Abstract
This ongoing research study is set within two areas of knowledge: literacy, and critical discourse analysis. On the one hand, literacy refers to the ability to read and write to make meaning of the world. Although in previous years the overall field of literacy was associated principally with cognitive processes, contemporary theorists have acknowledged that literacy goes beyond these two abilities. Instead, it is argued now that literacy is a set of elements which allow individuals to raise a more critical perspective of their realities to finally defy and change them. On the other hand, critical discourse analysis is related to the profound analysis of the language employed by individuals/institutions with the purpose of unveiling and visibilizing asymmetrical and unbalanced power relationships, a constant disregard of the implicit sociocultural aspects that affect each community/group as well as the manufacture of consent for foreign intervention. In this order of ideas, the main aim of this paper is to share the partial findings of a critical discourse analysis study centered on establishing the role that literacy has been playing in the dissemination of such phenomena in Colombia because even if previous scholarly literature has already demonstrated that nationally designed policies have served the propagation of neoliberal agendas/interests, which seek to benefit a very reduced part of the population (the most powerful), it seems to be that very few research studies have addressed the just pointed aspects.
Presenters
Jhon Eduardo Mosquera PérezFull Time English Teacher Educator and Researcher, Education , Universidad Pedagógica y Tecnológica de Colombia, Boyacá, Colombia
