Gee's definition of Literacy

Summary of Gee’s definition of literacy:
Literacy is more than the ability to read and write. Literacy is control of secondary use of language (i.e. uses of language in secondary discourses.) So to understand this I he gave us some definitions:
- A discourse is a socially accepted association among ways of using language, og thinking and of acting that can be used to identify oneself as a member of a socially meaningful group or a social network. Ex. being an American, a women or a part of a socioeconomic class.
- You can control or master a discourse with mostly acquisition, not learning. Acquisition is a process of acquiring something subconsciously by exposure to models and a process of trial and error, without a process of formal teaching. Teaching on the other hand is a process that involves conscious knowledge gained through teaching.
- Secondary discourses are discourses that you find beyond your family, discourses from “secondary institutions” (ex. schools, workplaces, government offices…) All these secondary discourses involves a use of language either it is written or oral.
So pretty much what he is saying: Literacy is the use of language (written or oral) beyond your everyday-language that you use in conversations with your family.

Did it change my understanding of literacy?
No, not a lot. But maybe I thought literacy was more managing very specialized language and that’s it, but according to Gee literacy was more managing the language you uses with in secondary discourses.

How did this affect my literacy story?
My literacy story was me and my traumatic first meeting with the economy/ business- specialized-language. But according to Gee I should probably talked about the whole situation: meet the college, my professors, the classmates, the cafeteria +++