Abstract:
The course-book culture rampant in current foreign and second language settings appears to promote a reductionist view of language learning. Under its hegemony, language learners have been led to believe that language is a set of transactions, which they need to master in order to meet exam requirements/ academic standards. Such a belief has precluded our students from looking at language learning as a life-long educational endeavour and as an instrument of constructive social change/empowerment. The course-book drills neither provide frameworks for the learners to have an emotional engagement with the language nor nourish their capacity for imaginative and expressive use of language. Consequently, the students are subject to an educationally unrewarding language learning experience, which denies them of agency and voice. In light of this educational malaise, the use of imaginative content becomes an urgent educational priority in the language classroom. The prevalence of imaginative content in the language classroom can lay the groundwork for personal and social construction of meanings by the students. As literature abounds in imaginative language, this paper will argue for the inclusion of literature in mainstream EFL/ESL. Further to this, the paper will examine a set of issues and insights, which are meant to augment our understanding of the role of literature in the foreign and second language classroom.
Introduction
The current prevalence of calculative thinking in higher education settings appears to view educational practices in terms of a rationalistic-technological stance. Under its influence, materials and methodologies that articulate fact-based, transference-based models of learning have acquired prominence and substance in foreign language learning (FLL) and second language learning (SLL). The following views of Lehtovaara (in Kohonen et al 2001, p. 145) serve to illustrate the pernicious effects of such thinking on our current educational practices:
According to this line of thinking, schools are often seen as production plants, curricula as production plans, students as raw materials, products or customers, teachers as production managers or producers of ‘educational commodities’ and so on. Further, in the interest of measurable efficiency and the accompanying quality control, schools, teachers and students are forced to compete against each other for resources and power. This development results from a one-sided view of man and also maintains this view. People tend to be seen as nothing but competitors, either successes or failures, winners or losers.
Far from helping our students into becoming better readers, writers, thinkers and citizens, calculative thinking has promoted a poverty of reading and writing among them. Denied and deprived of pedagogies and practices of experience and response, our students read and write merely to meet college requirements and standards. When students read and write just because they need to pass exams and graduate, it is unlikely that they will appreciate the value of what they read and write. It is also likely that such a situation will influence them to view literacy as a mechanical acquisition of reading and writing skills. Consequently, literacy fails to transcend its literal meaning for want of a meaning that will emphasize its educational, social and transformative nature. In short, our students become casualties of ‘a cultural ignorance and categorical stupidity crucial to the silencing of all potentially critical voices’ (Giroux in Freire and Macedo, 1987, p. 13).
Although our students read and write in FLL/SLL settings, seldom do they understand how their world is affected by their reading and writing, and in turn how their reading and writing affect their world. This is reminiscent of a complaint voiced by Candlin (in Widdowson, 1975, vii):
For too long materials have remained at the surface patterns of linguistic text and have not drawn learners towards an understanding of the layers of meaning which can be peeled off from utterances; learners have seen sentences only as illustrations of grammatical patterns and have not asked pragmatic and sociolinguistic questions of what communicative value they have in given settings.
In this respect, our students are illiterate even if they can read and write. This kind of illiteracy has far-reaching implications. It not only threatens the economic status of a society but also constitutes an injustice by preventing the illiterates from making decisions for themselves or from participating in the process of educational and social change. In short, it strikes at the foundations of democracy.
The poverty of reading and the culture of ignorance it creates need to be addressed in institutions of higher learning (McCormick, 1994; Rosenblatt, 1995). In light of this, language pedagogies and practices that promote students’ experience and response assume immediacy and primacy. It is argued that such pedagogies will teach our students to assert their rights and responsibilities. It will not only teach them to read, understand and transform their own experiences but will also teach them to redefine their relationship with their society. As a result, our students will be better equipped to process knowledge that is beyond their experience and to view their reading and writing as acts of empowerment (Freire and Macedo, 1987). In light of this, the use of literature in FLL/SLL becomes an urgent educational priority and I propose to examine the issues and insights that underlie its prevalence in our educational practices.
