Amazon.com description: Product Description: This work provides a general introduction to the new emerging field of literacy studies. It aims to bring recent developments together in a coherent manner, by showing how new research has contributed to the understanding of literacy practices and to the uses of literacy in everyday life. The book explores the competing definitions of literacy in contemporary society, and examines the theories of language and of learning which underpin new views of literacy. The book is intended as an introduction to literacy studies for the student or general reader, but it should also be of use to specialists in one area of study who wish to understand the significance of other areas of literacy studies for their own work.