Discourse and literacy

Discourse (capital D) and discourse (lowercase d)

The transcript contrasts two senses of language use: grammar (language form) and the social action surrounding language (use). It emphasizes that “Discourses” (capital D) are not just sets of rules but ways of being in the world that integrate language with actions, values, beliefs, and identities. In short, we say the right thing in the right way to perform a social role and to signal appropriate attitudes, beliefs, and values. The authors distinguish Discourses from mere discourse (lowercase d), noting that a Discourse is a broader social practice that includes, but goes beyond, language use.
There is an editor’s note about this distinction: "Discourse" with a capital 'D' marks a shift from Gee's earlier usage. See the essay "What Is Literacy?" in this volume, illustrating that the term is being used with nuanced meaning here.

A Discourse is described as an "identity kit" that comes with the appropriate costume and instructions on how to act, talk, and often write, so as to take on a recognized social role (e.g., being American or Russian, a man or a woman, a factory worker or a boardroom executive, a doctor or a patient, a student of physics or literature, etc.). We all have many Discourses.
Acquisition occurs not primarily through overt instruction but through enculturation, or apprenticeship, into social practices via scaffolded and supported interaction with those who have already mastered the Discourse. This is how native languages and home Discourses are learned, and how later Discourses are acquired. You cannot overtly teach someone a Discourse in a classroom in the same way you can teach a body of knowledge; you can only guide practice within a master–apprentice relationship.
Discourses are dynamic and often inconsistent with each other; tensions and conflicts can arise between different Discourses within a person, especially when they involve values, beliefs, and social identities. This can affect fluency and access to social goods in different situations.

Primary Discourse: The initial, home-based Discourse formed through early socialization in family and peer groups. It constitutes our home-based sense of identity and persists in intimate, casual interactions. It provides a foundation for later Discourses.
Secondary Discourses: Discourses learned in non-home social institutions (schools, churches, businesses, agencies, etc.). These Discourses are learned to the extent that one has access to the social practices and apprenticeships within these institutions.
Dominant Discourses: Secondary Discourses that, when mastered, confer social goods (money, prestige, status, etc.).
Nondominant Discourses: Secondary Discourses that may provide solidarity within a network but do not typically yield broader social goods.

Discourses are acquired through enculturation and apprenticeship in social practices, often via scaffolded interactions with those who have already mastered the Discourse. This is akin to how one acquires native language and home-based Discourses.
Discourses are not inventories of knowledge; they are ways of talking, acting, valuing, and identifying with a social world. You cannot simply teach someone to be a linguist or to adopt a Discourse by instruction alone; you must provide opportunities to practice within the Discourse.
Discourses can be in tension with one another, and dominant groups may impose tests of fluency to gate access to social goods. These tests function both as vaccinations of natives (native-like fluency) and as gates to exclude non-natives who do not master the dominant Discourse.

Discourses can interfere with one another like languages; features of one Discourse can transfer to another. For example, the primary Discourse of middle-class homes has been shaped by secondary Discourses used in schools and business, while in some lower socio-economic black homes the primary Discourse has influenced the secondary Discourse used in black churches.
When a person has not mastered a necessary secondary Discourse, they may fall back on their primary Discourse, adjust it, use another related secondary Discourse, or rely on a simplified/stereotyped version of the required Discourse. These dynamics resemble processes studied under language contact, pidginization, and creolization.

Literacy is defined as the mastery of or fluent control over a secondary Discourse. Therefore, literacy is inherently plural: literacies (there are many secondary Discourses). A pedantic narrowing to literacy as “mastery of secondary Discourses involving print” is seen as unhelpful; literacy in modern society largely concerns multiple Discourses and their use, not just print.
There are dominant literacies and nondominant literacies, depending on whether the associated Discourse yields social goods or solidarity within a network.
A liberating (or powerful) literacy is one that can function as a meta-language, offering a set of meta-words, meta-values, and meta-beliefs that enable critique of other literacies and the way they constitute us in society. Liberating literacies can reconstitute and resituate us.
The concept challenges decontextualized, print-centric views of literacy by tying literacy to social practice and the ability to critique the power structures embedded in Discourses.

Theorem 1 (binary fluency): Discourses are not like languages in one crucial respect: you cannot be partially fluent. You are either fully in a Discourse or you’re not. A fluent Discourse participation requires full identity performance, not merely partial competence. If you fossilize in a Discourse before achieving full fluency (and you’re no longer in apprenticeship), your lack of fluency marks you as a non-member and possibly as a pretender. This implies there is no workable affirmative action for Discourses: social groups typically grant their goods only to those who are native or fluent users.
- Practical consequence: notions like functional literacy or competency-based literacy are incoherent within this framework; the dichotomy is between fluent speakers and apprentices.
Theorem 2 (liberation requires more than a primary Discourse): Primary Discourses, regardless of their origins, cannot be liberating literacies. A literacy must contain both the Discourse it critiques and a meta-language to analyze and critique other Discourses. Therefore, liberation (in the sense of power) requires acquiring at least one more Discourse that can serve as a meta-language for examining one’s own primary Discourse.
- Note: Primary Discourses may contain critical attitudes but cannot articulate those criticisms in