The relationship between English and literacy is a vexed one, made increasingly so by the discovery of literacy by politicians in the years post World War II as a convenient scapegoat for a myriad of social ills - most commonly in Australia, those of unemployment.
In the early 21st Century, any literature review seeking definitions of subject English will come across definitions of the subject couched almost always in terms of literacy/ies, especially in terms of multiliteracies. In effect, these define the subject "English" in terms of the literacy skills being developed. At the same time, current schooling policy and culture in NSW separates literacy from any special relationship with one subject by arguing that each subject has a set of "literacies" which are particular to itself. Literacy education is now commonly understood and manifest in NSW as, effectively, literacy-across-the-curriculum. Ironically, despite this separation of "literacy" from a special relationship with "English", when it comes to public, external assessment, "literacy" is re-married to "English" (as in Year 10) and English teachers are usually held responsible for literacy results. The relationship is inconsistent, ambivalent and tense. Moreover, it is one that poses a significant challenge to the professional identity of English teachers.
The attitude that English subject specialists have to fostering the concept "literacy" will, of course, depend largely on the definition of that concept. Where the definition of literacy, or the assessment of literacy, that operates at an official level is perceived as especially reductive, then English subject specialists will tend to reject it. Similarly, assessment which over-emphasises discrete, isolated and minuscule skills at the expense of meaningful communication will also be rejected by English subject specialists. For example, if the rhetoric of a broad, eclectic approach to literacy manifests itself in the assessment of writing defined purely in terms of functional grammar, then English subject specialists will see it as running against the ambitions of their subject for according scope to the creative and aesthetic functions of the imagination or to higher rhetorical functions.
The manifest tension between "English" and "literacy" is exacerbated by the very plurality already mentioned. Terms such as "literacies" and "multiliteracies" suggest a breadth of skills across a number of areas of life and of the school curriculum which, it is argued, are necessary for the modern student/citizen. Within this context, high stakes public testing of literacy in its current forms, driven as it is by a broader political agenda of accountability, is reductivist and repressive. Assessment and testing that examines only the functionality and utility of literacy do not belong under the rubric "English" and the preparation of students for such testing is certainly not the sole responsibility of English teachers.
Nevertheless, English has a historic and special role with respect to literacy. English teachers have had, and continue to have, as a central notion in their teaching, the teaching of reading, writing and visual and oral communication. The skills which the English teacher is concerned to develop, then, are, essentially, skills of "literacy". However, this does not make English a 'service' subject for other subjects.
What distinguishes English from other subjects is not only the skills it develops, but its central subject matter. The central concern of English is with the study and application of how language works in a range of contexts and media. Teachers of English should have knowledge of how language works and how we learn to use it, including the ways contemporary critical and cultural theories of text and textual study clarify these processes.
English is further defined by the nature of the texts with which it engages. Historically, this meant the texts of the cultural heritage, just as it now means the inclusion of the texts of popular culture. English is essentially the study of language as a social and cultural semiotic in its multiplicity of textual forms. English is also defined -more so than any other school subject - by the values it tries to create. Historically, English has been about the shaping of the 'self'. This has meant the promotion of humane values, the enrichment of the imaginative life and the development of aesthetic sensibility through engagement with literary texts. It has also meant a concern with the personal growth of the individual. Today, this includes a kind of self-reflexivity that enables students to understand how their 'self' is located within social and cultural contexts, and constructed through language and text. Accordingly, students are able deliberately to conform to or challenge relations of power and the social processes inherent in textual practices.
Contemporary English teaching includes the study of text in terms of "how?" and "can?": "How does it ask to be read?" and "Can I read it another way?" English teachers embrace such a "critical" literacy, but work to ensure that it is not developed at the expense of the imaginative and the aesthetic. "How am I able to now organise my thinking, and draw on my knowledge of language and textual forms, features, and functions to most effectively communicate a message, given the demands of my context, purpose and audience?" and "Can I draw on or imagine other ways of communicating my message?". English teachers embrace such a rhetorical approach to the subject and recognise that such study of language foregrounds a new sense of "the personal" - explorations of self and identity as they are socially, culturally, historically and politically constituted in and through language and text.
Above all, English makes possible the (re) imagining of other ways of being. At this point, students are in a position to become "designers" of social futures (Kress). This shifts the emphasis in English pedagogy from response to students being essentially centred in their own creations. Understanding language as a social and cultural semiotic makes it natural that in the English classroom these creations will range across a number of areas, including the visual and multi-media. The concept of design also restores to the centre of English the fundamental role of the development of an aesthetic sense, and the development of the imagination - ideas which mass standardised literacy testing can never aspire to assess. Approaches to literacy that are based solely or predominantly on notions of utility and functionality are outdated and accordingly to be challenged by English teachers.