Effects of Dominant Discourse of Literacy Education on Shaping Subject
Lee, Jae-Ki
Korea Institute for Curriculum and Evaluation
Korean Language Education Research Vol. 21 pp.43-94 (2004)
Abstract
Literacy education is not limited to obtaining the objective knowledge and confirming the self identity, but it should enforce maturity of subjectivity. Literacy education may make a subject to mature or to regression, but it has more chance to make a subject to mature. Till now literacy education has not developed such chance because of its epistemology-one is objectivism the other subjectivism. This essay has three main questions: First, what is the relation between literacy education and subject forming? Second, what epistemology does the dominant discourse of literacy education have and how it unfolded historically? Third, What is the effect of the dominant discourse of literacy education on shaping subject? To sum up, the objectivism in literacy education has developed self-satisfactory logics for keeping the autonomy and purity of objective reality. It has focused on the objective knowledge and skills and it has continually objectified the subject. In the objectivist literary education, subject may be entirely interested in obtaining objective knowledge or skills appropriately and correctly. The effect of the objectivism in literacy education is cultivating the subject faithfully reproducing established dominant discourse. The subjectivism in literacy education supports the autonomy, purity and identity of subject. In the subjective literacy education, the creativity in writing and personal response in reading are encouraged. The effect of the subjectivism in literacy education is adhering the subject to 'psychological ego' not 'social agency'. In conclusion, the objectivism in literacy education has over-socialized the subject and deprive the subject of subjectivity as a consequence. Likewise, the subjectivism in literacy education has reduced the subject to mere psychological ego and deprive the subject of vitality as a consequence. Literacy education from now on needs to critically destruct the objectivist and subjectivist discourses and reconstruct the discourse familiar with the maturity of subjectivity.
Keywords
LiteracyLiteracy educationModernityObjectivismSubjectivismObjective rhetoricSubjective rhetoricDominant discourseCognitive theorySubject