What is Literature?
At this juncture it will be helpful to attempt a workable definition of literature in order to put this paper into its fitting context. The question alerts us to the problem the term literature raises. However, at one level the term is inconsistent and refers to a body of written texts produced by a culture and highly valued within that culture over a period of time as part of its literary heritage. Thus English literature, in schools and colleges, includes selected works of English writers such as Shakespeare, Wordsworth, Shelley, Charles Dickens, and a host of many others. Reading the texts of these writers is considered an important part of English culture as well as literary development. It can be especially valuable in generating intellectual growth, aesthetic appreciation, and an understanding of how experiences of people in the past and present can be represented (Cox, 1991; West, 1994).
At another level, literature is seen as a discourse. Such a view articulates the interpersonal nature of literature, which serves to illustrate how a particular way of language use is intrinsic to the social, economic, technological and theoretical needs of the cultures concerned (Fowler, 1981). If we accept Fowler’s view of literature, then we should see literature as a social artifact constructed and validated within the discourse practices of a society. This view serves to deinstitutionalize literature by rejecting the right, which schools, colleges and examination boards arrogate to themselves for authorizing a set of texts as literature. As a way of expanding his view of literature, Fowler (1981, p. 21) underscores the social dimensions of discourses by pointing out:
Some of the varieties used in the constitution of a specific ‘literary’ text may tend to occur regularly in some, but not all, other ‘literary’ texts but they are not restricted to literary texts (rhyme and alliteration are found in advertisements); and ‘literary’ texts also draw upon patterns, which tend to occur in ‘non-literary’ texts (conversation, news report).
This suggests that stylistics and literary studies must take sociolinguistic theory and methodology seriously as a way of accounting for the specific linguistic properties of the texts concerned.
By imploring us to view literature as social discourse, Fowler questions the formalist theories of literary language. Viewed from a constructivist standpoint, literature as social discourse could be instrumental in promoting interpretive discourse among students and, as a result, dehegamonize and democratize literature from its exclusionist and elitist shackles (Carter, 1997, p. 109). In the light of this, the paper will look upon the problems that result from the extent and variation of the use of the English language in the world, as prospects for promoting sociolinguistic sensitivity among the students and the teachers who use literature in the service of language education.
It should be noted here that English is the language of literature in countries such as Nigeria, Ghana, Kenya, India and Malaysia, where English is the institutionalized language of the country, although not the first language of the writers. Much of the most highly valued writing in English in the past fifty years has in fact been produced in such contexts. This is currently referred to as ‘Literature in English’, this term being preferred as more inclusive than the term ‘English Literature’.
Literature in English will not necessarily conform to standard versions of the language and may deliberately develop alternative models of creative language use. The heritage of English literature as the literature of the English is often judged to be the vehicle whereby a standard international version of the language is established in its dominant role (Cox, 1991; West, 1994). Syllabuses are therefore crucial to the presentation of particular versions of the English language and the English literary heritage. These terms of reference generated much debate in the formulation of a literature curriculum within the National Curriculum in England and Wales during the 1990s (West, 1994). This debate has emphasized repeatedly that the exclusion or inclusion of a text in the curriculum is not a neutral act but one that expresses different presuppositions about the quality and value of the texts, their relevance to personal experiences about the English language and about cultural and national identity. Literary scholars and linguists have raised a number of issues regarding the division between language and literature. While literary scholars uphold the centrality of literary criticism as a traditional approach to literary studies, linguists have often been critical of the deviant use of language in literature, especially poetry and have raised serious questions about the privileged status accorded to the language of literature. Jacobson (1960) has made an attempt to synthesize these conflicting views in his paper, ‘Linguistics and Poetics’ (see Lodge, 1988, pp. 32-57). The paper states that “A linguist deaf to the poetic functioning of language and a literary scholar indifferent to linguistic problems and unconversant with linguistic methods are equally flagrant anachronisms”.
