Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm curious about this definition, just because it's not something I've ever considered before and googling seems to muddy the water even more. Is it "functionally illiterate" if you can read the language aloud and not understand it, if you also wouldn't have understood the same thing spoken to you? That seems like it's about comprehension ability, not literacy. Although one thing that just occurred to me is that if…
posters upthread are talking about comprehension and value systems, not literacy. "functionally illiterate" is the brush that one paints with when describing people of opposing political viewpoint or lower socioeconomic status, for example.
Being kinda dumb and graduating school without reading a book is not a socioeconomic status