International Literacy Day and The Lockdown Library Project

To mark International Literacy Day 2022 (08 September), Dr Marcello Giovanelli and Dr Abigail Boucher discuss literacy and its affect on society as well as a recap of their Lockdown Library Project during the height of the Coronavirus pandemic

𝗜𝗻𝘁𝗲𝗿𝗻𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻𝗮𝗹 𝗟𝗶𝘁𝗲𝗿𝗮𝗰𝘆 𝗗𝗮𝘆

International Literacy Day is celebrated on the 8th September every year. It’s been that way since the first one in 1967.

Worldwide, 775 million lack minimum literacy skills, one in five adults are still not literate and two-thirds of those are women. 60.7 million children are out-of-school and many more attend irregularly or drop out. South Asia has the lowest regional adult literacy rate (58.6%), followed by sub-Saharan Africa (59.7%). Countries with the lowest literacy rates in the world are Burkina Faso (12.8%), Niger (14.4%) and Mali (19%)

𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗟𝗼𝗰𝗸𝗱𝗼𝘄𝗻 𝗟𝗶𝗯𝗿𝗮𝗿𝘆 𝗣𝗿𝗼𝗷𝗲𝗰𝘁

The Lockdown Library Project explored the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the public’s reading habits through an online survey.

The Aston University team was interested in whether people increased or reduced their reading, chose particular books or genres to read, revisited books from the past and changed the ways they talk about books with other people since the lockdown. Nearly 900 people took part.

𝗠𝗼𝗿𝗲 𝗮𝗯𝗼𝘂𝘁 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗽𝗲𝗼𝗽𝗹𝗲, 𝗽𝗿𝗼𝗴𝗿𝗮𝗺𝗺𝗲𝘀 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗿𝗲𝘀𝗲𝗮𝗿𝗰𝗵 𝗶𝗻 𝘁𝗵𝗶𝘀 𝘀𝗵𝗼𝘄

Dr Marcello Giovanelli 👉 https://bit.ly/3TMAu19

Dr Abigail Boucher 👉 https://bit.ly/3RD0YAv

The Lockdown Library Project 👉 https://bit.ly/3TGyOqh

Courses related to this show 👉 https://bit.ly/3enZD28

𝗦𝗮𝘃𝗲 𝗠𝗲 𝗙𝗿𝗼𝗺 𝗠𝘆 𝗦𝗵𝗲𝗹𝗳

Save Me From My Shelf is a literature podcast hosted by friends Abigail Boucher (lecturer in English, languages and applied linguistics) and Daniel Jenkin-Smith (postdoc) and academics in Birmingham, England.

Join them as they take classic literature off its pedestal by making fun of it!

Website 👉 https://bit.ly/3cNWmsr

Spotify 👉 https://spoti.fi/3KNIAmm

Acast 👉 https://bit.ly/3RHRrYK

Apple Podcasts 👉 https://apple.co/3qy3bBX

Twitter 👉 https://bit.ly/3TEjTg2

𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗟𝗮𝗻𝗴𝘂𝗮𝗴𝗲 𝗼𝗳 𝗦𝗶𝗲𝗴𝗳𝗿𝗶𝗲𝗱 𝗦𝗮𝘀𝘀𝗼𝗼𝗻

This book presents a cognitive stylistic analysis of the writing of Siegfried Sassoon, a First World War poet who has typically been perceived as a poet of protest and irony, but whose work is in fact multi-faceted and complex in theme and shifted in style considerably throughout his lifetime.

The author starts from the premise that a more systematic account of Sassoon’s style is possible using the methodology of contemporary stylistics, in particular Cognitive Grammar.

Using this as a starting point, he revisits common ideas from Sassoon scholarship and reconfigures them through the lens of cognitive stylistics to provide a fresh perspective on Sassoon's style. This book will be of interest to students and scholars of stylistics, war poetry, twentieth-century literature, and cognitive linguistics.

Find out more 👉 https://bit.ly/3BhUPV2

#TeamAston #internationalliteracyday