Jacobson's view suggests that literature, primarily, is to be taken as text, as discourse; the language of literature is the medium through which a writer conveys a message about reality to the reader. Proceeding along this line of inquiry; Jacobson suggests that ‘literariness’, meaning, the language of literature is its poeticity. It is like oil in cooking. It cannot be had on its own. But when used with other foods, it is more than a mere addition; it changes the taste of the food to the extent that some dishes no longer appear to have any connection with their oil-less ingredients. This is to suggest that there is some connection between poeticity (i.e. literariness) and reality.
The connection between poeticity and reality might serve to illustrate the indestructible link between the human mind and the figurative aspects of language and thought (Gibbs, 1994). As this paper rejects an exclusive view of literature, it looks upon the notion of literariness as one of disposition brought to bear upon the text by the reader. If this position is accepted, then one needs to accept that literature with a capital ‘L’ canonical literature, and literature with a small ‘l’-- non-canonical texts ranging from proverbs to advertisements, could co-exist (Carter, 1997; McRae, 1991). Teachers, who support an exclusive view of literature, (one in which canonical texts reign supreme) might view this co-existence offending. However, it is argued that the canonical status of literature is not as important as the creative and imaginative potential of literature in facilitating an emotional engagement with the target language for the L2 learner. Given that literary language is patterned in creative play, the emotional involvement of the reader results in creative and imaginative interpretation of the words and structures, which sets it apart from a literal reading (Carter, 1997). The provisionality of these interpretations provides scope for multiple readings through renegotiated discourse, which in turn might serve to rehearse the readers’ meaning-negotiating capacity. In sum, this inquiry situates literature in tentative readings of text and discourse rich in creativity and imagination (Carter, 1997).
History of Literature in Foreign /Second Language Learning
Given the fluidity of attitudes and approaches, and the plurality of pedagogies and practices in FLL/SLL settings, many FL/SL teachers today might not have a well-informed understanding of the history and role of literature in FLL/ SLL settings. So, it might be useful to examine the prevalence and pertinence of literature in FLL/SLL from a historical perspective.
For hundreds of years, the use of literary texts in language education was looked upon as a venerable tradition; so, its role in the foreign language curriculum was unquestioned. The grammar-translation method was regarded as a preparation for the study of literary works (Kelly, 1969). The traditional scholastic approach used the grammar-translation method to equip learners in the eighteenth century with a reading knowledge of foreign languages and applied this knowledge to the interpretation of literary texts with the use of a dictionary. The texts of reputed literary authors assumed particular relevance and significance in the traditional methods of the school curriculum and examinations. As a result, the literary texts became a tool for promoting grammar-oriented and dictionary-referenced learning practices. Such practices were believed to promote an ideal version of education during that time. After World War I, a movement called ‘Kulturekunde’ (Stern, 1983, pp. 247-259) originated in Germany.
German educators viewed this movement as a unifying force, which had the power to integrate the teaching of German language, German literature, German history, and the geography of Germany into a core of educational practices. In the inter-war period, ‘Kulturekunde’ was applied to foreign language teaching in Germany. To some educators, it meant a foreign equivalent to German Kulturekunde: treating language appropriately in relation to a foreign literature, history, and geography to widen the scope of language teaching. To some other educators, it meant a history of ideas of another country: for example, in teaching English as a foreign language, instead of reading an English author out of context, teachers were encouraged to focus on an era. As a result, the study of literature examined a literary writer in relation to the period he or she belonged to, and the underlying cultural and political ideologies. During the same period, culture teaching in Britain and America focused on historic institutions and customs, as well as on the contributions of the foreign country to human civilization, as the aim was to discover the underlying ‘structure’ or ‘mind’ of a foreign nation and evaluate literary and artistic works in the light of the ‘Kulturekunde’ principle. A similar principle operated in the British colonies where the study of English literature in high school and college curriculums was meant to promote a deeper understanding of the English language and culture (Kachru in Brumfit and Carter, 1986, pp. 140-149). Such a study presupposed that learners could only appreciate a foreign language through the study of its highest form of expression – literature. The 1970s and 1980s saw a different language-learning trend.
