The Blind and the Paralytic: Supporting argumentation in Everyday and Scientific Issues

Abstract

Traditionally, we define a literate person as somebody who knows how to read, write and calculate. In other words, the literate person is able to handle the signs and symbols used by the society in which she lives. However, this definition is fuzzy. What do we mean by knowing how to read? Do we mean knowing how to decipher the meaning of canonical texts that teachers have themselves constructed or accepted from people who have been invested the authority to give the exact meaning of texts (writers of teaching materials for example)? Indeed, teachers’ written guides often give pedagogical advice how to analyze texts, to extract the main idea: the role of the reader is then to reconstruct a meaning (see Kintsch’s situation model, 1986). Also, when students analyze a text, their objective is generally not more than to comply with the demands of a curriculum, that is (in general) to master skills. However, while literacy definitely involves analytical skills, confining it to a series of skills is far too restricted, and puts aside contextual factors in literacy. As noticed by Olson (1994), in opposition to children’s oral propensity to identify speech acts in conversation, when interpreting written signs they have difficulties to identify their illocutionary force. In other words, children may have difficulties in reading partly because they don’t know for which purpose the texts with which they are presented with were written. The approach to literacy we adopt here conveys the versatility that any literate human must exhibit, to be able to communicate actions through different modes and to negotiate them. This practically means that the literate human should express actions in various modes such as reading or writing, with flexible motives such as clarifying an issue, presenting, demonstrating, defending, or convincing.