“It’s not the same thing as last time I wrote a report”: Digital text sharing in changing organizations

2021 ◽  
Vol 0 (0) ◽  
Author(s):  
Mona Blåsjö ◽  
Carla Jonsson
Keyword(s):  
Knowledge Management ◽  
Literacy Practices ◽  
Work Life ◽  
Digital Systems ◽  
Literacy Studies ◽  
Work Processes ◽  
Digital Text ◽  
New Literacy ◽  
New Literacy Studies ◽  
Potential Risks

Abstract In the communications of modern organizations, text sharing and knowledge management are mainly digital. The digital systems that frame many types of communication consist of, e.g., intranets and document sharing software that are occasionally exchanged for new systems. Employees have to adjust to modified routines and learn new systems, and management has to make decisions about digital systems and how these are to be integrated with work processes and knowledge management. In this article, we contribute to research on work-life literacies by highlighting the increasingly frequent issue of digital text sharing in modern workplaces through the study of commercial companies, mainly through ethnographic observations and interviews. The theoretical framework comes from New Literacy Studies where literacy practices, i.e., common patterns of using reading and writing, form a key concept. Moreover, the sociolinguistic concept of metadiscourse is applied in order to uncover the reflexive orientation of participating professionals towards digital text sharing. The results show that these professionals relate the combination of digital text sharing and technological and organizational change to problems, obstacles and potential risks; ambitions of enhancing digital text sharing may exclude certain groups, and changes in digital text sharing systems per se may cause professionals to lose control. These risks are often associated with access to information: a person who cannot access information in their organization has a lower degree of agency or power over their situation. The results are discussed in light of theories concerning modern work life from New Literacy Studies.

scholarly journals Tracing interacting literacy practices in master's dissertation writing

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kathrin Kaufhold
Keyword(s):  
Social Practice ◽  
Literacy Practices ◽  
Academic Literacies ◽  
Literacy Studies ◽  
New Literacy ◽  
New Literacy Studies ◽  
Business Partners ◽  
Dissertation Writing ◽  
Interdisciplinary Approaches

Academic literacy practices are increasingly varied, influenced by the diverse education and language backgrounds of students and staff, interdisciplinary approaches, and collaborations with non-university groups such as business partners. Completing a master's dissertation thus requires students to negotiate literacy practices associated with different domains. To enable an investigation of conditions for such negotiations, this article extends the concept of literacy practices by combining insights from Academic Literacies, New Literacy Studies and Schatzki's (1996) social practice ontology. The resulting framework is applied in a case study of a student who negotiates academic requirements and entrepreneurial goals in completing a master's dissertation.

Family and Home Literacy Across Time

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Catherine Compton-Lilly
Keyword(s):  
Young Children ◽  
Family Literacy ◽  
Literacy Practices ◽  
Full Range ◽  
Family Members ◽  
Home Literacy ◽  
Literacy Studies ◽  
New Literacy ◽  
New Literacy Studies ◽  
Family Home

In 1982, Denny Taylor coined the term “family literacy” to reference the ways young children and their parents interact around texts. Since then, the term family literacy has generally been applied to the practices that occur in homes to support young children as they become readers and writers. However, 30 years later, this definition negates the full scope of possibilities that might inform our understandings of the literacy practices that occur within home spaces and among family members. These possibilities reflect two important trends increasingly recognized within literacy research communities. First, technological advances have affected the ways people read and write and the multimodal literacy practices that have come to define literacy in families and homes. These developments are often the focus of New Literacy Studies as defined by the New London Group and others. Second, while generally not addressed in terms of family literacy, a substantial and growing body of research has documented the out-of-school literacy practices of adolescents and youth. Many of these literacy practices are enacted and displayed in home settings. While connections between out-of-school literacy practices and family literacy are generally not explicit, homes and families provide significant social contexts that are critical to engaging in technological, peer-informed, and popular culture practices. In short, family literacy does not end once children learn to read. In contrast, family literacy assumes new forms and involves new modalities that both echo and extend the literacy practices found within families. This is significant, as it challenges conceptions of adolescent and youth literacy as being separate from the literacy practices of families. To extend what is meant by family literacy, it is redefined as more than traditional activities that involve young children with texts. Instead, researchers are challenged to consider the full range of literacy practices that occur among family members and within homes across time. In doing this, family literacy and new literacy studies are brought together. Thus, the term family/home literacy is used to recognize not only the literacy practices that are enacted between children and parents, but the full range of literacy practices that occur among all family members—including siblings, extended family members, and friends. In short, family/home literacy practices are intertwined with home literacy affordances, which include the texts, opportunities, and technological resources that are available and used in homes. In order to explore family/home literacies over time, children’s literacy practices, including traditional and technological family/home literacy practices, are explored. Issues raised include parental mentoring of school-age children as they encounter new technologies at home, the adaptation of available resources by children as they move into and through adolescence, and transactions involving texts (both traditional and digital) among adolescents, young adults, and their parents.

