There’s a person > 1 on the Mapcase scale. Stranger On The Train exists, and so do you (= 1 Mapcase) , and so does Colibri, and Voyager and a few others to be honest.
The best board, to be frank
So, this would imply that, for instance, a person who did not know how to interpret a necktie hanging on the outer doorknob of a closed door, is less than fully literate? An interesting criterion.
That’s what’s called cultural literacy. I don’t know how many institutions have formal tests for cultural literacy, but some of them would have to, wouldn’t you think?
And, as you further your education, the cultural and subject matter knowledge becomes more and more important. A lawyer who is really good at reading and interpreting statutes, cases, and law review articles might be rather bad at understanding quantum physics articles or play-by-play synopses of baseball games because he doesn’t have the requisite subject matter knowledge, but that doesn’t mean that he’s functionally illiterate.
It’s clearly the case that there are literacy tests that can rate you as reading at a 3rd grade level, a 4th grade level, or a fifth grade level. What’s the highest practical level that can be verified by a simple literacy test, above which literacy is so tied in with cultural and subject matter knowledge that it’s not meaningful to score people in terms of general literacy? I know there are several literacy tests out there, but a simple score of “9” with no context doesn’t really mean much except that you got a 9 and maybe can get in to colleges that require a 6 or above for admission. What does that score of 9 represent? That you read at the level of a graduate of an English speaking high school? That you read at the level of a first semester graduate student?
I know what the tie/doorknob means but have difficulty puzzling out a balance sheet or a train schedule.
Standard type knowledge base around here. Illiterate SD.
FWIW, the DOD uses a language skill scale of 0 (no ability) to 5 (complex abstract discussions).
It’s not a matter of vocabulary or what your major is. It’s a matter of complexity. As far as I’m concerned, hypothetical discussions, abstractions, and epistemology are the greatest tests of literacy. I always thought I was a good reader until I ran into scholarly journals that used complex jargon and assumed knowledge of the subject matter.
Interesting point. Another way to approach the question is to consider what the highest level of text complexity is that does not require specialized subject matter knowledge outside of a baseline level of general knowledge that is common throughout the population. Educated native speakers of English in the US are expected to have subject matter knowledge in topics generally taught in high schools as well as some other basic cultural knowledge.
One could imagine increasing the textual complexity of a passage (and thus increase the level of literacy required to read it) without materially changing the meaning. For example, you could change:
“John was told to put some pants on.”
into
“And it came to pass that a directive was sent unto the man who bore the name of the disciple that Jesus loved that it behooved him to array himself with a bifurcated lower body garment.”
The second passage requires some advanced vocabulary knowledge, some archaic vocabulary, the ability to understand subordinate clauses, and subject matter knowledge about the Bible (who was the “disciple that Jesus loved”?), all things that one might expect that an educated English speaker from the US knows, whether they are an attorney, physician, or social worker. It doesn’t require specialized subject matter knowledge in chemical engineering, Federal civil jurisdictional law, or mycology.
I think the ultimate level of literacy in terms of the English language, and I’m not kidding when I say this, is reading James Joyce’s Finnegan’s Wake or William Burrough’s Naked Lunch and actually understanding what the hell they’re about.
What about the ability to read several different forms of writing? If someone can read the Roman alphabet, and recognise the 2,000 common Chinese characters, and decipher Egyptian hieroglyphics, and be able to sound out the Greek and Cyrillic alphabet, isn’t that great literacy?
I’ll nominate L. L. Zamenhof. The heck with learning an already existing language !
[common nitpick, which in fact supports chinchalinchin’s point]
Finnegans Wake
[/common nitpick, which in fact supports chinchalinchin’s point]
Effectively, there’s no higher standard than being trusted to edit the Oxford English Dictionary.