ENCOUNTER: JOURNAL OF AFRICAN LIFE AND RELIGION

This article aims to explain Literacy Vis-a-vis the Means of Social Communication in Africa by reviewing current research and providing examples of various social communication forms. Understanding literacy and social communication from a cultural perspective are necessary when supporting language and literacy development. However, Africa as a continent has different languages, which may be anywhere between 1000 and 2000 languages; Africa is home to approximately one-third of the world’s languages. Their populations evidence the diversity of Africa’s languages. Therefore, the only means of communication can now be attributed to mainly English and French. Limited research on this topic is available in the existing literature. Therefore, scholars, professionals and educators utilize an approach to these literacy and social communication forms to support language and literacy development and devise appropriate and effective language and literacy assessment and intervention when needed. This paper first presents a brief overview of literacy. Then it continues with the empirical and theoretical insights contributing to the conception and development of literacy and social communication. In light of this discussion, it will be argued that the increasing ubiquity of social media presents a new opportunity for studying the transformations of literary culture and traditional print literacy.

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