi th age, gender and- etlnicity rather than with levels of literacy.

Amongst Irish Catholics , l iteracy produced very lit tle mater ial advantage:

65% of those who were ' Ii terate' were poor and only 11% more of 'illiter-

ates', 76%, were poor (ibid. p. 77). For them the pursuit of education

would appear to have been practical ly irrelevant.

Where l it eracy did make a di fference was wi thin groups al ready advan-

taged on other indices. Thus, English 'illiterates', while gaining greater

rewards than other 'illiterates', received less rewards than English

'literates'. Amongst serni-skil led workers the advantages of l iteracy, how-

ever, were negligible: 45% of 'literates' in this category were poor and

47% of 'illiterates ' (ibid. p. 72). The evident success of white Protestants

could, however, be used to~

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\

1 1 0

U ll'rfU ' I11 / Til () f' I

veyed in the fir t place.

lea rly

wh

l t

nineteenth century Canada is not mu h

I 1 '

ti l

rather a form of poli tical and ideological pra

ti :

th ref rence to 're-

stricted' literacy disguises this larger framework and the fact that the

writer is making a judgement based on his or her own beliefs.

Graff beli eves that the diffi cul tie s of transcending the limited and con-

straining form of literacy being purveyed in nineteenth century Canada

stemmed from the re la tive posi tion of c1ass and ethnic groups in the socia l

structure. The ideology itself was directly opposed to such transcendence.

Nor was it seen as relevant to daily needs. These were not dominated by

print and writing: work and information did not require literacy, even at

higher levels, and even clerk ly jobs required simply rules of thumb rather

than crit ica l thought (ibid. p . 302). The emphasi s on the need for l it eracy

was placed on status, culture and power. Accepting exaggerated c1aims

for lite racy in it se lf, and the concomitant need to describe most literacy

practi ces as 'rest ricted', fa ils to ask, Graff says, 'how important and in

what ways is literacy related ar central to different aspects of life and

/culture' (ibid. p. 303). In this sense, then, Graff is contributing to what I

term an 'ideological' model of literacy and his critique of the literacy

'myth' is a contribution to the more general challenge to the 'autono-

maus' model of lit eracy which I am identi fying.

Graff also indicates a further direction in which that critique may be

deve loped. The c1a ims made for l it eracy tend to overstate the diffe rence

between literacy and orality and to hide the fact that in most societies

there is an overlap and a 'rnix ' of modes of communication. Graff points

out that people learnt to find their way around the growing nineteenth

century Canadian cities, for instance, through a 'rnix' of oral and literate

modes. Icons and symbols as well as print were significant for ' reading the

city s treets' (ibid. p. 309). Visual signs, adverts and decorations themselves

were as important as the letters and written words engraved on them

when it carne to finding one's way around. For many, in this context,

hearing and seeing were more important than the new 'literate' culture.

r: The road signs agreed as international conventions recogn ise this feature

of our modern ' li terate' society and use written words as l it tle as poss ible,

as do most adverts. This is not merely a gesture towards those labelled

'illiterate' but rather a recognition that communication operates through

'mixed' modes for al l, whe ther 'lit era te ' or not . Such analyses demonstrate

the limited value of eitherjor designations of literacy and demand that

researchers look more closely at 'non-lite rate ' aspects of 'li ter ate ' soc ie ty

and vice versa as well as at the way those labelled 'illiterate' actually

manage in a 'literate' society.

'i,

One such ana lysis of 'rnixed' modes is to be found in the book by

Michael Clanchy From Memory to Writ ten Record 1066-1307 which has

111

dy b

n

di

li

d

bri

Il y

in bap: r

2

above. The book represents a

II

th r ntributi n to elaborating our 'ideological' model of Jiteracy. He

Ir li

s that the shift from oral to literate modes which took place for

rtain purposes in medieval England was facilitated by the continuing

Inlx' of modes, and by the gradualness of the transition whereby written

/' rms could be adapted to oral practice rather than immediately

undermining or radically altering it. The analysis r ecognises the import-

Ince of the social meaning of these practices for the participants, the

p litical imperatives that generated the change, and the 'ideological'

ith e r

than 'technical' nature of reading and writing.

