16.7 2nd and 3rd years Dr. Joanna Tapper (from ESL and Communication). Normally at least 12.5 points of Linguistics or English at first-year level. Second semester Two lectures and a tutorial a week.

• Objectives: Students who complete this subject should be able to:-
• demonstrate familiarity with the central issues informing English language literacy;
• demonstrate familiarity with the basic concepts of reading theory and rhetorical and stylistic analysis of written text.

The subject will begin with an introduction to the history and development of alphabetic literacy, and the spread of literacy through education and schooling. This will be followed by an investigation of the differences between speech and writing, the relationship between literacy and oracy in the modern world, and the impact of the media and new technologies. Sociological aspects of literacy will be discussed, including literacy and social background and ethnographic studies of literacy. The spread of English and its status as a world language will be considered, including English as an international language and English as a second/foreign language. The second half of the subject will look at the nature of the reading process, reading as interaction, schema theory, reader response theory, deconstruction and the behaviour of readers. Writing, rhetoric and stylistics will also be discussed. Six pieces of homework and one essay, totalling not more than 5,000 words.