Neoliberalism and applied linguistics

Abstract

These two books refocus us on the voices from within adult literacy studies which we need to keep reading and revisiting, such as Jane Mace and Deborah Brandt, as well as reminding us of the other voices which have a lot to teach us about adult literacy, such as Charles Dickens and Alice Walker.They also present us with new theory which can help us better understand literacy use and learning, for example 'Charles Taylor's notion of the modern social imaginary' (Hamilton) and the concept of literacy as 'unbidden' (Howard).Literacy and the Practice of Writing in the 19th Century and Literacy and the Politics of Representation are of course very different books, just as the careers of these two matriarchs of adult literacy studies, Howard and Hamilton, have been very different.Literacy and the Practice of Writing in the 19th Century is a historical study, making use of -breathing life into -extraordinarily rich primary sources.It is also concerned with writing in particular, not reading.Literacy and the Politics of Representation addresses literacy as both reading and writing and is more of a sociological study, or analysis, of present-day representations of literacy.It may also be that readers will approach these two books differently, greedily moving back and forth between Hamilton's chapters while working their way through Howard's book more slowly and steadily, from the first page to the last.Yet for all their obvious differences, both books end up telling us what literacy means, has meant and can mean to different people, in different ways.The pages of each book are full of ghost voices, spiriting up and away.Everyone should read both of these books, for this reason as for so many others.To give just one example: on page 302 of Literacy and the Practice of Writing in the 19th Century is a facsimile of a page from the diary of a man called John Ward.It was written on April the 10th, 1864 in careful, beautiful handwriting, and then, somehow, ended up on a 'rubbish heap' from which it was later 'rescued' by a person 'feeding a furnace'.Ward writes that it has been a hard time for his mill, because the 'American war' and 'I have not earned a shilling a day this last month and there are many like me my clothes and bedding is wearing out very fast and I have no means of getting any more …' I read this and John Ward was standing in front of me.I started worrying about how to help him; I found it --and find it now --a genuine mental effort to understand that this man is now long gone.