Clanchy describes: how the shift entailed the production of records on

in unprecedented scale; the growth of trust in writing and what could or

l uld not be done with these particular forms of it; the development of

thc habitual use of written as opposed to oral procedures for certain

I urposes; the appeal to written record rather than oral memory or seals

und symbols in order to establish land rights; the development of l iteracy

~ r day to day business through the setting up of a centra lised bureau-

racy. The emphasis was particularly on claims to land and buildings at

this time, as a result of the Norman invasion and the conquerors' inte rest

[n establishing and legitimising cont rol. The Normans appear to have

ecome eager bureaucrats, insisting on minute and detai led records of the

land they were at tempting to control and thereby contributing to a change

from oral to literate forms of legit imation. Formerly, rights to land and

property had been legi timised through such socially ver if iable and integral

means as the swearing on oath of twelve good men and true, or the

passing over of land with seals and symbols that represented the right to

it .

The Normans had no place in these customs and practices and instead

Instigated a system which requi red c1a imants to produce documentation

before a court of law, and which establi shed verification through the

eentralisation of records. They could, of course, exercise control over this

new system in a way that they could not have done over the old system. If

a Norman wished to give land to a faithful knight in return for services

rendered, he would do so by constructing a written document and appeal-

ing to the courts. Even though such documentation had not existed when

the land had originally passed hands, the present owner was obliged to

defend his rights on these new groun~ The ind igenous material and

social practices had been, by their ve~ nature, less easy to forge than

written documents: a single seal or a sword that symbolised a piece of

land would be so distinctive and well known that forgery was almost

impossible. It was quite apparent to the natives both that the new system

disadvantaged them since

it

was con trol led by a liens, and that it was more

subject to forgery. fhe 'literate mentality', then, to which Clanchy refers

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/I

wa a d lib crat n tru ti n p II 1 1 uul 11 1 1 I 11 1 1 r th

than the intrin ic good which b th th

N

111I111 lit t i I wh urr ntly

promote the 'autonornous' model of litera y w uld

li

l. iteracy wa

a terrain over which the struggles between coloni d and nqueror cruci-

ally took place, as in many Third World countrie today. The natives

found themselves having to produce and even forge written records that

were embedded in an alien system in order to maintain holdings that

provided their l ivelihood, while the conquerors became dependent on

rolls, records and written laws in order to acquire and control the knowl-

edge that gave political power and legitimacy.

The change only happened slowly and through the interaction of a

number of factors. Clanchy suggests that the Domesday Book on its own

did not have such a significant influence on the process as subsequent

writers have believed: 'Literate modes could not be imposed by royal

decree' (1979, p. 12). He suggests that writers in later periods looking

back to the Norman Conquest had their own interest in promulgating a

myth that the Normans had brought the conquered people under the rule

ofwritten law and that the Domesday Book had been the primary instru-

ment. In reality, he says, the Domesday Book suffered from difficulties

which face ali forms of bureaucracy: it could not record absolute\y every-

thing and it rapidly became out of date, particularly when recording

livestock and individual ownership. Only gradually, with the spread of

ongoing records and their acceptance across different classes, did the

habit of consulting documents and eventually of depending on them be-

come established. The Domesday Book, in fact, only became regularly

consulted at a later period - in the fourteenth century - when the practice

of such consultation had become established and when it could be used

retrospectively where long-held rights were in dispute. Its application to

such cases depended less on its intrinsic value as a 'real' record of land-

holding than on the place which was now ascribed to it within a 'Iiterate'

ideology. The gradual process to which Clanchy refers, and which took

over two centuries to come to fruit ion, involves, then, a number of as-

pects, notably the development of forms of government organisation and

bureaucracy, the adaptation to such needs of specif ic forms of literacy,

and the construction and spread of a 'Iiterate mentality' - an ideology

within which writing could be trusted and understood by users in relation

to its specific functions for them and placed within the wider philosophy

and belief system to which they subscribed.

