Literacy Practices in Contrast: Adult Arab Literacy vs. Native English Literacy

Abstract

The paper addresses the issue of adult Arab literates' practices and products which exhibit specific communicative strategies and persuasive literacy styles. The author characterizes the adult Arab literates' communicative strategies revealed in the following literacy products: Academic essays, cross-cultural communication studies, genres in contrast, translational versions of Arabic source texts and L2 reading strategies. The author attempts to frame the communicative strategies employed in the above-mentioned literacy products in terms of: orality/literacy traditions and culture. The author shows how adult Arab literates' literacy practices run counter to the targeted Anglo-American literacy practices. The sharp contrast has to be addressed in view of the extensive pressures on adult Arab literates to publish in English, and to communicate in English in different disciplines. The contrast between the strategies of those on the periphery and those of the center-based is the major thrust of the paper. Finally, the author calls for an approximative system of biliteracy..