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Daniel J. O'Keefe Palmer School of Library and Information Science, Long Island University, New York, USA
Cultural literacy in a global information society - specific language: an exploratory ontological analysis utilizing comparative taxonomy
Abstract: Cultural literacy is defined as the social role of information within, between and across cultures. The term cultural literacy is both oral and chirographic, maintaining cultural identity within a discourse community. A discourse community must have a common vocabulary. One measure of an evolving discourse community is the gradual development of a common vocabulary. Taxonomy, the knowledge organization tool that can be used to demonstrate relationships among terms in a common vocahulary, is an appropriate approach at this time in the discourse community of cultural literacy. Ordering the taxonomy into an ontology can demonstrate another measure of uniformity or order (or lack of it) in the discourse community. The methodology involves discovering key documents that definc the discourse community. The research reported in this paper has three objectives: (I) to create a taxonomy using two documents written by noted authors within the field of cultural literacy; (2) to determine whether common vocabulary contains matching words or terms; and if possible, (3) to classify these terms. The importance of this exploratory study is two-fold. First, examination of the taxonomy crcated by two noted authors in the field might establish a measure of unifonnity within the discourse community. Second, the results will determine whether further research is warranted.
1. Introduction Cultural literacy is defined as the social role of information within, between and across cultures (O'Keefe, 2002). The term cultural literacy is both oral and chirographic maintaining cultural identity within a discourse community. A discourse community must have a common vocabulary. One measure of an evolving discourse community is the gradual development of a common vocabulary. Taxonomy, the knowledge organization tool that can be used to demonstrate relationships among terms in a common vocabulary, is an appropriate approach at this time in the discourse community of cultural literacy. Ordering a taxonomy into ontology can demonstrate another measure of uniformity or order (or lack of it) in the discourse community. Taxonomies, according to Lee (2002, 16 0), embrace relationships among both physical and intellectual components of bibliographic entities. The knowledge that taxonomies reduce the complexity of relationships is evidence that a discourse community must have a common vocabulary. The research reported in this paper has three objectives: (1) to create a taxonomy using two documents written by noted authors within the field of cultural literacy. The intention is to have this taxonomy produce a gradual development of a common vocabulary for an evolving discourse community; (2) to determine whether this common vocabulary contains matching words or terms; and (3) to begin to classify these tenns. The importance of this exploratory study is two-fold. First, examination of the taxonomy may establish a measure of uniformity within the discourse community. Second, the results will determine whether further research is warranted.
Advances in Knowledge Organization, Vo1.9 (2004), p.55-59 56
2. Cu lt ural literacy: E.D. Hirsch and Walter Ong Toward the end of the 1970s and the beginning of the 1980s the term "Cultural Literacy" became synonymolls with two authors in particular, E.D. Hirsch and Walter 1. Ong. Cng's book, titled Orality and Literacy, Tile Teclmologizing of the Word, first published in 1982, and Hirsch's book, Cultural Literacy: What Every American Needs to Know, first published in 1987, were and are, to this day, perhaps the two most influential works in the field of cultural literacy. It was for this reason that Hirsch and Ong were chosen for this study. E. D. Hirsch's ideas were set forth in the early 70s. Hirsch first published his ideas in Tile Journal of Basic Writing under "C ulture and Literacy." Hirsch focused sharply on the background knowledge necessary for functional literacy and effective national communication. According to Hirsch (1987), "A merican literacy has been declining at a time when our changed economy requires that our literacy should rise." Walter Ong (1982) addressed the intellectual, literacy and social effects of writing, as well as of print and electronic technology, and traces the heavy oral residue that marks literature and thought until very recent times. Ong also assesses some effects that the new knowledge of orality-literacy contrasts is having, or is destined to have, on literacy criticism and theory, including structuralism and deconstruction, on speech-art theory and reader response theory, on media studies, the social sciences, philosophy and biblical studies, and on our understanding of what it is to be a human being, conscious and other. As previously stated, cultural literacy is defined as the social role of information within, between and across cultures. Cultural literacy, both oral and chirographic, is viewed as the social role that transcends cultures. Oral tradition, classical literacy and technology have the power to maintain cultural identity within diverse societies. Culture' s evolving patterns of human interaction are subject to change. The characterization by Ong (1982, 71-72) according to O' Keefe (2002) that the resulting changes in language and culture are "a shift from the active, participatory world of orality to the linear, static world of print" reflects the natural progression from orality, the spoken word, to literacy, a method of recording information. Hirsch (1982) describes the importance of inform
3. Methodology In this exploratory study, terms and phrases were selected from both documents written by Walter 1. Dog and E.D. Hirsch. The construction of this taxonomy is presented in sequence: I began by extracting words and small groupings of words that seemed to relate to the authors' context. One thousand words were extracted from each document. Words were extracted from documents manually. Microsoft Excel was used to list all the terms alphabetically. The two lists were colour-coded and sorted according to author (Table I.). After examination of the terms for spelling, duplicates and general acceptance into the taxonomy, a combined list of 1,750 terms existed.