The Normans, in fact, demanded such detailed surveys that, as Clanchy

points out, they were often toa ambitious for the limited levei of clerical

services available: the only surviving surveys are from Oxford and Cam-

bridge, an area where there were enough clerks to undertake the task.

Making records was a product of the distrust that followed the Conquest.

'1 1 1 1 ' // ( 1 1 / 0 t'I I ' Mm l

113

k pln flnan ial a unts, the organisation of an Exche-

lab ration f legal procedures were ali responses to the

p liti ai and rganisational problems faced by the invaders. Clanchy,

h wever, points out that they were not simply crude impositions from

above but adaptations of existing practice to serve new interests. He cites

uch pre-Conquest Anglo-Saxon traditions as the division of land into

hires and hundreds, the binding nature of oaths on the community and

lhe existence of centres of learning in monasteries. The development of

Iiterate forms was a product of the interaction of these specific social

onditions.

These bureaucratic and organisational needs required particular forms

f writing and reading and these were themse\ves both constrained and

developed in relation to the contemporary technology ofliteracy. Clanchy

argues: 'A particular technology of writing shapes and defines the uses of

literacy in a region or culture' (ibid. p. 88). J would add simply that the

'technology' is itself shaped and defined within the culture. The technol-

ogy of literacy in medieval England resulted from a combination of skills

and processes geared to the production of written records. The tanner,

tally cutter, book illuminator, master in school and quill maker were ali

parts of the system that produced and constrained both traditional and

new forms of literacy. This interaction between material constraints and

ocial practices is apparent in the way in which the development ofliterate

modes in twelfth and thirteenth century England was not effected by a

'technologicalrevolution' but, according to Clanchy, by the modification

f traditional materiais.

For example, parchment paper continued to be used as it was cheap

and available in sufficient quantity to be readily adaptable to the in-

creased demando A new style of script was developed - 'cursive' - that

enabled scribes to write faster (ibid. p. 99). Clanchy argues that this new

script was, in fact , an adaptation of book hand and glosses already inuse

and did not constitute a new 'invention'. Its significance lay in the fact

that the largest expense in producing written documents was the scribe's

labour time. Enabling him to work faster saved money as wellas time and

facilitated the greater use made of writing. Similarly, new layouts, lists

and business documents evolved and new formats for keeping records

were developed. Pipe ro11s,for instance, which were already familiar to

scholars through their associat ion with Old Testment and Jewish sacred

texts, were adapted to the needs of centralised, bureaucratic storage of

records. It was, according to Clanchy, theirassociation with previous

familiar forms that enabled many of the new developments to be accepted

and so become institutionalised in a way that radical change and inven-

tion would not have facilitated. Charters, for instance, were laid out in the

way traditiona11y used for Bibles. The Domesday Book assumed author-

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1 / 4

U I J r t t

C ,Y 1 1 1

1 '/1 I r

ity by as ociation

with relig i

u texts.

rib c

w

thing like cursive script in the glosses written in

texts.

The initial and most difficult task was to make the laity, typically

kn ights in the count ryside, accustomed to writ ing. Traditionally monas-

teries had symbolised gifts of land with Bibles and illuminated manu-

scripts where the knights were concerned more wi th the form and context

than with the content. The new government forms of documentation

could beco me legitimate in thei r eyes, then, by assoc iat ion wi th this prac-

t ice and we find land charters during thi s transition period presented with

ali the decoration and trappings of monastic forms of writing. The

changes were, in many ways, relatively smal l and often went unnoticed at

the time, but they se t in motion and fac ili tated fundamental changes.

