We propose a debate on the contributions of the Bakhtin Circle's philosophy of language in order to approach the concept of literacies at basic education schools. The Circle's theoretical project (which seeks to overcome the dualism between life and theory by understanding experiences as events) allows us to assume the spheres of human life as instantiations in which utterances – in which subjects assume a position, a responsible attitude towards life – are produced. The phenomenon of literacy must be understood as the assumption of an attitude before the world, going beyond new writing and reading technologies. This perspective carries implications in regards to the literacies approach. So, it is important to consider alterity relationships established between students and teachers in the pedagogical practices and how the subjects and their perspectives about what reading and writing contemporarily represent are altered.