Playful Uses of Literacy Among Urban Adolescents

Abstract

One of the least studied domains of literacy is its artistic and playful use in everyday life. In this folkloric domain, oral and written forms co-exist as part of a larger system of communication. Although literacy studies have been decidedly inter-disciplinary, combining cross-cultural cognitive psychology, education, history, classic literature, and ethnography, only the ethnography of communication approach enlarges the scope from a study of reading and writing to include studies of the relationship between oral and written forms. A few folklorists have investigated some areas where writing crossed the path of traditional verbal arts (Rosenberg in Folklore Studies in Honor of Herbert Halpert, 1980; Dundes and Pagter, Work Hard and You Shall Be Rewarded, 1979; and Stahl in Folklore Studies Reprint Series, No 3, 1974), but folklorists have not entered the debates on the consequences of literacy, and Albert Lord's (The Singer of Tales, n.d.) important discoveries concerning epic transmission remain the only discussion of verbal arts in literacy scholarship.