This process is similar to that which I describe in Chapters 5 and 6 in

relation to an Iranian village: familiarity with sacred Islamic texts and

documents facilitated the use of written records by a small literate class

and the gradual spread of what I term 'cornmercial' forms of literacy. By

adapting written forms and technology that were legitimised through

association with sacred texts and made familiar through daily use in a

common community, entrepreneurs were able to make use of new devel-

opments of l iteracy without alienating or confusing fellow vil lagers. I t was

in a similar way, according to Clanchy, tha t the kn ights o fthe count ryside

in medieval England carne to accept government documenta ry practi ces

because they were produced in forms and materiais already familiar and

legit imised through assoc ia tion with the monasteries. Many contempo-

rary l ite racy programmes tend to fa il because the ir exponents eschew such

'gradualism' and assume that radically new technology and practices

must be int roduced in order to st imulate a shi ft to the 'lit erate' mental ity

that they are aiming for.

In every case the shift is a complex mat te r. New forms challenge existing

deeply-held convict ions or create new problems and new contradictions. In

medieval England the development of lit era te habi ts and assumptions,

comprising what Clanchy calls a 'Iiterate mentality', had to take root in

diverse social groups and reas of activity. The prejudices of such groups

had to be overcome and previous orthodoxies revised. These changes carne

about gradually, aswith changes in materiais and practices, and more often

adapted rather than radically altered deeply-rooted belief. The complexity

of the process demonstrates the extent to which literacy is bound up with

ideology and why analysis of the uses and consequences of literacy must

take into account quite profound levels of belief and the fundamental

concepts through which a society creates order and design in its world.

Clanchy provides a parti cularly c lea r example of th is in rela tion to med i-

eva l concepts oftime and space and how changes in literacy related to them.

mo-

u red

/ 1 1 1

l t l l O /O tr u '

M il

le I

115

In m di v

t i

'ngland fundamental template for the division of time

and pa werc n tru ted within a hristian theology. The writing and

dating

r

documents, which became intrinsic to the new literacy with its

empha i on record-keeping and on resolving disputes over land that

hinged on recorded claims, had grave implications for this belief system.

Dating a document (ibid. p. 236) placed its maker in temporal and geo-

graphical perspective: it involved expressing an opinion about the write r's

place in the world. The framework for this had been established through

the Church 's history of the Creation and its use of the birth of Christ as a

reference point . I t would have been sacri legious for a secular document to

appeal to such sacred matters. Faced with these theological const rain ts on

the one hand and the practical ones on the other, wri ter s adopted the

pract ice of placing documents in t ime by reference to important hi storica l

events rather than to theological time. In any case, the time span con-

sidered necessary for many documents was generally shorter than the

Church's re ference point , although thi s was no t a powerful pressure since

contemporary practice was to use the Gregorian calendar as a reference

for quite short spans of time: Clanchy, never theless, argues that the years

of a k ing's re ign were in some ways more immediately relevant to a knight

obliged to date a charter than was the Christian calendar. This, however,

had its own problems since the political and secular power implied by

such a term of reference might be objected to by the clergy. A compro-

mise, which became standardised, was for the king's reign to be used to

date years while the Church calendar of feast days was used to name days.

This reminds us that the modes of validation of written forms depend,

amongst other things, on agreed sys tems of dating to which they can be

I

referred, and such systems are neither given nor 'natural' but are them- \

selves soc ia lly constructed and deeply embedded in preva iling ideologies .

..J

The compromises and confli cting pressures described by Clanchy are

what Iiteracy prac ti ce is composed of in ali societies, even in such appar-

ently 'neutral' areas of activity as record-keeping and dating.

Nor was the development of li tera te practices a simple matter of writing

down the language that was spoken. There were a variety of languages in

use, while Lat in had special sta tus as the l ite rary language. lndeed, to be

'literate' meant to know Latin rather than to be able to re~nd write.

This trad ition had to be overcome if a 'li tera te mental ity' of he new kind

were to extend beyond a smal l minority. As with the uses o writing with

regard to land rights and to dating records, so the sh ift in court prac tice

regarding language and writing require analysis of such fundamental con-

cepts as indigenous means of asserting and validating truth and explica-

t ion of the conceptual system in which such ideas were rooted.