New Literacies in 21st Century Classrooms

2017 ◽  
pp. 22-42
Keyword(s):  
21St Century ◽  
Literacy Practices ◽  
Theory And Practice ◽  
Social Semiotics ◽  
Language And Literacy ◽  
Literacy Studies ◽  
New Literacy ◽  
New Literacy Studies ◽  
The Everyday ◽  
Insight Into

Understanding 21st century communication requires an acknowledgement of the increasing role technology plays in the everyday lives of children. At home, children routinely engage in techno-literate environments where they use multiple modes for playing and learning. In order to build a bridge between theory and practice, it is helpful to draw upon the field of multiliteracies, New Literacy Studies, and social semiotics. Applying these theories to the language and literacy practices of elementary students provides insight into text making and the design process or fit between modes and affordances. This chapter helps the reader gain the necessary background for grasping the complexities involved in producing coherent and cohesive texts.

Introduction

2019 ◽  
pp. 1-17
Author(s):  
Niv Allon
Keyword(s):  
Literacy Practices ◽  
Group Formation ◽  
Social Contexts ◽  
Historical Background ◽  
Literacy Studies ◽  
New Literacy ◽  
New Literacy Studies ◽  
Eighteenth Dynasty ◽  
The Social ◽  
Main Figure

The introduction sets up the historical background and the methodological foundations of the book. It first describes the Eighteenth Dynasty in broad strokes and locates Haremhab, the main figure in this book, within this timeframe. Following the historical discussion, the introduction touches upon three main issues at the heart of the book’s methodology: literacy, self-representation, and group formation. Engaging with issues raised by scholars of New Literacy Studies, the book focuses on the social contexts in which literacy practices are used. Building on the works of Stephen Greenblatt and Bruno Latour, the chapter then begins to ask questions regarding the relationships between art, patron, and society.

scholarly journals Self-access Materials: Their Features and their Selection in Students’ Literacy Practices

2012 ◽  
pp. 465-481
Author(s):  
María del Rocío Domínguez-Gaona ◽  
Guadalupe López-Bonilla ◽  
Karen Englander
Keyword(s):  
Learning Environment ◽  
Language Learning ◽  
Literacy Practices ◽  
Theoretical Perspective ◽  
Literacy Studies ◽  
Literacy Practice ◽  
New Literacy ◽  
New Literacy Studies ◽  
Cultural Approach ◽  
The Core

Autonomous, self-directed language learning is the literacy practice that self-access centers aim to promote. Much of this activity occurs when students interact with the equipment and the materials available in the center. These resources, in many ways, become the core of the learning environment, and, therefore, it is critical to understand what learning is provided or afforded through them. In this study, we examine the literacy practices of students in a self-access center in Mexico, focusing on the materials. We combine description and analysis of materials, student observations, and interviews to identify the learning students perceive those resources afford and the criteria they employ to make decisions concerning their use of the materials. This investigation is accomplished through the theoretical perspective of New Literacy Studies, because it provides a unique and rich socio-cultural approach to language learning. As a result, we determined that affordances of the materials are constrained. We also identified five different criteria students use to choose materials, but despite their personal criterion, we found they often do not have a clear direction and purpose for their choices.

