The dialectic tension between the phenomenon of illiteracy and the remedial efforts of the literate to ‘provide’ a voice for those who don’t have one, reflects at the same time the difficulties that the emerging discourses have to struggle with, and highlights the importance of this struggle as one that belongs to the opressed, not the well-meaning educators and political activists. It also informs the latter’s efforts on behalf of the uneducated. Naturally these issues have attracted a good deal of attention of some specialists in South America. There is now a movement afoot there that aims at placing ‘illiterate discourse’ inside the societal discourse proper without letting the latter manipulate the former for its own ends. I will address the typical exigencies and limitations inherent in such efforts, but at the same time point to new ways of understanding and handling the problem of literacy in a developing country.
Literacy; Intercultural communication in mother tongue; Pragmatics