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Jenessa Davies
Nancy Roche
Writing 1010-018
23 October 2014
The Use of Literacy
Literacy has always been a means to how society functions and is found in all aspects of
human life. Without communication skills we would not be able to function and communities
would fail. Barton and Hamilton explain how it is essential that people are able to adapt and
change discourses so that they can communicate with different institutions, whether they are
formal or informal. Literacy has been a developed skill throughout history and continues to be
according to Barton and Hamilton. You can see this through cultural literacy practices and
domains fighting for power over one another. Literacy is an essential way to use reading and
writing within different cultures and the social structures; the uses are embedded within domains,
how literacy is learned within a culture, and how text changes through interpretation.
Domains and discourses play a huge role within social and institutional settings. They
define groups and communities by the characteristics in how they use literacy. A domain is
where a certain discourse is used within a certain institution or social setting. These domains
often change depending on whether you are in an informal or formal setting, or depending on the
culture. Practices of literacy within domains change because of the media or symbolic system
(Barton and Hamilton 10). This means the way a culture or institution perceive discourses varies
from the way other cultures do. This is because of the way communities communicate and how
they interpret the written language. Some of these domains are more influential than others
because of the institution that it comes from. For example, an educational discourse is much

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more influential because it comes from a larger institution that is known and used by many
cultures. These large influential institutions determine a lot of what people can learn and what
they can have access too.
In Barton and Hamiltons essay literacy is learned through exposure and the domains in
which they are taught and demonstrated in. For example a student learns how to use literacy,
within their household and the institution that they attended. Domains are not accidental or
randomly varyingthere are particular configuration of literacy practices and there are regular
ways in which people act.(Barton and Hamilton 11).The ways in which literacy events are
presented to people are not random, they are set ways to teach literacy to people. Practices are
called activities, they are embedded into society and literacy practices that change throughout
informal and formal domains.
Literacy can be both written and verbal, but continuously changes in text from personal
to institutional. Texts that from work fields or media are more studied than those of personal
texts. This is because field texts are more useful; because they are encompassing what people
do with texts and what these activities mean to them (Barton and Hamilton 9). Work texts are
more studied because this is what individuals are trying to achieve. We learn that literacy is
meant to fit into the practices of peoples lives, rather than the other way round (Barton and
Hamilton 9). These literacies have more than one role in a persons life or community, and these
roles are seen throughout history as they influences mankind.
Literacy practices are found within the social aspect of a human life. The use of literacy
helps improve social discourses and other domains of life. This is a way that we are able to
communicate with different backgrounds. These practices are cultures ways of utilizing written
language (Barton and Hamilton 7), they cannot be analyzed in terms of behavior since they

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also involve values, attitude, feelings and social relationships (Barton and Hamilton 7). Literacy
is looked at in the way that an individual uses spoken or written language to communicate with
other people of different domains.
History has been a way to analyze events that are about social and institutional
discourses. Events are when we come to a literacy situation that involves history, for example the
evolution of how literacy is used. We once thought that literacy was mostly a written language,
but as we look back in history we see that literacy is mainly a spoken practice. Stories, legends,
different historical events were passed down by word of mouth. If we are able to identify
different literacy practices, we can see that there are many different literacy aspects to cultural
life (Barton and Hamilton 10). Through this we realize that literacy practices are as fluid,
dynamic and changing as the lives and societies of which they are a part (Barton and Hamilton
13).
Through history we see constant change, whether it is in the growth of cultures, or the
meaning behind a written text. We use literacy to gain social power over one another, claiming to
be a part of higher discourses and domains. The only way to better ourselves is to teach each
other literacy so that we can better as a whole. Literacy is our key to success. We can learn from
literacy history what we can do to help shape the future and to make a better future.

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Work Citied
Barton, David, Hamilton, Mary. Literacy Practices. Local Literacies: Reading and Writing in
one Community. Ed. David Barton, Mary Hamilton. 2001. 6-15. Print