Cultural Literacy. What is it? How can one specify it? Is it cognizing the replies to inquiries such as: who are Joseph Stalin and Frederick Douglass? Who fought in WWI? What was the Louisiana purchase? What is the 2nd commandment? Name an amendment to the fundamental law? Try this on for size. who is the host of Entire Request Live on MTV? Who is J. Lo engaged to? Cultural literacy is cognition of what one should cognize in order to be a functional member of an educated society.
It includes an apprehension of one’s linguistic communication. grammar. pronunciations. sentence structure in address. and the basic hearing. reading and composing accomplishments along with the cognition of mathematics and history. Many argue whether cultural literacy is possible or non. whether it can truly exist. The whole construct of cultural literacy is an of import 1. Particularly to America. America. being the great thaw pot that it is demands to hold this for everybody. We are invariably having new people into our state and as they come. our civilizations “rub off” on each other. they begin to entwine with another.
By understanding these different groups we understand their civilizations and we become more culturally literate ( to the other individuals civilization ) and our civilizations really mix. America is great because of this. The construct of cultural literacy is an of import one to understand in order to do America a better topographic point to populate for everybody. To reply the inquiry of whether or non it is possible for cultural literacy to be. we need to interrupt it down. We have to cognize what it means and who it applies to.
We besides need to understand how it works. The plants of E. D. Hirsch. Jr. . “Cultural Literacy ( extract ) . ” and Jay Chaskes. “The Freshman Student as Immigrant. ” expose the definition of what cultural literacy is and how this definition varies as it comes across assorted civilizations. groups. members and persons in a society. Cultural literacy is possessing the information needed to be able to construe a statement the manner it was meant to be interpreted by an writer or talker.
Many things are unfastened to different readings. though. Hirsch agrees. “ ? we can non handle reading and authorship as empty accomplishments. independent of specific cognition. The reading accomplishment of a individual may change greatly from undertaking to undertaking. The degree of literacy exhibited in each undertaking depends on the relevant background information that individual possesses ( 217 ) . ” Peoples who give this information are tryingto base on balls along a message. Equally long as one can have that message right in most instances. they are considered culturally literate.
We can safely presume that everyone is at a different degree of cultural literacy since everyone knows a different sum and has experienced a different sum. A good writer or talker is able to pass on his or her message to these people with different sums of cognition and experience and have the same viewing audiences receive the fundamentally same message. One may be considered “culturally literate” someplace. so culturally illiterate elsewhere. You can’t anticipate anyone to cognize all the information needed to construe something right.
But with what they already know. they can organize a right decision. Jay Chaskes. the writer of “The Freshman Student as Immigrant. ” supports this impression: As with all newly-arrived immigrants. pupils must larn assorted accomplishments and get certain cognition bases before the can be recognized as citizens of their adopted state ( i. e. . they must successfully finish their first twelvemonth of college ) . These accomplishments and cognition bases include communicating accomplishments. cultural regulations and outlooks. geographics. acting as a “good citizen. ” and larning the community’s services and construction.
( Chaskes 31 ) When pupils and immigrants foremost arrive they have some sense of cognition and apprehension of where they are and what is around them. Once they begin to accommodate to their new environment and larn new accomplishments to be seen as a member of their community. they become more culturally aware of their milieus. With the cognition they had and with the new information they attained the pupils and immigrants form “correct decisions and premises. ” Peoples have different degrees of cultural literacy based upon experience and common cognition.
For illustration Lashkar-e-Taibas take a closer expression at Chaskes’ subdivision on Professors and Academic Culture: Compared to their high school instructors. college professors may show a more distant and distant demeanour. The pupil discovers that the beat of the professor’s work twenty-four hours may restrict when he or she might be seen. The approachs and departures of the professoriate seem slightly cryptic. ( 32 ) This civilization of new freshman pupils are non used to this. They might be used to a closer relationship with their professors like in their secondary school where they are able to make and run into with their professors at specific hours.
Everything is different now. It is non that the system of their old school was incorrect. it is merely different. But one time they become accustomed. they acculturate to this new college civilization. Because of their old experience. they were on a different degree of cultural literacy. Basically different civilizations are traveling to see things otherwise than another. Neither is incorrect it is merely how one civilization interprets that specific thing. Some people might be more educated in one country and others in another.
Basic cognition may be held by person who have gone through many experiences. and because of their experiences they could understand what another is speaking approximately. A different. good educated individual might non acquire the thought every bit good because it is harder for them to associate. For illustration. in Hirsch’s extract. “Cultural Literacy. ” he exhibits an experiment conducted by Richard C. Anderson and others at the Center for the Study of Reading at the University of Illinois in which they grouped two sets of mated readers.
These persons were all similar in sexual balance. educational background. age. and societal category. However. the lone disagreement was that one group was in India and the other in the U. S. : Both were given the same two letters to read. The texts were similar in overall length. word-frequency distribution. sentence length and complexness. and figure of expressed propositions. Both letters were on the same subject. a nuptials. but one described an Indian nuptials. the other an American nuptials. The reading public presentations of the two? split along national lines.
The Indians performed good in reading about the Indian nuptials but ill in reading about the American 1. and the Americans did the antonym. This experiment non merely reconfirmed the dependance of reading accomplishment on cultural literacy. it besides demonstrated its national character. ( Hirsch 220 ) This is a great illustration by Hirsch that demonstrates what really happens in the existent universe. The fact that the Indian was knowing about the Indian nuptials is non surprising since he likely attended one. So. to the Indian civilization he is likely considered culturally literate.
If the American had antecedently attended an Indian nuptials he would decidedly cognize more about such an event. He would be constructing upon his “Indian cultural literacy” by experience. which doesn’t apply to IQ ( or fact cognition ) . An equal illustration of how this would happen in the existent universe would be an Indian individual who merely immigrated to America. Let’s assume he can talk English already. but he has no old experience in America. If he read about the nuptials of the president he could likely understand the rudimentss. but non the particulars.
The ground for that is because India has nuptialss and so he will understand how two people are joined together. If he had ne’er heard of that he would likely be believing what they mean by fall ining together. But presuming he understands that portion of it. he might non understand that rings are normally what spouses give each other at nuptialss. or that. traditionally. Americans are doing a vow to God when they get married. Although the nuptials has two different significances to two different people of different civilizations. both thoughts are still correct—like person stating toe-may-toe. V.
toe-mah-toe. It is merely how it is interpreted from that individual’s civilization and experiences. Since civilization is the manner certain people live. and everyone lives in different ways. no 1 can hold the same cultural literacy. So even if we all posses the same cognition. our differences in personal experiences set our degrees of cultural literacy apart. One thing can intend something different to two people. but may be right either manner. It is merely how that certain thing is deciphered by every civilization.
Besides. in one topographic point a individual could be considered culturally literate. and in another he or she would be considered culturally illiterate ( even if they were more knowing than most people in their ain civilization ) . If they had clip to accommodate to the new civilization and addition experience in that civilization. so they would go more and more “culturally literate” in that civilization. Works Cited Chaskes. Jay. “The Freshman Student as Immigrant. ” From Inquiry to Argument. McMeniman. Linda. Allyn & A ; Bacon. 1999. Pg. 29 Hirsch Jr. . E. D. “Cultural Literacy ( extract ) . ” From Inquiry to Argument. McMeniman. Linda. Allyn & A ; Bacon. 1999. Pg. 214.