... Language teachers were trying hard to bring the outside world into their classrooms (Wilkins, 1976). To do this they used authentic materials, such as train timetables and newspaper extracts to help learners to cope with the real world that in turn emphasized that the language of literature was not the language of real life. So, literature was pushed into the background. However, students continued to major in English literature in many universities across the globe. Notwithstanding this, there appears to be a resurgence of interest in Literature. This is largely due to a rediscovery, by many practising language teachers of the benefits of using literary text as a source of imaginative, interactive and discussion activities (Collie and Slater, 1987; Duff and Maley, 1990; McRae, 1991). This approach to Literature in the FL/SL classroom has achieved a more reasonable balance in that, it has moved away from the traditional approaches that treated literary texts as objects of academic enquiry. As a result, this new approach has enhanced the usefulness of a literary text in stimulating language-learning activities (Duff and Maley, 1990). By engaging the students and teachers interactively with the text, in the performance of tasks involving literary texts, the present approach encourages the students to generate language and develop proficiency in the use of the target language by providing them with an emotional involvement with the target language (McRae, 1991).
Having discussed the history of literature in foreign/second language teaching with reference to its love- hate relationships with syllabus designers and teachers in FL/SL settings, the paper moves on to discuss the benefits of using literature in language teaching.
Benefits of Using Literature in FL/SL Classrooms
The paper referred to the educational and social concerns underscoring the need for pedagogies of experience and response in the Introduction. In light of this, an understanding of the benefits of using literature with FL/SL learners becomes a necessity and priority for this inquiry. Therefore, it will be helpful to discuss the benefits of using literature in the language classroom under two categories. The first category of benefits relates to language learning dimensions of the second language learners. The second category of benefits relates to the educational and social outcomes of using literature as an instrument of response and reaction.
Category 1: Language Learning Dimensions
The use of literature promotes language acquisition. In most second language classrooms, students read and write in order to decipher the input in the target language. The need to decipher written input in English becomes an important instructional objective demanding that students process and interpret the target language. In such situations, by providing interesting contexts for students to generate input, negotiate meaning and develop motivation, literature can become an efficient vehicle for language acquisition (Krashen, 1985). As literary texts contain multiple layers of meaning, they can promote classroom activities that call for exchange of feelings and opinions. Such activities trigger the response potential in students. So learning a foreign language becomes a process of response (Collie and Slater, 1987; Duff and Maley, 1990; Lazar, 1993). The students find the activities and the context in which they engage with these activities so absorbing that they enjoy taking risks in their search for meanings.
The use of literature promotes motivation in the classroom. By strengthening the affective and emotional domains of students, literature develops a sense of involvement in them (Carter and Long, 1991; Collie and Slater, 1987; Lazar, 1993). Course-books do not provide for any emotional and reflective engagement with the target language. This is because course-books, for want of interesting and engaging content, focus the learners’ attention on the mechanical aspects of language learning. The form-focused practice that most course books demand, subjects the learners to a lot of anxiety, stress, demotivation in addition to monotony and boredom. As a result, the arid and trivial content of the course books fails to bring about a sense of involvement (Wajnryb, 1996). The failure to instill a sense of involvement in the learners prevents them from an emotional engagement with the target language and denies them the pleasures of using the language imaginatively and reflectively (McRae, 1991). In the light of this discussion, motivation becomes synonymous with a process of engagement through which the learners begin to feel a sense of involvement with the target language. The following view, expressed by Collie and Slater (1987, pp. 5-6), locates our understanding of motivation as an outcome of engagement with literary texts:
Engaging imaginatively with literature enables learners to shift the focus of their attention beyond the more mechanical aspects of the foreign language system. When a novel, play or short story is explored over a period of time, the result is that the reader begins to inhabit the text. He or she is drawn into the book. Pinpointing individual words or phrases may make them less important than pursuing the development of the story.
