Insights from Sociolinguistics to Rethink Literacy as a Social Practice

This article aims to bring a theoretical contribution to the paradigm of literacy as a social practice by drawing on insights from sociolinguistics. My aim is to strengthen the literacy paradigm making it increasingly coherent. Specifically, I discuss two concepts from contemporary critical sociolinguistics, namely, language ideologies, understood as a broad category that mediates between language practice and context; and registers, reconceptualized in recent sociolinguistic work as dynamic repertoires constructed through language ideologies and closely linked to the enactment of identities in social practices. On the one hand, these notions help bridge the gap between text and context and encourage recognition of the ongoing instability of semiotic resources, which are sometimes perceived as fixed or even natural. On the other hand, both concepts contribute to a more complex and nuanced understanding of the relationship between texts as objects, the practices in which they are always embedded, and the ideological forces that produce them. The article illustrates this theoretical discussion through a case study of Quechua in teacher education in the Peruvian Andes and concludes by outlining pedagogical implications.