Analysis Of James Paul Gee's Reading As Situated Language

In “Reading as Situated Language: A sociocognitive perspective”, James Paul Gee argues the importance of written and verbal language is always needed in school, home and work. Many people do not really realize how much they use this skill in every aspect. Although,“ learning literacy is not English in general, but specific varieties of English that...is call “social languages”(Gee, 714). At a young age, my parents taught me the language they knew and frequently spoke. For me, it was Spanish. I am fluent speaking and writing in Spanish since Spanish is my first language. As of English, I learned it once I started school. It was easy because at a young age “the relevance of the earlier sections to development of literacy in early childhood through …show more content…
In other cases then they talk with their friends they tend to abbreviate or talk slang English. As James Gee said “human language has two primary functions through which it is best studied and analyzed… including social activities and interactions...in cultures and social groups and institutions through creating and enticing others to take certain perspectives on experience”(Gee, 715). An individual does not intentionally switch discourses that is the way they can communicate the best with the people they are trying to communicate. . There are so many social languages we don’t categorize like “the language of medicine, street gangs, sociology, law, rap, or informal dinner-time talk among friends(who belong to distinctive cultures or social groups)”(Gee, 718). Everyone speaks English, as also different slang like James Gee explained to the educated audience. Which is called Discourses, an example he used was about a girl. She talked to her parents and her boyfriend about a person but expressed it differently meaning the same thing. Gee gave the example “ a young woman telling the same story to her parents and her boyfriend...her telling her parents “well, when thought about it, I don’t know, it seemed to me that Gregory should be considered the most offensive character”(Gee, 718) the young woman described the guy Gregory to her parents in more respectful way because she might not be comfortable talking to her parents in a disrespectful way. As of the way she explained it to her boyfriend “ What an ass that guy was, you know, her boyfriend”(Gee, 718) she felt more comfortable cussing, using a “bad” words. Discourses and social languages are different ways people can communicate with a different environment or person so it can be understandable. For example, I use different discourses at school and at work. The way I have to act and