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Chelsea Sather
Nancy Roche
Writing 1010-018
23 October 2014
Locating Literacy
The mischievous role that literacy plays in an individuals life is brilliantly put into light
through Barton and Hamiltons Literacy Practices where each aspect that literacy has in ones
life is eloquently demonstrated. To understand how much of an impact that literacy has on an
individual you must follow the complex ways of how literacy shapes each individuals life; their
domains, social aspect, and literacy events demonstrate this. The domains a person is put into
become a strong factor that shapes their literacy competence and development.
Each individual belongs to a community that uses a domain, which is a social group,
characterized by a written language, this community becomes shaped by the discourse; or in
other words how they use the language in their domain according to Barton and Hamilton. For
example when you are born you are born into a certain domain, your family and home life that
will shape you into a certain discourse, therefore creating the foundation for you to learn other
discourses of literacy and to move forward from. Domains, and the discourse communities
associated with them, are not clear-cut, however: there are questions of the permeability of
boundaries, or leakages and movement between boundaries, and of overlap between domains
(Barton Hamilton 11). This social theory of literacy reads to be completely accurate; each
domain has an influential part in our lives, which thoroughly proves that the discourse that you

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are born into will shape your future within literacy. As demonstrated by Barton and Hamilton
through the use of texts and contexts you can see the specific situations that use literacy, showing
that texts can have multiple roles and can be very broad.
The social aspect of literacy can impact the way in which you improve literacy, use it,
and communicate through literacy. Barton and Hamilton conclude that changes in society are a
direct relation to changes in literacy. With social domains literacy can vary in how it is used and
in how you communicate in different domains. Society can have a huge impact on the way
literacy is used, varying on the situation in which you are using it. Learning is founded by your
exposure to certain domains in which there taught or demonstrated like my example of the
domain youre born into shaping your knowledge of literacy and then advancing into how you
act in society, your discourse would be shaped by the social aspects of society around you.
Barton and Hamilton show that the domain/domains in which you belong to are taught through
exposure, this being how you learn to belong in a domain. Literacy becomes a community
resource, realized in social relationships rather than a property of individuals (Barton Hamilton
13). An important factor to remember is that often in literacy communities it is not just yourself,
but your relations with others that are more important. This aspect of the article shows how
directly the society correlates to the literacy used in domains and also how there can be an
overlap in domains. Many individuals belong to various domains; their domain for work, school,
home, and even socially. These domains are a fundamental part of how one can adapt to new
domains because many domains overlap giving you the knowledge to move from one to another.
Possibly the most important part of literacy is events and practices, these both equally
play a part in everyday life of an individual within their domains. Events and practices are the
foundation of literacy practices. The article states that literacy events are defined by the practices

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in which you are taught through your life and history. Literacy practices are culturally
constructed, and, like all cultural phenomena, they have their roots in the past. To understand
contemporary literacy it is necessary to document the ways in which literacy is historically
situated: literacy practices are as fluid, dynamic, and changing as the lives and societies of which
they are a part (Barton Hamilton 13). Literacy practices are what shape literacy events. A
conversation with a friend can be a literacy event that you practice every single day, this literacy
event also includes the domain/discourse in which you communicate with that friend through
literacy and it shaped by the common literacy practices that you have learned over time. Literacy
events are regular and repeated activities that often shape your daily life. Events are shown to
have a huge impact on ones life and shown to be regular and repetitive through history and
contemporary life.
Literacy plays a role in everyones life, possibly even many different roles. The literacys
in which you acquire all are categorized into domains and often many domains although some
may be more influential than others. Through the aspects of a persons life; domains which you
are born into and adapt to, the social aspect which works by shaping the way literacy is used, and
literacy practices where you are practicing what you preach. Literacy is a constant factor in your
life. The domains then becomes the stage for the events and practice of literacy using the context
and texts to sort out the situation at hand.

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Works Cited
Barton, David. Hamilton, Mary. Local Literacies: Reading and Writing in One Community.
Routledge, 1998. Print.