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29

Second Language Literacy

and Biliteracy

Terrence G. WileyArizona State University

INTRODUCTION AND OVERVIEW

Embarking on any discussion of literacy with those who are literate is problematic,

not only because the topic can become technical but also because literacy is so ever-

present and familiar.Probing the subject in any depth reveals that it isoften laden with

tacit assumptions that impact theory, policy, and practice. Second language literacy

and biliteracy studies are potentially even thornier because all the assumptions anddebates within literacy studies broadly remain despite any attempt to narrow the

focus. Thus, it is necessary to foreground some of the major issues and ideological

tensions in the broader field of literacy studies that necessarily intrude on the study

of second language literacy and biliteracy.

BACKGROUND

Nomenclature

Critically reflecting on nomenclature used in discussions related to literacy is impor-

tant, particularly in the United Stateswhere there is often considerable confusion in

popular discourse regarding the extent of literacy and illiteracy among language mi-

norities. In recent years, there has been increasing sensitivity concerning the need to

use non-stigmatizing nomenclature when referring to language minorities. Forsome,

the expression "language minority" itselfmay seem negatively ascriptive. Neverthe-

less, the expression will be used in this chapter, referring to those who speak lan-

guages other than English or so-called "nonstandard" varieties of English as their

initial household or community language(s). They may be considered "minorities"

either in a strict numerical sense and/ or in the sociopolitical sense of being mem-

bers of "non-dominant" language groups. "Language minority" is preferred herein

because it provides a basis for appealing to legal rights and protections that other

529

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530 WILEY

more euphemistically motivated labels lack (seeSkutnabb-Kangas, 2000;Wiley,1996,

particularly chap. 6;and Wiley,2001,2002b).

Nomenclature is also important because it reveals implicit assumptions and biases

that are not without social consequences. Nonliteracy merely notes the absence of lit-

eracy without specifying any expectations, but illiteracy implies a failure to become

literate and educated amidst societal expectations to do so. Preliteracy assumes the in-

evitability of literacy. Thus, when a person is called illiterate it implies a social failing,

often a personal failing. If a group is called preliterate, the assumption is that they

are somewhere on a developmental path toward the inevitable. Historical and an-

thropological discussions relating to the rise of literacy in human societies have oftentreated literacy as a technological advance resulting in a qualitative cognitive divide

separating the literate from the nonliterates. Gee (1986)concluded this alleged divide

represents "a new, more subtle version of the savage-versus-civilized dichotomy ....

[nonliteratesJ were sometimes said to be 'mystical and prelogical' incapable of ab-

stract thought, irrational, childlike, ... and inferior" (pp. 720-721; text in brackets

added).

The Importance and Functions of Second Language

Literacy and Biliteracy

Biliteracy is common around the world. It is promoted in the European Economic

Union. India has two national official languages-Hindi and English-along with

15 iegionallanguages that coexist with them. Switzerland has four official national

languages: German, French, and Italian have federal status, along with Romansh,

which has local status. Canada is officially bilingual and uses French and English as

languages of literacy. In the United Kingdom, Wales has a dual language policy that

now promotes biliteracy inWelsh along with English (Baker&Jones, 2000).Language

minorities are well positioned to become biliterate if they can develop literacy and

have access to quality education in the majority or dominant language (Wiley,2002a).

Unfortunately, all too often this is not the case.

Second language literacy and biliteracy may be approached from individual, com-

munity, societal, and cross-national perspectives. Individuals become biliterate for

many reasons. Literacy in more than one language has both pragmatic and status sig-

nificance. Second language literacy/biliteracy is vital for language minorities to have

access to employment and to access the social, political, and economic life of the pre-

vailing society as well as in their local communities (Spener, 1994).Those migrating

from one country to another seeking better economic or educational opportunities, orfleeinghardships or discrimination intheir countries oforigin, may need toacquire lit-

eracy in a second language (Skutnabb-Kangas, 2000).Given the importance of literacy

and educational achievement in the contemporary world for economic access, social

participation, and political participation, understanding both the distribution of liter-

acy and access to equitable educational programs are particularly important because

many language minorities do not have immediate access to literacy and schooling in

their own languages.

Biliteracyserves many social and personal uses around the world and in the United

States. It has pragmatic functions in facilitating international travel and trade. At the

community level in the United States, for example, native language newspapers assist

immigrants and other language minorities by providing a means by which they can

use their stronger language of literacy while they acquire English literacy. They can

alsokeep abreast of local news and news from their country of origin not dealt with in

English language newspapers. In this regard, recent alternative language newspapers

function similarly to those of the past. In 1910, for example, there were 540 German

language newspapers in the United States (Wiley, 1998). Presently, Spanish, Chi-

nese, and Vietnamese newspapers, to name a few, serve similar functions in biliterate

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29. SECONDLANGUAGELITERACYANDBILlTERACY 531

communities. Many around the world also acquire biliteracy to sustain their religious

identities. Sacred texts may exist in classical languages or languages not commonlyused for other purposes: Muslims study classical Arabic to read the Koran , orthodoxJews learn Hebrew to read the Torah (Baker & Jones, 2000).There has always been an elitist tendency to treat literacy as social capital and

the same has been true for biliteracy. Historically, biliteracy was an expectation forthe literati, who were not even considered fully literate unless they could read Latinor Greek, even if they could read and write their vernacular language (Wiley, 1996).

