Literacy practices as social: relational-keys in literacy events

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to work toward more fully conceptualizing literacy practices as social by theorizing the combined relational and intellectual context for learning. This context is created through students’ and their teachers’ uses of language. In particular, the quality of language that creates this intellectual relational context is relational-keys that are inherent to any talk between people. Building upon Hymes (1974) conceptualization of key, relational-keys can be described as the emotional mood or spirit of a conversation, but they are much more than that per se. They are constitutive of the complex, multi-layered relationships that people have with each other, with themselves and with the material environment through their uses of language. Design/methodology/approach Drawing upon a classroom ethnographic study in a first-grade classroom and using discourse analysis of classroom interactions, the author uses data from instructional conversations to illustrate how students and their teachers collaboratively perform relational-keys. Findings Findings reveal that students and their teacher perform relational and intellectual stances toward reading and toward each other through relational-keys, that frame the act of reading and their experience of doing it together. Originality/value The concept of relational-key provides literacy researchers with another tool to analyze what happens in instructional conversations. It also provides teachers with a curricular resource to identify relational-keys that are enacted. Therefore, teachers are able move away from the enaction of relational-keys that contribute to subtractive schooling, and toward relational-keys that nurture empowering stances in students toward reading and their relationships.