16 A DEFINITION OF LITERARY LITERACY: A CONTENT ANALYSIS OF LITERATURE SYLLABUSES AND INTERVIEWS WITH PORTUGUESE LECTURERS OF LITERATURE Rita Baleiro School of Management, Hospitality and Tourism, University of the Algarve (Portugal) rbaleiro@ualg.pt Abstract: The aim of this paper is to present a definition of literary literacy in the context of majors in languages, literatures and cultures, in Portugal. A definition of literary literacy was deduced from a content analysis of primary data sources and from the theoretical underpinnings of the transactional theory of reading. The primary data sources are fourteen Portuguese and English literature syllabuses from four Portuguese universities (Lisboa, Nova, Coimbra and Porto) and twelve interviews with Portuguese university lecturers of literature. Based on the findings of a content analysis of both syllabuses and interviews, from the lecturers‘ point of view, a literary literate student doing a major in languages, literatures and cultures must, above all, be able to contextualize literary texts and their authors both historically and culturally, must be able to present an interpretation as a coherent text, and must be able to do and organize bibliographical research. Keywords: literary literacy, higher education, Portugal. Introduction In Portugal, research into literacy has expanded fast over the last two decades with an emphasis on reading literacy (Lages, 2007; Santos, 2007; Sim-Sim and Viana, 2007) and information literacy (Malheiro et al., 2010). The majority of these studies have focused on how elementary or secondary school students read, on adults‘ reading habits, on the system of adult education, and on the role played by university and public libraries. The few studies with a focus on higher education students often fall within sociological theoretical frameworks, and examine students‘ social and cultural background, students‘ leisure practices, attitudes and representations of the world, i.e., political systems, family, labour market (Almeida et al., 2003; Balsa, Simões, Nunes, Carmo, and Campos, 2001; Guerreiro and Abrantes, 2004). As a result, in Portugal, investigations into literacy and literary reading in higher education are scarce; and investigations that examine literacy and literary theory jointly, such as the study presented in this paper, are even scarcer. And, apparently, the same happens outside Portugal, as Lisa Eckert (2008) acknowledged in an article on the study of the intersection of reading strategies in secondary and post-secondary education. Despite David Barton‘s observation that ‗literacy and literary have grown apart in an almost deliberate distancing of elite culture and mass culture‘ (2009: 167), literacy theory and literary theory are associated research fields, as both are concerned with the meaning production process and with individual responses to texts (Kern 2002; Kern and Schultz, 2005). The operations involved in the act of literary interpretation are described in the transactional theory of literary reading (Iser, [1978] 1980; Rosenblatt, [1938] 2005), and demand the activation of a cluster of skills that can be presented under the heading ‗literary literacy‘. Regardless of the acknowledged importance of the reader‘s role in the meaning making process of a literary text, in the university context, many of the literary literacy skills that students activate in a given situation, in order to interpret a literary text, are not determined only by their individual choices, motivations and interests. Instead these skills are determined by various contextual TOJNED : The Online Journal Of New Horizons In Education - October 2011, Volume 1, Issue 4 Copyright © TOJNED www.tojned.net