French became the prestige language of literacy and "reason" during the European

Enlightenment, and many, including American revolutionary leaders, were biliteratein English and French. English second language literacy has assumed a similar world-wide prestige today. Native English speakers who are biliterate are commonly held inadmiration in the United States if they acquire competence and literacy in languagesother than English. In contrast, language minorities who achieve functional literacyin English are generally not similarly admired by English-speaking monolinguals for

their biliterate abilities (Wiley, 2002a). The distribution of literacy within a society isoften taken to be a barometer of societal well-being and, between nations, is seen as asign of national strength and competitiveness.

Common Misperceptions about Literacy and Language Diversity

A number of misperceptions underlie the popular understandings about literacy andlanguage diversity in the United States. These misperceptions are based on what vari-ous scholars have identified as the dominant monolingual English language ideology(cf.Kloss, 1971;Krashen 1997, 1999;Macias, 1985; Ovando &McLaren, 2000;Schmidt,2000; Wiley, 1999,2000). Some of the most common misperceptions are: (a) illiteracy

in the United States is primarily attributable to the presence of languages other thanEnglish; (b) social and regional varieties, or "dialects," of English are "illiterate" andweaken the purity of "standard" English; (c) lack of English oral facility indicates a

lack of English literacy; and (d) bilingual education has failed because it keeps lan-guage minorities from learning English and becoming highly literate. Although thesemisperceptions have no authority among applied linguists, they are widely believedand often influence policymaking. Some examples of works that help to refute themare Baugh (1999), Crawford (2000),Hakuta (1986), Krashen (1997, 1999), Lippi-Green,(1997);Tse (2001), Wiley (1996);Wiley & Lukes (1996).

DEFINING LITERACY AND BILITERACY

There is no universally accepted definition of literacy. In fact, in recent years it hasbecome common for many scholars to challenge the singular construct of literacy with"literacies / multiliteracies," even though our spellcheckers have not been programmed

to accept the pluralization. Defining literacy is also complicated because notions of

literacy are not static. Expectations regarding literacy skills inflate over time, givingthe false impression that literacy standards and performance of recent generations arefalling (Berliner & Biddle, 1995; Bracey, 1997; Resnick & Resnick, 1977).The following basic distinctions are important in constructing a typology of literacy:

nati ve lan guage literacy, se cond dial ect literacy, se cond language literacy, and biliteracy /multi literac y (d.Macias, 1990). It is also worth noting that typologies of second lan-guage literacy are generally framed with implicit reference to a standard oral lan-guage of literacy. Given that one may be deaf from birth and acquire literacy in aprint language, to extend the notion of language beyond oral languages is important.

Similarly, since the blind may acquire literacy in Braille, the notion of print needs tobe extended beyond visual systems.

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·532 WILEY

Traditional Definitions l

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Ever since the rise of mass education, there has been widespread concern regarding

the extent of literacy, the effectiveness of literacy instruction, and low performance.

Contemporaneous with the rise of social efficiency and technologist orientations in

education, there has been alarm over underachievement and "laggards" in the schools

(seeKliebard, 1996) aswell as very legitimate concerns about disproportionate school

failure and underachievement among some language minority groups. Any attempt to

assess the distribution ofliteracy in society,performance in schools, or the knowledge

and skills necessary to function in a literate society involves either implicit or explicitnotions of what it means to be literate. In this context, examination of some of the

more common definitions is helpful, with the qualification that additional definitions

are plentiful (seeWiley, 1996 for elaboration).Min im a l lite ra cy refers to the ability to read or write something, at some level, in

some contextis). In the past, even the ability towrite one's own name or read a simple

passage out loud were taken as an adequate display of literacy (Resnick & Resnick,1977). During World War 1, language minority immigrants trying to enter the United

States were required to show that they had minimal literacy abilities by reading short

passages from the Bible in their native language (seeWiley, 1996, chap. 4). Even this

simple test, which was sensitive to language background, was not without bias given

the diversity of religious orientations of the immigrants.

Conven ti ona l l it eracy refers to the ability to use print by reading, writing, and com-

prehending "texts on familiar subjects and to understand" print within one's envi-

ronment (Hunter &Harman, 1979, p. 7). This definition begs the question somewhat

because there are no consensus definitions of reading and writing. Consider that

"familiar" texts could include a wide range of reading levels (from a skills-based

point of view) and a wide variety of materials (from a social practices perspective).