The above stated quotation viewed in terms of Krashen’s (1982) Affective Filter Hypothesis, can add to our understanding of how a willingness to engage and sustain that engagement with written input in the target language can contribute to the success of SLA. In this regard, literary texts can offer a beneficial alternative to the rule-based language learning promoted by course books. Furthermore, it should be noted that the points raised above reinforce the concerns expressed in the Introduction with reference to students’ personal sense of involvement in reading and writing as a basis for promoting literacy in society.
The use of literature develops cultural awareness in students. Literary texts contain copious examples of practices, attitudes and beliefs of people across the cultures of the world. While these examples serve to promote a comprehensive view of culture, they can also raise problems regarding the notion of culture in the target language. This is because English is used across the world as a first and second language and a stereotypical view of the target culture can endanger the use of literature in FL/SL classrooms (Kachru in Brumfit and Carter, 1986, pp. 140-149; Lazar, 1993).
In the earlier part of this paper, I proposed a workable definition of literature as social discourse. This can serve to free literature from its exclusivist and isolationist credentials by ‘democratizing and dehegamonizing’ access to literature (Carter, 1997, p. 109). It is argued that such a position can encourage an interactive and inclusive approach, in other words, a flexible approach to understanding the target culture of literary texts. Such an approach can help ‘students become broadly aware of the social, political and historical events which form the background of a particular play or novel. At the same time literature does seem to provide a way of contextualizing how a member of a particular society might behave or react in a specific situation’ (Lazar, 1993, p. 17). As a result, students will be able to develop their perceptions as to how people of different cultures relate to their experiences and assess them. Such perceptions help students to see the core of human situations that can occur cross-culturally. Furthermore, these perceptions equip them with the critical sensibilities they need to question, accept or reject the cultural assumptions of texts (Carter and Long, 1991; Lazar, 1993).
The use of literature develops language awareness in students. The interesting contexts provided by literary texts serve to illustrate the noticeability of lexical and syntactical features. Prolonged exposure to literary texts not only familiarizes students with the numerous interesting features of the written language but also develops the response potential in them. As students respond to literary texts, they begin to realize how meaning as an outcome of response can open up contexts for imaginative use of language (Collie and Slater, 1987; Gibbs, 1994). The scope provided by literary texts for using imaginative/figurative meanings alerts them to ‘the richness and variety of the language they are trying to master’ (Collie and Slater, 1987, p. 5), and to the need to develop it through their interpretative experiences with literature. It is argued that the human mind is naturally inclined to use language figuratively rather than literally, given that the notion of literal meaning is a problematic one (Gibbs, 1994).
Research findings in psycholinguistics point to how the meanings we construct are informed by imaginative possibilities. This is to suggest that literal meanings cannot withstand the overpowering influence of the human mind to use imaginative meanings in its attempts to create opportunities for growth and progress. I believe that any development of language awareness in students should be viewed as a capacity to use figurative meanings (Gibbs, 1994). In this respect, literary texts can become an efficient vehicle for promoting language awareness in students. It should be noted that the views discussed in this section and the views to be discussed in the following section are theoretical possibilities suggested by language practitioners who believe in the efficacy of literature in foreign language education. Their views focus on the unique characteristics of human existence, which can be best understood through literature. In this connection, these practitioners have suggested that literature has the potential for generating language learning approaches that are sensitive to the unique characteristics of human existence.
The views examined so far, should be interpreted as intuitive beliefs and values that support our intuitions and belief systems underlying pedagogies of experience and response. Therefore, it is not necessary to affirm these views as outcomes of rationalistic inquiries just for the sake of labeling them as ‘objective’. As pointed out earlier, what is touted as ‘objective’ in language learning research has harmed our educational and social practices. Therefore, it is argued that theoretical possibilities indicating suggestive ways of using literature should remain subjective, as literature is not an objective field of inquiry. Furthermore, as asserted by Eagleton (1983, 14), ‘the claim that knowledge should be value-free is itself a value judgment’. Such an assertion not only points out the naivety of researchers who relate language learning to scientific research paradigms but also alerts us to the futility of objectifying and reifying literature in language learning research (Polkinghorne (1988, x). It is then argued that the views in question will be used to support this paper, which is meant to examine the benefits of using literature in foreign language education indicatively, discursively and impressionistically.