In medieval England a variety of institutionalised and culturally

spec ifi c c rit eria for val idat ing claims to truth in general and to land rights

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116

II

ira . I

ln Ttieor

in particular were used. These represent a 'mix' for I

lod

II ,'I IIId ,

involving autographs, seals, witnesses, symbols

,

r 111 nl

ti

I l, aths

etc. The attachment of a seal or a symbolic object u h a a knife to a

document that established the owner's title to land or property often bore

more meaning than the words written on the document. Even as late as

the thirteenth century, Earl Warenne is represented as cIaiming rights to

land on his family sword as more concrete proof than a written recordo

Learning to trust documentary proof is a social process and for it to be

acceptable its advantages must be cIear to those being taught. To people

in the Middle Ages it was not obvious that a written document could be

trusted more than a person's word. Indeed, those involved had ample

cause to be sceptica l since the pressure for writ ten documentation made it

more susceptible to forgery than tradit ional forms of validation. Tit le to

land owned by a family over generations was traditionalIy vested in a

symbolic gift passed over by the original owner. A Bible, a knife or a

sword, as in Earl Warenne's case, were common symbols of such a heri-

tage. Under the Normans, however, the cIaimant was required to produce

evidence before the courts in written form, even though none such had

existed before. If this was the only way to establish rights that to the

owners were cIearly established by oral forms of validation, then written

documents would have to be, and were, produced to suit the purpose.

Those who fabricated these documents, however, would have lit tle fa ith

in them while general trust was undermined by the fact that the courts

were constantly chal lenging them for the forgeries that indeed they were.

The credibility of written documentation was, then, in these circum-

stances, quite reasonably held in greater doubt than traditional forms of

validation.

In Europe at that time the development of notarial practice to some

extent counteracted the ease offorgery by providing a bureaucratic infras-

tructure for validating written forms. A public notary would state his

name and his authority on a document and either sign it or impose a

'signurn' tha t could be checked against a regi ster which conta ined exam-

pIes ofhis s tyle and seal. In England, however, the inst itut ional forms that

could have facilitated such a spread of literate practice developed more

slowly. Clanchy argues tha t the reason for thiswas that there was already

a well-established practice of using seals for this purpose.

Seals provided an easy device that non-l iterates could use to authenti-

cate documents written by their scribes: they provided a bridge from non-

literate to literate, a mass-produced form of authentication in the tradi-

tion of the use of symbols, swords etc. A seal with a central symbol and a

name around the outside would be attached to the bottom of a document:

it could be seen and touched and gave the 'feel' of the donor's wishes to a

charter. It was thought to be more durable than parchment and therefore

lI I It l t - o IM m l t /

1 / 7

m r ur

f

rm

r

valldati n. It also represented the donor himself

rather than an interrnediary uch as a scribe or a notary and was therefore

a more direct form of validation. Abstract documentary proof was con-

sidered inadequate without such material reinforcement through symbolic

objects.

In later periods, however, archivi st s versed in a 'l iterate mentali ty ' saw

I the survival of the knives and seals attached to documents as just so much

imedieval paraphernalia. Indeed, many such re lics were thrown away and

\ attention was paid only to the written document, an anachronist ic prac-

\tice since to the people at the time it had often been the document that

~as of secondary importance . These archivists were t rained in specifi c

literate ways of ensuring the effec tiveness of a document for establishing

proof - by dating, signing, copying into regi ste rs e tc. They used profes-

sional standardised rules and depended on a notarial system for the cross-

checking of manuscript s. In the ear lier period a var iety of different cri teria

had been used for validating cIaims, both literate and non-literate - crite-

ria tha t had similarly been learnt according to parti cular ideologica l as-

sumptions. Clanchy warns us against applying the standards of proof

embedded in one ideology to another di ffe rent one, as the archivists were

doing.

