This is a position paper modelling the domain of linguistic literacy and
its development through the life span. It aims to provide a framework
for the analysis of language development in the school years, integrating
sociolinguistic and psycholinguistic notions of variation, language awareness, and literacy in a comprehensive model. The paper focuses on those
aspects of literacy competence that are expressed in language as well as
aspects of linguistic knowledge that are affected by literacy competence,
tracing the route that children take in appropriating linguistic literacy as
part of their cognitive abilities and examining the effect of literacy on
language across development. Our view of linguistic literacy consists of
one defining feature: control over linguistic variation from both a user-dependent (‘lectal’) and a context-dependent (modality, genre, and
register) perspective; of one concomitant process: metalanguage and its
role in language development; and of one condition: familiarity with
writing and written language from two aspects: written language as
discourse style – the recognition that the kind of language used for
writing is essentially different from the one used for speech; and written
language as a notational system – the perception and growing command
of the representational system that is used in the written modality.
Linguistic literacy is viewed as a constituent of language knowledge
characterized by the availability of multiple linguistic resources and by
the ability to consciously access one's own linguistic knowledge and to
view language from various perspectives.