Category 2: Educational and Social Outcomes
I will use this part of the discussion to examine the educational and social outcomes of using literature. The Introduction referred to a culture of ignorance and the poverty of reading and writing it characterized. In this connection, I referred to the need for pedagogies of experience and response in order to help students understand the dialectic nature of their reading and writing. Therefore, it is argued that the educational and social benefits of using literature in FL/SL classrooms far outweigh the instrumental needs of foreign /second language education.
Literature educates human emotions. It does this by channeling our emotional energies and providing an emotional release. An engagement with literature exercises our senses more actively than we can otherwise achieve. Through literature we enjoy the beauty and splendour of nature as we travel to far-away lands. We go through experiences that will not be possible in our real lives. As we read literature filled with images of action, adventure, love, hatred, violence, triumph and defeat, we create an outlet for our emotions. As a result our perceptions of real life experiences become sharper and deeper.
The imaginary situations we participate in through literature enable us to identify with others and their experiences. The paper regards this ability as a valuable human attribute which only literature can nurture in us (Rosenblatt, 1995). It is argued that this ability underlies fluency in reading and writing. Literature helps our students enlarge their knowledge of the world. By reading about the experiences of others, our students come to understand the multidimensional nature of the human being. The interactions with the literary text provide ‘a living through not simply knowledge about’ (Rosenblatt, 1995, p. 38) the world and the experiences of human beings in it. It should be noted here that the generalized and impersonal accounts of historians, sociologists, anthropologists and even scientists could only provide our students with factual information rather than an experiential understanding of it. In contrast, literature can disseminate all this information through a dynamic and personal involvement with the experiences that are necessary to augment our students’ understanding of the information. This benefit has direct bearing on the students’ capacity to read the world, which can act as an antidote to illiteracy.
Literature contributes to social sensitivity by illustrating the need for social adjustments. A prolonged engagement with literature puts students in frequent contact with the personalities of different types of people. Thus they learn to imaginatively put themselves into the places of others. As a result, they are able to understand how their actions affect others. A sense of plausible deniability dictates their judgment of what is acceptable or unacceptable social conduct. This can result in successful social adjustments in their daily dealings with others (Rosenblatt, 1995). The study is aware of the potential dangers that can arise in the absence of social adjustments. As our students live in a competitive and pragmatic world, it is likely that they will be indifferent to the feelings and needs of others. In such a situation, the prevalence of literature can militate against anti-social tendencies by promoting social sensitivity in our students (Rosenblatt, 1995). Literature can effect constructive change of attitude and outlook. We are aware of how the culture we are born into exerts its influence on us through our family and community. This influence can lead us to believe that there is just one way of life. So, in the absence of a need to consider different ways of life and the new ideas that characterize them, we can get trapped in a provincial mindset.
... In this respect, literary texts can provide an escape route for us. Literary texts illustrate cultural patterns that represent a plurality of attitudes, beliefs, ideas and ways of life. By emphasizing the need for diverse ways of thinking and living, literature gives us a sense of how complex our societies are and how complex their cultures are. The written literature which books represent alerts us to various possibilities and alternatives that exist outside the culture we are born into. This influence can play a vital role in helping us envisage new social and economic orders. In this context, the study notes that an illiterate or an unread person will either have little or no understanding of how his/her society functions on the basis of its culture. Thus he/she will not able to contribute to social or democratic change. ‘Democracy requires a body of citizens capable of making their own personal and social choices. The corollary of this is they should be emotionally and intellectually aware of the possible alternatives from which to choose’ (Rosenblatt, 1995, p. 184).
