In the article Literacy in Three Metaphors, the author Silvia Scribner talks about literacy and what it is. Scribner says that there is no solid definition to the word literacy and she tries to show how literacy can be defined in different ways. I personally liked her section about the case study on the people of the Vai village in Africa. The village of the Vai people created their own type of literacy for there community. The language has not been taught in schools but passed down trough generations of families. They are taught English in school and many also learn Arabic cause many people in the area are Muslim. The Vai language serves the people many purposes for the community like keeping records, general economic transactions, and it helps that the national government doesn't know it.
This makes me think literacy is largely based on the community or culture like the Vai have there own language. I come from the Washington D.C. area and its a very diverse community. There are many different ethnicities and its often that you here many different languages walking down the street. I think this produces a lot of slang and combinations of languages. I have even picked up on a lot of spanish and a little german and dutch from some of my different friends. I've also come to use some slang that many of my friends use. When I came down to charlotte it doesn't seem as diverse with literacy as my home. There is barely any slang and i haven't heard many other people speaking other languages than english. This leads me to believe that we can't really have a national or international type of literacy because literacy thrives in the community and is where it is most commonly used. DC, Charlotte and the people of Vai all have different types of literacy. I think its best that literacy is undefined because we bring our literacy with us and experience new literacy where ever we go.
