In this study of the social and psychological implications of literacy, sixteen distinguished scholars provide a sustained and detailed examination of the relations between orality and literacy, the traditions based on them, the functions served by them, and the psychological and linguistic processes recruited and enhanced by them. By shedding the romantic view that literacy is the road to rationality and modernity, the volume provides a more functional view of literacy. The articles place new emphasis on the relationship between speaking and writing and highlight the different ways in which people exploit the particular resources of speech and writing for special purposes, such as building communities, creating records, and specializing genres, such as prose fiction, enhancing private study and meditation, and enhancing the specialization and organization of knowledge.