Oug Hirsch ability Ability abstract abstract skills abstract categorization Absurdity abstract classification accepted literacy abstract thought Account abstraction Acculturation abstract-manual style Acculturation academic practice Acculturative academically educated acculturative responsibility accommodation Accuracy accretion Accuracy achievement accurate memory acoustic surrogates accurate recall acquaintanceship accurately remembered action Achieve actual habitat active participant actuality Addition additive structure Adjustment address adult-level administration advanced technology administrative advanced vocabulary knowledge aggregative tendencies Age Alphabet Age Alphabet Allusions Alphabet Alphabetical alphabetic literacy Altogether alphabetic writing American education Altogether Americans anachronistic Analogous
Table 1. Sorted and colour-coded taxonomy (sample)
Once colour-coded, sorted, and combined, a search for the matching terms ensued. This consisted of visually checking the alphabetically sorted, colour-coded, combined lists of terms. Identical terms were removed. Ninety-nine matched terms were discovered to exist out of the combined lists. 58
The classification process was the next phase. The terms were cut out from printed sheets and placed on a flat table for sorting and alTanging into a tree. After a close examination of the terms, the determination was made that four broad terms existed: classification; communication; history; and human being. Narrow-terms were placed under the broad terms and placed into the classification trees. Related terms were selected and placed under their respective narrow terms. The cultural literacy Classification Tree was constructed. The cultural literacy tree provided the information needed to build the Classification Flowchart. The Classification Flowchart was colour-coded and reorganized to form the Cultural Literacy Classification. A database of the combined terms was created for future study (Table 2.).
Ability dictionary meaning specific Altogether effectiveness meanings spoken language Analogy establish memorization standard Artificial experiments memory students Association factors mind study Audience function normal subjects Author grammar normative technology Clarity group observation television Classification history oral dialect tenus Clauses human beings orally text common ground imagine ordinary sense think Communication indicate paper thinking Compose information performance thought Concept insight person trad ition Concepts instrument position understand Conscious introduction read usage Consciousness knowledge readers variations Context language reasoning verbal communication Contrasts languages relate version Conversation learn represent vocabulary Creation listen school word Culture literacy science words Data literate culture sense writing Detail literate person society written language Dialect literature speakers
Table 2. Taxonomy database of matching terms from Hirsch and Oug
4. Discussion and conclusion Preliminary analysis revealed commonality of terms within the discipline of cultural literacy. Examination of sorted terms indicates a match of ninety-nine terms out of a combined list of one thousand seven hundred and fifty. Calculations indicate an eight percent match in terms. An eight percent match in terms would indicate further study. The Cultural Literacy Flowchart provided a working platform from which to begin the classification process. Moving the terms around manually on a flat surface provided a visual perspective that might not have been realized if electronic software was used. Broad, narrow and related terms were selected during this process. The list of broad tenns included: classification; conversation; history; and human being. The broad tenns appeared to be evenly distributive between the two documents. The broad tefm, "communication," for instance, would contain more narrow terms from Hirsch's document than Ong's. On the other hand, the broad terms under "human being" contained more related tefms under Ong's document. Related terms were chosen to reside under their respective nafrow tenns. These relationships 59 will be analysed in future studies. It is sufficient to say for now that a relationship does exist between the two documents based on commonality of terms, This is especially important since the books were written five years apart. For a language to have commonality from two sources in the same year would not be surprising; however, a five-year spread might point to the evolution of a discourse community. A future study might include continuation of this taxonomy. Another study might consist of examining the speed and accuracy of taxonomy software compared to the manual process used in this study. Authors' documents relating to the field of cultural literacy would be selected from following years. By continuing the classification process, other questions might be answered.
Acknowledgment I am grateful to Dr. Richard Smiraglia for advice and assistance with this research.
References Hirsch, Jr. B.D. (1987). Cultllral literacy: what evelY American needs to know. New York: Vintage Books. Lee, H.-L. & Carlyle, A. (2002). Academic library gateways to online information: a taxonomy of organizational structures. In: Challenges in knowledge represe1lfation and organization for the 21"1 centllly: integration of knowledge across boundaries: Proceedillgs of the Seventh IntematiollallSKO Conference, Granada, Spain, 10-13 July 2002. Wiirzburg: Ergon. Pp.l58-l64. Ong, W.l. (1982). Orality alld literacy: the tecJmoiogizing oj the word. London: Methuen. O'Keefe, DJ. (2002). Cultural literacy: evolution in the social role of information. Unpublished manuscript.