His cri tici sm of such anachronisms a lso puts into perspective the gran-

der cIaims for literate standards which I examined earlie r. Goody, for

instance, c Ia imed that lite racy engenders a 'critica ' mentality because it

makes it possible to place two written texts si de by si de and to check one

against the other for accuracy. He assoc iates this with 'open' rather than

'closed' thinking and wi th 'rationality' and logic, in the manner of Hildy-

ard and Olson. Clanchy's account makes it c1ear that the faith of these

writers in the written text is a product of their own society's ideology of

'Iiteracy. In early medieval England i t was wri tten texts that were suspect,

for good reason, while material seals and symbols could be fully checked

for accuracy and so were more trustworthy. The technology for establish-

ing 'accuracy' and 'trustworthiness' does not necessarily have intrinsic

consequences for the quality of truth standards. Oral as well as literate

modes involve critical judgement, disputation of cri t eria for truth and the

challenge of forgery nd misrepresentation.

Clanchy provides useful source mate rial from which to e lici t the advan-

tages of such oral modes of validation. The requirement in medieval

England that twelve witnesses should affirm the passing over of a charter

must have made it difficult for later c1aimants to forge or misrepresent.

During their I ifet ime witnesses could be brought back to court and asked

to recall, on oath, what had taken place. The numbers alone would have

made decept ion diffi cult (though not, of course, imposs ible) apart f rom

the power of belief in oaths. If you can put two documents together, as

f i ,

NU I 1 /1 Th oor

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Goody suggests, to check

f

r their ac uracy,

th 11 011 '111I \I

put

LW

or

more witnesses together as a similar check on ea h th ,Wh knowl-

edge of the handing over and witnessing of a charter w uld bccome part

of collec tive hi story it would be d ifficult to a lte r such knowledge, certainly

for an individual . When witnesses had died, their families might be called

to affirm that for instance 'father told us that he had witnessed the gift of

this land to X'. In these social condit ions the community itse lf i s a l iving

forro of validation and of security against forgery. When validation be-

carne impersonal such integral checks were lost: in this sense impersonal

and disembedded written forros could be said to be more, not less, subject

to forgery.

This was indeed the case during the transition, in medieval England,

J) ,\Q J J J

from oral to literate forms. Forgery was' rife until means were devised to

secure wri tt en documents against misrepresenta tion. That such means (a

nota ria l system, bureaucracy etc.) were necessary demonstra tes tha t wri t-

ten forms are not int rinsical ly more capable of 'accuracy' than oral forms.

Thei r use fo r purposes of accuracy and validat ion depend upon the social

const ruct ion of systems that fit them for such purposes.

Many people at the t ime of the transi tion to writ ten fo rms of va lida ting

claims were aware of the advantages of contemporary oral forms and the

disadvantages of the new modes. St Francis, for instance, argued that the

word was insc ribed spiri tua lly in men's hear ts, whereas let ters on parch-

ment were separated and less trustworthy (Clanchy, 1979, p. 210). He

denigra ted the mere lea rning of l it eracy. Simi larly when messengers from

Anselm, the Archbishop of Canterbury, to the Pope brought back oral

records of what the Pope had said, they were represented by Anselm as

more credible and val id than the writ ten records ofthe event brought back

by King Henry's messengers. Henry's representatives had brought back

reports which favoured his posit ion in a di spute with the Archbishop . The

conflict between the two parties was thus enacted in terms of a debate

be tween the advantages and d isadvantages of li teracy. Anselm's messen-

gers brought the whole weight of Christi an theology to bear on the defence

of oral ideology and the denigration of the value of the written record,

which they represented as 'mere sheepskin with blackening and lumps of

lead' ( ibid. p. 209). The material form of writing is represented as less

trustwor thy than the words insc ribed in men's hearts and minds (to which,

of course, clerics could claim privileged access). The detachment of the

written form from its originator makes it less, not more, testable for

accuracy. These are clear ly loaded arguments but they put into perspective

the c laims of academics l ike Popper, Goody and others who likewise select

those cultural ly developed charac teri stic s of li te racy or orali ty which suit

their purpose and then claim that these are intrinsic to the medi um.

Clanchy puts the case for the advantages of oral forms in medieval

Tb 'lt io lo

ictt

A od o l

11 9

, nditi I1 S with oqual forc. or busine s purposes oral forms of com-

marco had lhe advantage of secrecy - only the parties to a deal need know ,

I

r it.