CONTEXT AND LITERACY PRACTICES

2005 ◽  
Vol 25 ◽  
pp. 170-187 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stephen Reder ◽  
Erica Davila
Keyword(s):  
Literacy Practices ◽  
Cultural Practices ◽  
Written Language ◽  
Theoretical Ground ◽  
Literacy Studies ◽  
New Literacy ◽  
New Literacy Studies ◽  
Written Form ◽  
Core Issues

This chapter reviews recent progress in resolving tensions between conceptions of literacy as a system of locally situated cultural practices and conceptions of literacy as a broader system of written language that transcends specific individuals and local contexts. Such theoretical tensions have arisen out of earlier, long-standing literacy debates—the Great Divide, the Literacy Thesis, and even debates about situated cognition itself. Recent reviews and critiques of the “New Literacy Studies” examined here—Brandt and Clinton, 2002; Collins and Blot, 2003; Street, 2003a, 2003b—are reaching toward new theoretical ground to address emerging concerns about the adequacy of current literacy theories framed in terms of locally situated social practices. This new work should be of interest not only to those working in the field of literacy but also to applied linguists in general, because the core issues have to do with the nature and role of context in language use, whether in oral or written form.

scholarly journals Between PIAAC and the New Literacy Studies. What adult education can learn from large-scale assessments without adopting the neo-liberal paradigm

2021 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Large Scale ◽  
Literacy Practices ◽  
Literacy Studies ◽  
Adult And Continuing Education ◽  
Theoretical Frameworks ◽  
New Literacy ◽  
New Literacy Studies ◽  
Basic Competencies ◽  
Large Scale Assessments ◽  
Adult And Continuing

With this book we present a selection of articles that critically deal with (internationally comparative) large-scale assessments. We acknowledge that studies such as PIAAC are often designed, financed and implemented on the basis of neo-liberal worldviews. Nevertheless, we would like to use the articles that are presented here to show the various ways in which adult and continuing education can benefit and learn from the knowledge that they generate. In PIAAC, for example, there are huge differences between the surveyed variables and the theoretical frameworks on literacies and literacy practices that the New Literacy Studies (NLS) have brought out. This book features eleven articles, which – with the NLS’s theoretical considerations and points of criticism in mind – find new and alternative evaluations and interpretations of the data. Not only can they show effects of marginalization on a large scale, but the data can also provide information about mechanisms of power in relation to literacy and basic competencies.

scholarly journals Accessing a ‘very, very secret garden’: exploring children’s and young people’s literacy practices using participatory research methods

2017 ◽  
Vol 19 (4) ◽  
pp. 39 ◽  
Author(s):  
Margarita Calderón López ◽  
Virginie Theriault
Keyword(s):  
Young People ◽  
Research Methods ◽  
Participatory Research ◽  
Literacy Practices ◽  
The Other ◽  
Literacy Studies ◽  
New Literacy ◽  
New Literacy Studies ◽  
Participatory Research Methods ◽  
Participation In Research

Despite the wealth of publications on children’s and young people’s participation in research, the connections between participatory research methods (PRM) and literacy studies remain unclear. The aim of this paper is to understand why it is particularly pertinent to use PRM in literacy studies (particularly New Literacy Studies). In order to capture the complexity and plurality of these methods, we discuss two studies, one conducted with children in Chile and the other with young people in Québec (Canada). We argue that by using PRM, researchers can support participants in the appropriation of an alternative and potentially empowering view of literacy.

The reuse of semiotic resources in third-year children’s writing of sub-genres

2017 ◽  
Vol 18 (4) ◽  
pp. 518-544
Author(s):  
Eva Hultin ◽  
Maria Westman
Keyword(s):  
Leisure Time ◽  
Literacy Practices ◽  
Methodological Approach ◽  
Literacy Studies ◽  
New Literacy ◽  
New Literacy Studies ◽  
Literacy Events ◽  
Children's Writing ◽  
Semiotic Resources ◽  
Out Of School

The aim of this article is to explore how children use and reuse semiotic resources in their writing of hybrid genres in school. In focus are children’s use and reuse of semiotic resources from both earlier literacy events at school and literacy events they have experienced at home or in their leisure time. This double focus is rare in previous studies and thus the study contributes new insights concerning how children’s writing can be understood as a hybridization process in which semiotic resources from different literacy practices in school and out of school interplay. The theoretical framework of the study is based on New Literacy Studies, social semiotics and genre theories. The methodological approach is semiotic ethnography. The material is based on videotaped classroom observations of a particular writing process consisting of both collective and individual writing, as well as on the texts produced. A genre analysis is conducted in three steps, in order to explore the reuse of semiotic resources from literacy events in and out of school in five children’s texts. The results of this analysis show children’s creative ways of reusing semiotic resources, not only from literacy events and practices outside of school but also from previous literacy events in school. These creative ways of children engaging in hybridization processes while writing a narrative in sub-genres within an official literacy event in school can be understood as the children seizing agency in order to influence their own practice.

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