Brinkley 1983

Brinkley 1983

Reference
	Brinkley, Messick. 1983. "Legal documents and the concept of 'restricted literacy' in a traditional society: Literacy and ethnicity." International Journal of the Sociology of Language. Interest level: academic.

Summary
	Restricted literacy refers to "alphabet-using literate cultures in which literacy is 'restricted by factors other than the technique of writing itself' "(Goody 1968a). Factors include a cultural limitation of literacy to uses with
	magic and religion a concentrating of literacy in an elite group, and "the guarding of the skills and knowledge pertaining to literacy as the secrets of the literate few."
	Case material is from pre-1962 Yemen. Concludes with questions about Goody's theory of "restricted literacy." Believes an "ethnology of literacies" (Hymes and Woods-Elliott) will become appropriate when a critical mass of case studies is in hand, and the first steps can be made toward identifying regularities or patterns.

Context for this page:

Bibliography module: Brinkley 1983
In overview module: Bibliography (Literacy): B
In modular book: Bibliography (Literacy), by Doris Gallemore, Trudi C. Hunt, Jeanne Swanson, and Stephen L. Walter
In document collection: Reference materials
In bookshelf: Literacy

This page is an extract from the LinguaLinks Library, Version 4.0, published on CD-ROM by SIL International, 1999. [Ordering information.]

Page content last modified: 18 May 1999

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