The ‘Uses of Literacy’ revisited: everyday language and literacy practices as
talisman in communities
Richard Steadman-Jones (Co-I), Kate Pahl, (PI) Jane Hopson (Co-I), David Hyatt
(Co-I)
Researchers; Hugh Escott, Julia Bishop
Community team: Steve Pool, Marcus Hurcombe, Cath Ratcliffe
Rationale and context
You should describe clearly the rationale, approach and context of the activities. How
will the review build on, and add value to, the existing research base? How will it
advance knowledge, understanding and/or knowledge exchange in the area? How will
it identify emerging areas of research innovation or potential gaps in current
research? Why are you the right person / people to conduct this review? What
potential does it have to inform future research under the Programme on
communities?
Rationale and context
This project aims to engage with Hoggart’s Uses of Literacy within the context of
modern society and in relation to the Rawmarsh community, in order to reassess
its relevance in modern society. The project team would bring together a diverse
body of literature to re-interrogate ‘traditional’ representations of language and
literacy practices in working class communities with a particular focus on
narratives and use of dialect.. Everyday language, especially ‘sayings’ as a bridge
between home experiences and the outside world was something Hoggart
documented in The Uses of Literacy . Williams in The Long Revolution (1961)
talked about culture as ‘ordinary’. Willis (2000) in The Ethnographic Imagination
highlighted the need to locate arts based culture in everyday working class
spaces. Charlesworth (2000) likewise celebrated the ordinary working class
experiences of people in Rotherham and, using phenomenological approaches,
documented ways in which language was both a site of resilience and resistance
in these communities.
However, all these studies were written in very different contexts. Economic
contexts have shifted dramatically since then. In addition, literacy practices have
also shifted dramatically in new digital contexts. Therefore, there is an urgent
need to re-interrogate texts such as those by Hoggart, Williams, Willis and
Charlesworth to consider the nature of narratives, language and representation
in working-class communities today.
We would like to highlight everyday language and literacy as a source of
resilience in communities, as a talisman of identity. Drawing on the work of
Finnegan (2002, 2007) we start from the premise that orality and literacy are
overlapping categories, and barriers that separate the two need re-considering
both in relation to the literature and in relation to contemporary community
based studies of literacy. We also draw on Finnegan’s (1998) work on everyday
narratives as a source of understanding of contemporary cultures and spaces.
We have also conducted a number of ethnographic studies and created a
network within a particular site, Rawmarsh, which itself holds knowledge and
ideas about the nature of narrative, the nature of text and the uses of literacy and
language in social spaces such as parks, homes and streets.
We also argue for a re-thinking of the category labeled ‘writing’ to argue for
wider and more materiality situated accounts of writing practices (Ingold 2007).
We see writing as artifactual and linked to the ‘stuff ‘ of the home (Miller 2010).
We also acknowledge the multimodal nature of contemporary communication
(Kress 1997, 2003, 2010) as well as the artifactual nature of contemporary
literacies (Pahl and Rowsell 2010).
We argue that an approach that sees language as talisman acknowledges the
lived reality of people who use language as a way of entextualising experience
(Kell 2006) but also goes beyond language to the artefactual nature of literacy
(Pahl and Rowsell 2010). The idea of a power beyond textual meaning – the
linguistic talisman may have a variety of functions analogous with the ‘magical’
properties of ‘real’ talismans: it may be apotropaic, warding off danger; it may
provide consolation, resilience, or a connection with the past. At any rate, these
are functions that will probably be connected with the meaning of the text but
are somehow in excess of it – not just a second layer of meaning but a kind of
power arising from the combination of materiality and meaning.
We aim to make this study both a contemporary and an historical account of
working class language and literacy practices in Rawmarsh. Our additional,
historical focus will be on the texts of the works of authors from the South
Yorkshire region who represent dialect within their works. These texts may or
may not be of cultural significance to the people in the geographical areas and
industrial communities out of which they originally came. For example much of
the work of the author Roger Dataller (aka Arthur Eaglestone) was written in or
around the Rawmarsh area. These works will form the historical part of this
community’s identity.
Marcus’ thoughts…..
Background of the team
Three of the team (Pool, Pahl and Steadman-Jones) recently finished a study of
Writing in the Home and in the Street (AHRC Connected Communities). This
project considered the nature of everyday texts that are found in urban space
and highlighted the processes of the ‘voicing’ of everyday writing or in the
connections between the materiality of the text and the meaning of the language
inscribed in it. We became interested in the materialities of literacy and its uses
in home and community contexts. We noticed that writing could inscribe
messages that encoded belonging but were also often offensive.
Pahl has also explored the use of multimodal forms of meaning making in public
parks in her AHRC Connected Communities project SPARKS, in which she has
documented everyday meaning making practices including bike stunts, the
practice of talking in bandstands and the use of dens and trees in parks to
inscribe meaning. Previously, in her project ‘Artefacts of Identity and Narratives
of Migration’ (AHRC Diasporas Migration and Identities project) she explored the
way in which objects in homes stood for or encoded narratives of migration
spanning generations and continents.
Hodson’s primary field is literary linguistics - that is using ideas from linguistics
to explore the language of literary (and non-literary) texts. She is interested in
the ideological nature of style and the changing uses of dialect in fiction and a
key argument here is that is the rise of prescriptivism makes possible a much
richer use of literary dialect because it is only then that audiences become finely
attuned to the social meanings of language variation.
Hyatt has…(details)
Escott has… , is currently in the process of creating an archive, which already has
a reasonable number of texts within it, of the works of authors from the South
Yorkshire region who represent dialect within their works
Julia Bishop has (Opie project) Archiving and language of playground
As a project team we bring together a diverse background in linguistics (Escott,
Hyatt, Hopson) as well as literary theory and history of ideas (Steadman-Jones)
as well as social anthropology, multimodality, the ethnography of
communication, linguistic ethnography and New Literacy Studies (Pahl, Bishop).
