This essay first argues that a useful definition of literacy for pragmatic research needs to study literacy and orality within a broader communicative framework where the two are seen as different ways of achieving the same communicative ends and not necessarily as opposites. Literacy as a pragmatic enterprise then is regarded as being equally made up of four co-equal social practices: reading, writing, speaking and interpreting, in the sense of inference meaning assessments. The essay further addresses the topics of literacy and social memory; literacy and thought; ‘schooled’ literacy; the languages of literacy, and new directions for future research.