Language minorities asked to demonstrate their conventional literacy rarely are as-

sessed on texts in their native language.

Basic literacy presumes a foundational level of skills from which continued literacy

development is sustained through individual effort (Macias, 1990; Venezky,Wagner,

& Ciliberti, 1990). Mikulecky (1990) has warned, "there is little evidence that basic

literacy in itself wields a magical transforming power for learning" (p. 26).

Functional literacy refers to the ability to use print in order to achieve individ-

ual goals as well as the print-related obligations of employment, citizenship, daily

problem solving, and participation in the community. It includes the notion of con-

ventionalliteracy while locating it in economic and social contexts. Functional lit-eracy has dominated popular and policy discussions about literacy, but the notion

has been criticized for imposing a middle-class bias in notions of functional com-

petence (see Hunter & Harman, 1979). Given these criticisms, Kirsch and Junge-

blut (1986) devised three broad domains of literacy a sse ssm ent-prose, docum ent,

and quantitative- subsequently used in the National Adult Literacy Survey (see the

following discussion).

El it e l it e racy evokes the notion of literacy as a "possession" of knowledge and skills

acquired in school and legitimized by the academic credentials one "holds," which

constitute a sociocultural capital for str ate gic p ow er (Erickson, 1984). Elite literacy

is sanctioned and accredited by official endorsement and certified with diplomas

fromuniversities, which function as surrogates for mastery and high levels of attain-

ment in culturally approved knowledge, expressed in standard language and institu-

tionally approved genres. Elite education may include literary instruction in foreign

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29. SECONDLANGUAGELITERACYANDBILITERACY 533

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languages, usually with a focus on "high" culture and "great" literature rather than

on functional or vernacular literacy. "Cultural literacy," the creation of E. D. Hirsch(1987; see also Hirsch, Kett, & Trefil, 1988) may be seen as an attempt to define a

mono cultural elite version of literacy as the basis for mass acquisition.

An alog ica ll iteracies pertain to knowledge and skills related to particular types of con-

tent, knowledge, technologies, and methodologies. They extend traditional notions of

literacy with other technologies and specialized areas of knowledge. There has been

much ado about computer literacy, numeracy, historical literacy, and graphicacy (used

by geographers; Graff, 1994). Macias (1990) has cautioned that the analogicalliteracies

can become "secondary aspects of literacy study, not parts of the definition of literacy"

(p. 19), thus confusing or confounding the definition of literacy with the analogical or

secondary aspects of literacy. Kress (2003) focuses on the relationship between literacy

and various new technological modalities of literacy in the new media age.

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Ethnographically Informed Definitions of Literacy

Restr icted literacy refers to "participation in script activities" that remain "restricted to

a minority of self-selected" people (Scribner & Cole, 1981, p. 238). It differs from func-

tiona I literacy because "those who do not know it can get along quite well" without

it (p. 238) and because it fails to "fulfill the expectations of those social scientists who

consider literacy a prime mover in social change" (p. 239). Restricted literacies are

usually learned informally for specific purposes within a self-contained community

rather than in school or wider societal contexts.

Similarly, ve rn acular liiera cies pertain to "unofficial" or "local" practices rather than

to conventional or academic standards wherein the defining group may be in oppo-

sition to academic or institutionally sanctioned genres or channels of communica-

tion. They may be designed to challenge formal rules of what can be written. Shu-

man (1993) contends that vernacular literacies are intended to confront privileged

channels and genres of communication. Vernacular literacies intentionally use "oral"

styles in writing and also include so-called nonstandard and nonacademic varieties of

language.

Situated literacies (Barton, Hamilton, & Ivanic, 2000) reorient the focus of attention

to the role of literacy in social practices, wherein literacies are "the link between the

activities of reading and writing and the social structures in which they are embedded

and which they shape" (p. 7). As Gee (2000) notes, "there are as many literacies as there

are ways in which written language is recruited within specific social practices to allow

people to enact and recognize specific social identities ... and specifically situated

social activities .... That's why the New Literacy Studies often uses the literacy in the

plural, literacies" (p. iii). Multi liter ac ies (Cope & Kalantzis, 2000) provide a similar

way of referring to situated literacies. The notion is likewise derived from the social

practices perspective and ideological orientation (discussed next) identified by Street

(1984,1993,1995,1999). Barton et al. (2000) note that a fundamental unit of socialtheory

is li tera cy practices, which is simply "what people do with literacy" (p. 7). FollowingStreet (1993), they contend "practices are not observable units of behavior since they

also involve values, attitudes, feelings, and social relationships" (p. 7).

