Abstract

This chapter on Literacy in English addresses the questions ‘what is literacy?’ as well as ‘what counts as literacy in English?’ It argues that a narrow and homogenous understanding of both what counts as ‘literacy’ and of what counts as ‘English’ is a highly contested product of coloniality that has had negative consequences in many parts of the world. Engaging with the complex relationship between language, literacy and power has enabled the development of multilingual and multimodal pedagogies that both give students access to powerful forms of literacy in English as well as work to expand what counts as powerful uses of literacy in English.