We are interested in the construction of identities in youth groupings in public
parks (Pahl through SPARKS project) through tattoos and street tags
(Steadman-Jones through Writing in the Street) as well as the materiality of
literacy and language practices as inscriptions into trees, and the artefactual
quality of language as an identity marker in communities.
We also bring in additional partners, Steve Pool, artist, and involved in the
Writing in the Home and in the Street, as the arts practitioner involved with
Richard Steadman-Jones and Marcus Hurcombe, Youth worker, Rawmarsh,
Rotherham together with Cath Ratcliffe, formerly of the Family Recovery team,
Rawmarsh, long time resident of Rawmarsh and able to link with a number of
key contacts within family recovery work in Rawmarsh .
Aims and objectives
You should describe the aims and objectives of the activities. What do you hope to
have achieved from the Review and, if applicable, any other proposed activities?
Aims
This study focuses on one community, Rawmarsh in Rotherham and aims to
create an arts-based project with the youth service in Rawmarsh, in relation to
language and literacy practices in community contexts, and then, drawing on
theoretical constructs coming from this scoping study, investigates the topic with
a review of the literature outlined below in order to draw together a historical
and situated understanding of the uses of literacy and language in contemporary
working class communities, with a historically located dimension embedded
within the study.
Objectives
1) To bring together narrative theory, the ethnography of communication,
linguistic ethnography, applied linguistics, accommodation theory, literary
theory, studies of dialect, historical studies of writing, New Literacy Studies,
folklore studies, social anthropology, material cultural studies and relational
aesthetics with the remit of re-visiting the uses of literacy in contemporary
working class communities, focusing on linguistic resilience and language as
talisman. We particularly aim to draw together literature on the processes of
identity construction through the use of non-standard language varieties. The
project team will investigate communicative accommodation theory and
language as a way of belonging, and investigate ways in which these are integral
to constructions of linguistic identity.
2) To study the writing of working class writers such as Aurhtur Eaglestone from
Rawmarsh, in relation to understandings of dialect and accent as a form of
community belonging. This study can also be linked to a revisiting of Haggart’s
Usesof Literacy (1957) as well as Charlesworth’s Phenomenology of Working
Class experience (2000)
3) A study of the literature on the relationship between oral, written and
multimodal texts within communities. This will involve a study of the
undocumented and stigmatised literacies such as txt spelling, vernacular
orthography and children’s transitional ‘creative spelling’. Non-standard
orthography and respelling can be used to index for a multitude of complex
identities and is used frequently in digital technologies for the purposes of
identity creation.
4) To work with the community partners to re-frame conceptualisations of
everyday language and literacy practices in communities in ways that both
provide an academic body of knowledge but also useable knowledge for
communities to draw on in further work In youth and family contexts.
5) Arts Practice: To make a film or piece of art that reflects these dynamic shifts,
together with a group of young people in Rawmarsh, the youth service, Steve
Pool, artist and Cath Ratcliffe, from Family Recovery.
Contribution to the Connected Communities programme
How will the activities contribute to, and add value to, the Connected Communities
Programme? How communities are being theorised /conceived for the purposes of the
proposed research? How will it contribute to our understandings of communities? How
will the research relate to the core themes of the Connected Communities
Programme? What insights or perspectives might the review contribute that could be
of interest to other researchers under the Programme (and/or to other stakeholders
or communities where appropriate)?
We have identified that this research review will address the theme of Representation,
narratives and language of communities. It will add value to existing Connected
Communities projects (Writing in the Home and in the Street and the SPARKS project)
but developing a deep and synoptic literature review that will reflect contemporary
concerns about language as marker of identity in communities traditionally identified
as ‘working class’. It will look specifically, in the community part of the study, at
forms of meaning making practices that are particularly illustrative of community
resilience and will with community members, compile an inventory of the traces of
these practices (Pahl 2006). This inventory of traces can be used to inform the
planning of family resilience activities and youth work engagement activities. Cath
Ratcliffe and Marcus Hurcombe have a long history of preventing serious family and
youth breakdown in such communities and their expertise will be invaluable in
constructing a community-led lens for the project. Steve Pool has a recent experience
of conducting a similar project in Parson Cross, Sheffield, called ‘made for you’ which
offered bespoke art to shop keepers in Parson Cross and his work also informed the
Writing in the Street project. This project will be similarly ‘bespoke’ seeking to provide
a set of theories and useable knowledge framed and constructed by community
members. For example, Pahl’s ethnographic fieldwork in Rawmarsh has looked t the
role of inscriptions in tree, bike stunts and chats in bandstands as sources of
community resilience and examples of language as talisman.
Our work will inform other Connected Communities projects on the Construction of
community by Graham Crowe, and Angie Hart’s work on using a communities of
practice model to create engagement Jenny Pearce’s work on power in communities.
We will also engage in the literature on digital technologies to connect communities.
Description of activities
Please describe the planned activities, outlining the proposed approach or methods
and the rationale for selecting them.
What is the timetable for the work, including
key milestones?
Management and Co-ordination
How will the activities be managed, coordinated and delivered? If the application
includes additional review assistance or administrative support, please outline the
activities and responsibilities for each post.
Outcomes
Alongside the Review what are the other expected outcomes and outputs of the
activities? To which audiences will the activities and their outcomes be of interest?
How will any outputs be discussed with, and/or communicated and disseminated to,
those audiences? Other than publishing the reviews in the on-line Connected
Communities discussion papers, what other potential publications and outputs could
there be?