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SCHOLARLY ORIENTATIONS TOWARD LITERACY

AND BILITERACY

The study of literacy, second language literacy, and biliteracy are interdisciplinary,

drawing from linguistics (particularly applied linguistics), education, sociology,

psychology, history, and anthropology (d. Baynham, 1995, p. 21). Nevertheless, there

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534 WILEY

are some common areas of emphasis and difference across, and sometimes within,

these disciplines. In an effort to analyze how different scholars approach literacy, Street

(1984,1993,1995,1999) identifies two broad approaches or "models": autonomous and

ideological.

[First] if you want to know how reading and writing work, don't look at them directly

and in and ofthemselves. Rather, look directly at specific socialpractices inwhich specific

ways of writing and reading are embedded. Furthermore, look at how specific ways of

reading and writing, within these social practices are always integrally connected to

specific ways of using oral language .... (p. iii)

[Second.I literacy is not first and foremost a mental possession of individuals. Rather, it

is first and foremost a social relationship among people, their ways with words, deeds,

and things, and institutions. Literacy is primarily and fundamentally out in the social,

historical, cultural, and political world. It is only secondarily a set of cognitive skills,

which subserve literacies as social acts in quite diverse ways in different contexts (p. iv).

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The Autonomous Orientation

The autonomous orientation focuses on formal mental properties of decoding and

encoding text, and comprehending vocabulary without any in-depth analyses of how

these processes are used within sociocultural contexts. The achievement of the learnerin obtaining literacy is characterized in terms of how it correlates with individual psy-

chological development. Cognitive consequences are considered to result from the

ability to master print and characteristics associated with particular types of texts,

often in the essayist tradition (Street, 1984). Even if the social practices in which

they are used are alluded to, there is little attention to their sociocultural and in-

stitutional embeddedness. Major proponents of this orientation are Goody and Watt

(1988), Havelock (1963, 1988), Olson (1977, 1984, 1988), and Ong (1982, 1988, 1992).

In subsequent work, Goody (1988, 1999), Ong (1992), and Olson (1994, 1999), have

moderated their earlier positions somewhat (see Street's, 1999, commentary).

Social Practices and Ideological Orientations

The social practices view of literacy has its origins in a variety of sources. Scribner

and Cole (1978, 1981) went in search of cognitive effects of literacy and schooling and

ended up endorsing a strong social practices view of literacy. Heath's (1983) Ways

w ith W ord s provided a significant example of an in-depth, ethnographic analysis of

three communities' oral and literate practices. Street (1984) helped to demonstrate

commonalities in his work and that of others focusing on social practices. Gee (1986)

and Cook-Gumperz (1986) complemented this general direction. Other noteworthy

works followed (e.g., Baynham, 1995; Street, 1993). In the early and mid-1990s, a

consensus was forming around the social practices view and what was more broadly

being referred to as the New L ite ra cy S tu die s (Willinsky, 1990). According to Gee (2001),

there are two major claims of this orientation:

D

Gee's second point identifies where the social practices orientation differs with the

autonomous view, which is largely one of emphasis and directionality. The issue is

not that social practices scholars are disinterested in cognitive development, but that

they maintain language and literacy skills or proficiencies are better understood and

analyzed in social context, rather than as independent, autonomous skills, whether

they are in or ou t of school (e.g., Hull & Schultz, 2002; Kalmar, 2001; Scribner, 1981;

and Taylor, 1997).

Heath's (1983, 1988) and Street's (1984) work in particular has strong implica-

tions for studies of second language literacy and biliteracy, even though they are not

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29. SECONDLANGUA.GELITERACYANDBILlTERl\CY 535

directly focused on them. Heath's study includes a focus on speech and literate activ-

ities in "literacy events" among three speech communities that had different "ways

with words," and most significantly different practices of language and literacy so-

cialization, which are not always understood or appreciated by schools. Street's (1984)

study includes a focus on rural literacy practices in Iran. Both studies emphasize how

literacy practices are socially embedded and constructed across various language

communities. Taylor (1997) and Weinstein-Shr (1993), to name only a few, have pro-

vided useful studies of immigrant language minority communities consistent with

the social practices perspective.

The ideological orientation emphasizes that literacy practices "are aspects not only

of 'culture' but also of power structures" (Street, 1993, P: 7). Similarly, Levine (1982)

saw these literacy practices as being embedded in historical contexts and as includ-

ing activities in which an individual both wishes to engage and may be compelled

to engage (p. 264). Other works that are relevant to this perspective are Auerbach

(1989, 1992a, 1992b), Delgado-Gaitan and Trueba (1991), Edelsky (1996), Freire and

Macedo (1987), Lankshear (1997), Luke (1988), Stuckey (1991), and Walsh (1991). The

viewpoints of these writers are hardly uniform, but generally illustrate the embed-

dedness of literacy in social practices; institutions; sociocultural, economic, and po-

litical practices; and ideologies "that guide the processes of communicative produc-

tion; the outcomes of utterances and texts produced in these practices" (Grillo, 1989,

p.15).

