This article focuses on the relations between language and the construction of reading identities by non-formally trained teachers of adults and young adults in basic literacy programs. Results from a PhD research focusing on the study of these agents´ literacy process are presented. We asked the subjects what type of readers they were, in order to learn the meanings they attributed to reading, with the purpose of contributing to programs geared to their professionalizing and community needs. The data analysis, from a linguistic-enunciative and discursive perspective, revealed differences from previous research results involving professionally trained literacy teachers, i.e., the assertive and positive ways in which the subjects produced their self-images as readers and, consequently, as literacy teachers. We observed a self-legitimation movement through discursive operations which focus on the exaltation of personal characteristics, on the reference to cultural objects taken as legitimate, and on the familiarity with new cultural practices.
Identity; literacy; reading practice; teacher education