Примењена лингвистика у част Ранку Бугарском - Језик у

György Szépe: MOTHER TONGUE COMPETENCE AND SOCIO-PROFESSIONAL...
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Dr. Terestyéni wrote:
We have to be very cautious, because the method was mostly identical with that
which is used in public polling. It surveys members in a representative sample
(a) for information handling in principal types of occupation, (b) for their written
communication for official business in different occupations; (c) the same in different
types of residential location; (e) the same according to educational categories,
(f) and finally for information handling at place of work (p. 225).
According to our findings, 31 per cent of the working population has no need for
any of the above (four) modes of communication in their work; in other words,
nearly one-third of the entire work-force are doing work which – apart from oral
mode – necessitates the exercise of no other information-handling activity of what
might be termed, an intellectual kind (p. 225).
He concluded however that
[i]t is difficult to quantify accurately the percentage in the population who – though
possessed of a smattering of reading and writing skills – in normal circumstances
never come into contact with written information at all. The data of our study lead
us to estimate it to be 20–25 per cent. When one adds to this number the percentage
of those totally illiterate [i.e. who were not taught to read and write, Gy. Sz.],
one must conclude that over a quarter of the country’s adult population manages to
get by totally without the use of either reading or writing (p. 232).
This is almost saying that one third of the Hungarian adult population is
functionally illiterate. (I would prefer to say institutionally, instead of functionally;
because e.g. they may read newspapers.) The aforementioned situation is
improving slowly. Relatively recent research data are available for teaching prisoners
to read and write in jails, even providing them with skills both in Hungarian
and in many cases also in Romani (Steklács 2005).
The above example highlights the importance of literacy. It supports the
idea of life-long learning which comprises also ‘post-literacy’ activity.
We should not, however, devalue the oral culture of illiterate people: dialect
speakers, immigrants may live at a very high level of oral culture. Some
of their psychological abilities (in memory and observation) may be better than
those of literate people (Bright 1984).
Secondary orality, due to the television age, may redraw (even in traditionally
literate countries) the strategy of teaching the basic skills in school.
Adult language education
Nevertheless, industry and almost any public service still require a certain level
of reading and writing.