Again, from the ideological orientation, literacy practices are viewed as neither a

neutral nor autonomous process, nor as mere individual achievements. Rather, they

are seen as being shaped by the dominant social, economic, and political institutions in

which they are socially, culturally, and politically embedded. Given that some groups

succeed in school whereas others fail, the ideological approach seeks to interrogate

the way in which literacy development is undertaken by scrutinizing implicit biases

and the hidden curriculum in schools that can privilege some groups to the exclu-

sion of others. From this perspective, differential literacy outcomes across groups

generally, and for language minorities specifically, represent structural, systematic, orinstitutional bias (Wiley 1996; d. Haas, 1992). Thus, from an ideological orientation,

it is important to explore how differences in literacy and educational achievement

function across groups, including language minority groups.

Deschooling Literacy

One is the relationship between literacy and schooling. In a landmark study, Scribner

and Cole (1978, 1981, 1988) attempted to unravel the purported cognitive effects of

literacy per se, from those specific to school practices by studying a West African

people-the Vai of Liberia-who acquired literacy without going to school. Scribner

and Cole sought "a practice account of literacy" (1981, p. 235). Heath's (1980, 1983,

1986, 1988) work overlapped in timeframe with Scribner and Cole's study. One of

her contributions was to avoid dichotomizing literacy and orality by studying their

interaction in social contexts. Heath helped to des chool the notion of literacy by focusingon literacy junctions in broader community and social contexts such as daily business,

social, and news-related functions, as well as memory supportive and record-keeping

functions. This provided an alternative to oral communication through notes, and

authoritative functions used to confirm, validate, or support beliefs by appealing to the

authority of texts, both religious and secular. Deschooling the notion of literacy allows

us to move beyond confounding literacy with school-based notions and practices, and

may even enrich classroom literacy practices (Cook-Gumperz & Keller-Cohen, 1993;Hull, 1997; Hull & Schultz, 2000; Street 1993, 1995, especially chap. 5;Weinstein-Shr,

1993).

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ASSESSING AND MEASURING SOCIETAL

LITERACY AND BILITERACY

Many among the speakers of the world's estimated 5,000 or so spoken languages may

achieve literacy in a second language rather than in the language(s) of the households

into which they are born. Similarly, to become literate, many must acquire literacy

in a standardized variety of language that diverges from their own social or regional

variety. In the United States, this challenge is faced by speakers of Appalachian En-

glish, Ebonies or African American vernacular English, and Hawaiian English Creole,among others. These second "dialect" issues in literacy acquisition are also of major

importance when studying literacy among language minorities and other second lan-

guage learners, such as international students studying English as a foreign language

and native speakers of English studying foreign languages. Second language literacy

research must deal with all three populations, if it is to inform educational practice

and policy in any meaningful way (d. Verhoeven, 1994).

Unfortunately, much of what constitutes second language acquisition research is

drawn from populations or samples of convenience, that is, from populations that the

researchers can easily access. Thus, findings are often very population- and context-

specific, but may be reported as if they are broadly applicable beyond the target group.

For university second language learners, studies generally assume literacy in a first

language, but often fail to probe it, as the focus of the research is the second lan-

guage. The notion of second language itself often presumes literacy wherein reading

and writing are two of four traditional skills (e.g., Kaplan, 2002, part 2). Yet, whendealing with adult education populations, first language literacy or extensive train-

ing in school-based literacy skills or practices cannot be assumed. Among language

minority immigrant children and adults in the United States who have migrated from

Mexico or Central or South America; though labeled as native Spanish speakers, they

may in fact be native speakers of indigenous languages. In Mexico alone, 53 minority

languages of instruction are recognized in addition to Spanish. Thus, when children

or adults from these language backgrounds immigrate to the United States, English

literacy may not even represent a second language of literacy, but rather a third, and

they mayor may not have only had access to prior literacy training in Spanish as a

second language.

The current educational standards movement and the widespread enthrallment

with accountability measures are not new, but they are nuanced by new twists of par-

ticular relevance for language minority students attempting to acquire English literacy

at school. The 20th century began with a pervasive fascination with efficiency and stan-

dardized testing. The goal then was to predict the "probable destinies" of children and

to relegate them to differing educational tracks (Kliebard, 1996). Widespread testing

of children and adults was insensitive to the fact that many of those tested lacked suf-

ficient proficiency in English to be tested. When adult language minority immigrants

were tested by the military, testing was only conducted in English. The results of such

assessments were often used to "prove" that minorities were inferior (see Gould, 1981;

Weinberg, 1995; Wiley, 1996).