Oral di course was (and is) convenient since i t can be conducted

directly and immediately, whereas engaging in written communication

involves expenditure on scribes and parchment and a great deal more

time. In social conditions where documents were rare, the occasional use

of them was cumbersome and inconvenient . Aga in, thei r advan tages de-

pend upon the specific social conditions of use, notably in later times the '

, construction of generalised bureaucratic institutions.

\ The written forms of proof which Goody elevates to a higher plane of

~ogic turn out to be specific cultural forms of authentication that are

neither proven to be more 'critica ' or 'rationa ' than the oral forms

described above nor necessarily owe any advantage they may have to

literacy itself rather than to the social institutions in which they are em-

bedded.

Clearly the social construc tion of bureaucracy and of a nota rial system

has some social and poltical advantages. It enables the development of

larger-scale commercial transactions and facil itates central ised polit ical

cont rol. In this sense i t is possible to describe li te racy, as Gough has done,

as an 'enabling factor' (in Goody, 1978). But these are poli tical judge-

ments - indeed their advantages and disadvantages are still a matter of

dispute today. Literate systems such as bureaucracy develop, then, in

relat ion to speci fic condi tions where such judgements and deci sions based

on them are being made.

In the Middle Ages, the social and intellectual strengths of forros of

authentication associated with, fo r instance , sea ls mean t that the re was no

obvious necessity or pressure for the development of a notarial system

and the accompanying form of l ite racy prac tice. This only occurred when

a conquering power 's need for a central ising bureaucracy and the polit ical

pressure i t exerted on the natives to adopt l iterate forms of authenticat ion

led to the provision of resources and manpower for the development of

such a system. Anglo-Saxon groups in pre-Conquest England had been

under less pressure from the soc ia l condit ions to spread lit eracy pract ices

beyond the contemporary monasti c forms and local record-keeping, while

the accompanying quasi-lterate forms of seals and symbols adequately

functioned to valida te land rights.

Clanchy provides other examples from medieval England of the 'mix'

of oral and literate modes. Letters, for instance, were not always used in

newly literate times to impart the message written in them. In the medi-

eval period they often served as a means of validatirrg the bearer who

would then deliver the message in person. Letters in this role served as

symbols in the way that rings had often done before (and, indeed, were

still represented as doing so by Dumas in his

Three Musketeers).

Procla-

121

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mati n might b wr itt n in L utn but w

J J

the vernacular: their po ting on the do r f viII ,

gradual nature of the transition to literate pra li lh m

j

rity and

shows how the 'literate mentality' was ushered in thr

U

h familiar forrns.

In medieval times the receiver of a message would still expect to listen

rather than to read: indeed, the word 'reading' meant hearing not seeing,

a form that persi st s in conternpora ry descriptions of students as 'reading'

for a degree where this originally re ferred to their a ttendance at lectures as

hearers. Authors addressed hearers, accounts were literal ly 'audited', a

judge inspected a document in court by having it read aloud rather than

reading it silently to himself. Writing was conceived as an extension of

speaking rather than in terms of any independent qua liti es it might have.

It referred to composition, as it does in one meaning today when we refer

to someone as 'writng' a book or a letter. In either case the actual

materia l process of recording the composi tion may be done by sorneone

else, such as a secretary. In medieva l t imes wri ting of thi s kind, the task of

the scribe, was a mino r and not very prestigious activity. Reading and

writing in the sense used in medieva l England were, then, not inseparably

coupled together as they are sometimes thought to be today. The associa-

tion was with 'mouth and ear rather than hand and eye' according to

Clanchy (ibid. p. 219). People whom we would c lassify as 'non-li terate'

were able to par ticipate in ' li terate' practice either by listeningj'reading' or

by composingj'writing'.

The visual aspect of 'writing', on the other hand, was associated not

with function nor with the meaning of 'words on the page' but with

display and connotation. Manuscripts were elaborately decorated, bible