The paradox of text in the culture of literacy

This paper invites a reconsideration of the divide between oral and literate cultural practices in the research on literacy. It begins by challenging the distinction which David Olson has made between text andutterance as one which overstates the separateness of literate and oral practices. To supplement Olson's position, the author describes the continuing importance of oral practices for the promotion of intellectual activities which are centred on texts. He does so, in part, by drawing on the literacy lessons of the Passover Haggadah. The Haggadah proves to be a text which celebrates the intellectual necessity of interruption and the ongoing need for interpretation, two critical practices firmly rooted in an oral regard for the word. This picture of an alternative literacy tradition is put forward as a possibility for a renewed regard for reading and for the text in the classroom.