Today, as in the past, particularly where there have been efforts to restrict opportu-

nities for language minority students to develop bilingualism and biliteracy, such as

in Arizona and California, the drive for accountability and one-size-fits-all standards

has resulted in many language minority children being assessed on standardized tests

in English before they have developed sufficient proficiency in English. Today, un-

like the past, the push to test incipient learners of English is rationalized as ensuring

that quality education will be maintained for all. The efficacy and appropriateness of

testing language minority children with commercial standardized tests has become a

major area of controversy (Quezada, Wiley, & Ramirez, 2002; Wright, 2002).

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29. SECONDLANGUAGE LITERACY AND BILiTERACY 537

y

y

al

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,

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One of the dangers of making between-group comparisons among language minor-

ity groups or between them and the general population as a whole is that differential

performances tend to be reported in the popular media much like basketball scores

with some groups always being the winners and other the losers. Socioeconomic con-

ditions and opportunities, differential power relations, and discriminatory practices

must be considered when differential results are interpreted to avoid reinforcing stig-

matized notions prevalent in society. Literacy measurement can have a constructive

role if it is used to determine the kinds of literacy necessary for equitable participation

in society as well those desired by individuals within their own communities.

Approaches to National and Large Data Set Literacy Assessments

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as

ds

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a

There have been three types of literacy assessment measures: (a) dire ct measures or

tests; (b) educat ional equival encie s or su rrogate measures, which use a certain number of

years of schooling as an indicator of literacy; and (c) se lf-reported measures. There are

drawbacks to all three approaches, but, if used cautiously these data provide a gauge

for evaluating needs and designing programs that provide opportunities for access

and equity. Unfortunately, what typically has been and still is missing in nearly all

large data sets and national surveys is a concentration on literacy in languages other

than English. This lapse reinforces the common perception that English literacy is the

only language of literacy worth measuring or assessing (see Wiley, 1996, chap. 4).

Amajor criticism of direct measures is that they represent inauthentic assessments

of an individual's actual ability to function in the real world (Erickson, 1984). Specif-

ically, they are tests of "explicitness" (Gee, 1986, p. 732), that is, the ability to make

things precise or obvious. Such tests are those of the type that we find in schools.

The critical issue from the standpoint of assessing literacy outside of school contexts

is that just because one performs well on school-based exams does not mean he or

she can function in real-world contexts. Competency-based tests of functional lit-

eracy are all exposed to concerns about ecological validity because they often lackan ethnographic grounding and because the standards and skills selected are im-

posed. In addition to these concerns, the issue of test bias is particularly troublesome

for language minorities, including speakers of so-called nonstandard varieties. The

test itself as a literacy event possesses a particular problem considering that "while

procedures for taking standardized tests are presumably the same everywhere, test

takers may respond quite differently to those procedures" (Wolfram &Christian, 1980,

p. 180). More important, however, speakers of stigmatized social and regional varieties

of language can become acutely aware of the imposition of standards that by design

subordinate the language of their homes and communities, because they may have

had their language varieties corrected by teachers or have been mocked or ridiculed.

Thus, in a formal examination they may "perceive a test on language abilities as an in-

strument designed to measure them according to someone else's standards, not their

own" (Wolfram & Christian, 1980, p. 181).

Educat iona l equivalencies or surrogat e measures of literacy provide an easy, econom-ical way of assessing literacy, but concerns persist that grade-level equivalencies are

arbitrary, there is no assurance that literacy in school is retained (Hunter & Harman,

1979), and no guarantee that the quality of instruction from one school to the next is

equivalent (Wiley, 1996).

Self-reported data remain the easiest and least expensive way to assess national

literacy, or the literacy of large, selected groups, or members of a specific language

background group. The U.S. Census has collected national literacy data since 1850

(Venezky, Kaestle, & Sum, 1987). However, self-reported data is not as reliable as

direct measures because individuals can report an inflated or deflated assessment of

their abilities. On the positive side, however, there is evidence indicating a strong

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538 WILEY

correlation between self-reported census data and direct measures of the English

Proficiency Survey (McArthur, 1993).

Conceptual Issues Related to National Assessment

The recent approach in U.S. national assessments of literacy has been to conceptualize

literacy in three domains (Greenberg et al., 2001):

• P ro se l it er ac y- th e knowledge and skills needed to understand and use information

from texts, including editorials, news stories, poems, and fiction.• Do cume nt lite ra cy -th e knowledge and skills required to locate and use informa-

tion contained in materials, including job applications, payroll forms, transporta-

tion schedules, maps, tables, and graphs.

• Quantitative literacy-the knowledge and skills required to apply arithmetic opera-

tions, either alone or sequentially, using numbers embedded in printed materials

(p.B).

