The notion of “literacy” in the naive language conscience: in search of criteria and the means of achieving

The modern interpretation of the notion “literacy” in the scientific and everyday picture of the world is examined in the article. Lexicographical data permit to find vivid signs of some transformation of the notion in our society caused by ambiguous demands to modern people. According to dictionaries the word “literate” has 3 meanings. But the contexts of the Internet communication analysis as well as the Russian National Corpus materials show that the naïve Russian language users reduce the notion оf literacy to basic knowledge of spelling and punctuation standards. This statement is in contrast with the theories developed by psychologists, anthropologists and professional linguists. These are the theories of the development of a more functionally specialized cultural personality. The same generalizing tendency is seen in choosing criteria for a dictionary: universal many-volume dictionaries and reference books are preferred. Generalized literacy causes changes in categories of dictionaries. The opposition “encyclopedia vs language dictionary” is disappearing. The author of the article draws attention to the intense discussion of the problem in blogs and a new lexicographic phenomenon of online editing and commenting.