Understanding of the literacy

Basically, the definition of literacy is the ability to write and read or to use the language proficiently. But broadly speaking, I think literacy means one has the ability to communicate, recognize, understand, interpret, exchange and communicate different information in order to participate in a civilized society. From Gee’s opinion, he thinks literacy is control of secondary use of language (i.e., uses of a language in secondary discourses). By “a discourse”, Gee means it as a socially accepted association among ways of using language, of thinking, and of acting that can be used to identify oneself as a member of a socially meaningful group or a social network. He also argues that literacy is mastered through acquisition. That is “literacy requires exposure to models in natural meaningful, and functional settings, and teaching is not liable to be very successful-it may even initially get in the way”. Thus, literacy is an important skill to understand and integrate into society.
On the other hand, Ong’s overall argument is “literacy is imperious. It tends to arrogate to itself supreme power by taking itself as normative for human expression and thought and is particularly true in high-technology society”. And more specifically, he thinks we can view in better perspective the world of writing in which we live, see better what this world really is, and what functionally literate human beings really are—that is, beings whose thought processes do not grow out of or indirectly, by the technology of writing. Without writing, the literate mind would not and could not think as it does, not only when engaged in writing but even when it is composing its thoughts in oral form. Literacy is associated with our daily life. Whenever we are receiving new information and new knowledge, we need literacy to help us better understand the nature of these knowledge and social information.