This schema has advantages over prior efforts to measure functional literacy, al-

though the basic approach retains a conceptualization of literacy as individual knowl-

edge and skills. Conceptualizing literacy within these three domains breaks with the

older practice of dichotomizing literacy/illiteracy. Nevertheless, a number of issues

remain:

Are all tasks involving documents distinct from those involving quantitative tasks? Forexample, tax forms would seem to involve both document-related skills and quantitativeskills. Are skills that are identified as being specific to one domain (e.g., prose skills) allconfined to that domain? How well do simulated tasks represent real-world tasks? Howmany ofthe skills assessed have been learned but forgotten due to lack ofneed or practice?Do these thresholds become functionally equivalent to the former dichotomization ofliteracy /illiteracy? In other words, have we merely exchanged the long-term concernabout illiteracy for one over low levels of literacy? What happens when these literacydomains are superimposed on a multilingual population? Furthermore, does the notionof continuum hold up across languages or only within them? If literacy is embeddedwithin social practices, is there a continuum that reflects these various social practices?(Wiley, 1996, pp. 76-77, see chap. 4 for elaboration.)

Limitations of National Measures of Literacy forLanguage Minority Students

Most national and large data set surveys of literacy primarily assess only English

literacy. Macias (1994) identified four types of limitations that are particularly note-

worthy when attempting to assess literacy among language minorities. These are: (a)

ignoring literacy in languages other than English; (b) overemphasizing English oral

language proficiency; (c) sampling biases; and (d) ambiguity in linguistic, ethnic, and

racial identification. For the past three decades, the United States has experienced

its second highest period of foreign immigration and has one of the largest Spanish-

speaking populations in the world. By failing to survey literacy in Spanish and other

languages, literacy is by default equated with English literacy, and the literacy picture

of the United States remains both incomplete and distorted. By failing to assess other

languages of literacy, results inflate the perception of a "literacy crisis" (Graff, 1994),

which stigmatizes those only literate in other languages and underinforms educa-

tional policymaking by failing to distinguish nonliterates from those who are literate(Wiley, 1996).

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29. SECONDLANGUAGELITEFV\CYANDBILITERACY 539

Findings from National Adult Literacy Survey

The 1992 National Adult Literacy Survey (NALS) was touted as providing the most

current comprehensive data on English literacy in the United States. Mandated by

Congress, the ALS survey built on the conceptual model developed for the Young

Adult Literacy Survey (YALS) that conceptualizes literacy along a continuum within

three domains (prose, document, and quantitative literacy). Each of these domains

used items that simulated real-world literacy tasks and seeks to determine five levels of

literacy (Wiley, 1996). NALS was more sensitive to issues of ethnic diversity than most

prior studies and included self-reported demographic questions related to language

diversity, which were later used for a biliteracy analysis. The NALS also provided

English and Spanish versions of the background questionnaire (Macias, 1994, p. 33).

The preface to the report (Kirsch et al., 1993) noted a demographic increase of

those who speak languages other than English. However, the NALS only assessed

English literacy through direct assessment. The initial findings of the NALS made

for sensational headlines in the nation's leading newspapers and magazines. Amongsome of the more far-fetched claims reported were that an astonishing 90 millionpeople were allegedly literacy deficient. A careful reading of the initial report should

have lent itself to a less reckless interpretation. Kirsch et al. (1993) note that, "The

approximately 90 million adults who performed in Levels 1 and 2 did not necessarily

perceive themselves as being "at risk." ... It is therefore possible that their skills, while

limited, allow them to meet some or most of their personal and occupational literacy

needs" (p. xv), Although it makes for smaller headlines and probably sells fewer

newspapers, more recent reports have now become newsworthy by correcting the

original claims. Now only 5% of those surveyed are considered not literate on the

basis of not having answered any questions (see Mathews, 2001). Other problems have

related to the five-level scale for each of the three domains. This scale is supposed to

increase in difficulty. Ideally, as an implicational scale, Levell tasks should be easier

than Level 2 tasks. However, some items do not appear to have scaled as predicted

(see also Berliner, 1996).

Of more relevance to the issue of biliteracy is the self-reported data. Additional

analyses of the NALS have recently been completed in which special attention has

been given to language minorities based on self-reported information such that it is

possible to construct a biliteracy variable. Participants in the NALS also completed

a background survey in English or Spanish. Those who spoke a language other than

English before beginning their formal schooling completed a self-reported survey re-

garding their fluency and literacy in their native language. Unfortunately, by limiting

the survey only to this group, native English speakers who later became biliteratewere not included (Greenberg et a1., 2001). Findings indicated:

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Bilingual and biliterate individuals tended to have received a substantial level of formaleducation in their native country before immigrating to the United States, ... The age

of arrival in the United States was the primary predictor of which language throughthe formal education they received in the United States. Those who arrived later in life,without the benefit of a substantial amount of education received in the native country,were the least likely to develop English literacy skills .... Social policy efforts to addressthese concerns face the challenge that many in need of ESLand basic skills training havehad little or no formal education in any language. (pp. 89-90)

Based on Greenberg et a1.'s (2001) analysis of the NALS self-reported data for lan-

guage minorities only, approximately 70% of that group reported being biliterate at the

time of the survey. When correlated with race, the biliteracy rate among Whites was

only 3%, and only 2% for African Americans. Biliteracy rates were much higher for

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540 WILEY

Hispanics, with 35% being biliterate, 33% literate only in English, and 27% literate only

in Spanish. Biliteracy was highest among Asians and Pacific Islanders, of whom nearly

half (47%) were biliterate. Higher biliteracy rates among Hispanics and Asians were

to be expected, as recent immigration rates have been higher for these groups. Based

on NALS data, biliterates tended to have higher levels of education than mono liter-

ates. Among biliterates, 48% acquired some postsecondary education, compared to

only 43% for those literate only in English. Most bilinguals and biliterates do not have

balanced abilities in two or more languages, given that their language and literacy ex-

periences and contexts for learning are rarely parallel across languages (Valdes, 2001).

Despite the many limitations of NALS data, the findings are important because

in the United States most national literacy estimations focus solely on English. Their

failure to acknowledge literacy among those who are literate in languages other than

English inflates the magnitude of a perceived "literacy crisis" (Wiley, 1996). However,

even as such data are useful in informing national educational policies, findings need

to be weighed against ethnographic studies that probe the functions and meanings of

literacy in social contexts. A number of ethnographic studies of learners of English as

a second language (e.g., Klassen & Burnaby, 1993; Weinstein-Shr, 1993) indicate that

many immigrants can function successfully within their daily lives without compe-

tencies in English literacy. Thus, they need not be stigmatized as being cognitively

deficient. Similar studies (e.g., Cushman, 1998; Taylor & Dorsey-Gaines, 1988) indi-

cate that marginalized families living in poverty often have more literacy skills than

they are usually given credit for and are not necessarily liberated from their poverty

by their literacy. They are blocked from economic mobility because they lack formal

schooling.

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PROMOTING BILITERACY

In recent decades, bilingual education policy in the United States has allowed tran-

sitional bilingual education. Contrary to popular perceptions, the United States has

never endorsed the kind of maintenance programs that would ensure that language

minority students could attain biliteracy. Federal policies have not been the most ef-

fective in promoting biliteracy, although they have eased the pain of transition for

those language minority students who have been allowed to participate in transi-

tional bilingual programs. Bilingual policies have also been targeted by English-only

activists who have restricted transitional bilingual education in several states (e.g.,

California, Arizona, and Massachusetts).There are other models that are more effective than transitional bilingual pro-

grams. For example, there are immersion programs for monolingual English-speaking

students. Although there are different configurations, immersion programs typically

begin with instruction in the target foreign language and gradually introduce literacy

in the dominant language. For language minority students, maintenance programs are

more effective than transitional programs in promoting the retention of the native

language while developing English literacy (Baker & Jones, 2000). Dual immersion, or

two-way bilingual programs, have proven successful when English-speaking language

majority and language minority children are brought together in the same program

(Christian, Howard, &Loeb, 2000). However, in these programs special consideration

needs to be given to language minority students, because some evidence suggests that

these programs advantage English speakers more than language minority students

(Valdes, 1997).

A pressing issue is the need to preserve threatened languages because the majority

of the world's estimated 5,000-6,000 languages are endangered (Skutnabb-Kangas,

2000). Literacy can have a role in helping to preserve and promote these languages,

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29. SECOND LANGUAGE LITERACY AND BILITERACY

assuming that their speakers want to have their languages written down, which is

occasionally not the case, if literacy is seen as antithetical to the ecology of languagein the community (see Hinton &Hale, 2001).

Foreign language education provides another path by which biliteracy can be at-

tained. Unfortunately, in the United States, opportunities for foreign language instruc-

tion are far less favorable than they are in many other countries. Instruction is usually

delayed until middle school or high school, and program goals do not always include

the goal ofbiliteracy. Consequently, many who study foreign languages fail to acquire

more than a very rudimentary knowledge of them (Ovando &Wiley, 2003).

One positive trend in the United States since 1999, is that there has been national

attention accorded to developing students' heritage languages (see Peyton, Ranard, &

McGinnis, 2001). Although not all are pleased with the her it age language (HL) label (see

Wiley, 2001), HL learners have been defined as those who grow up in a home where a

language(s) other than English is used. They may either have a passive understanding

of the language or be partially bilingual in the language and participate in a variety

of program types (see Wiley & Valdes, 2001). Many universities have recently beenmoving to make HL literacy the primary goal of their programs. Spanish, Chinese

(Mandarin), Japanese, Korean, Russian, and Khmer (Cambodian) are just a few of

the languages now being offered for HL learners. Asian languages are also currently

taught in Asian American immigrant communities.

Promoting heritage language literacies offers a promising opportunity for increas-

ing the number of biliterate individuals in the United States, but the major challenge

remains working to change popular misconceptions and attitudes toward multilin-

gualism and biliteracy.

f

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