The view expressed above alerts us to the dangers of provincialism and its impact on democratic societies. Therefore, it is argued that the deployment of literature as educational practice can shield us against the dangers of provincialism.
Resolving Opposition to the Use of Literature in FLL/SLL
Given that the current focus in FLL/SLL is on meeting the specific academic and occupational needs of the students, it is normal to discount the efficacy of using literature in language teaching. It is therefore necessary to review the arguments against using literature in language teaching and resolve them (McKay, in Brumfit and Carter, 1986, pp. 191-194).
First, literature fails to make a significant contribution to the goal of teaching the grammar of the language since literature uses language in a complex and unique way. Second, the study of literature will not adequately help students fulfill their academic or occupational goals. Third, the presence of a particular cultural perspective in literature could create difficulties for the students at a conceptual level.
Let us address these arguments. The first argument, that literature, due to its complex and unique use of language, fails to contribute to teaching grammar, which remains one of the main goals of language teaching, is ill founded. The use of literature, in fact, encourages language acquisition and expands students’ language awareness, for the following reasons (Lazar, 1993; Collie and Slater, 1987; Widdowson, 1975): a) literature stimulates language acquisition by providing contexts for processing and interpreting new language; b) literature supplements the restricted input of the classroom; c) listening to recorded literary texts exposes students to new language; d) rich in multiple levels of meaning, literature provides students with a framework for sharing their feelings and opinions; e) literature could promote an elementary grasp of English to internalize vocabulary and grammar patterns.
Povey argues (1972, p. 187) that literature increases all language skills because it extends linguistic knowledge by giving evidence of extensive and subtle vocabulary usage, and complex and exact syntax. Though literature has always been associated with the teaching of language usage, we cannot disregard the advantage of using literature to teach language use, since it presents language in discourse in which the parameter of the setting and role relationship are well defined. In the light of this observation, we can confidently state that literature could contribute to knowledge of language use.
A second common argument against using literature is that it will contribute nothing towards promoting the student's academic or professional goals. However, it is clear that literature, by fostering an overall increase in reading proficiency, may well contribute to these goals. Widdowson (1979) and Gaies (1979), regard reading not as a reaction to a text, but as a dynamic interaction between writer and reader mediated through a text. This perspective of reading as interaction presupposes that a reader is willing to interact with a particular text, and for this reason, the motivational factors involved in reading assume critical importance. Therefore, by developing reading proficiency, literature can contribute to student's academic and occupational objectives.
Finally, critics of the use of literature object vehemently to literary texts that have a particular cultural perspective, which according to them could pose difficulties for the reader at a conceptual level. Marshall (1979) and Frye (1964), point out that prolonged exposure to literature would promote greater tolerance of cultural differences, for both the teacher and the student. Furthermore, an examination of a foreign culture through literature may well increase their understanding of that culture and might encourage them to view the target culture in a positive light.
This paper takes cognizance of yet another, more recent attack on the use of literature in FLL/SLL by Edmondson (1997), who argues that: a) ‘a special and specific function for literary texts in the business of language teaching and more importantly language learning seems not to obtain’ (ibid, p. 53); b) claims for a specific role for literature serve to provide a weak justification for learning modern languages; c) it would be beneficial to subject such extraneous goals and traditions to critical scrutiny and reject them consequently. The paper acknowledges the principal responses by Paran (2000), whose views assign a facilitating and an empowering role for literature within the enterprise of language learning envisaged as an educational endeavour.
Edmondson's attack on literature necessitates a revisit to the educational and social concerns expressed in the Introduction. The discussion there pointed out the urgency to use literary texts to reverse the culture of ignorance and illiteracy through a reading-the-world approach. In the light of this, it is argued that the educational and social developments of our students are inextricably linked to reading and writing. In this respect, the contaminating and disempowering role of course books need to be eliminated through the use of texts. Therefore, Edmondson’s disbelief in the power of texts is an ill-informed one. It is only through reading and provisional understanding of texts that our students can come to realize the transformative and the empowering influences of education. Such a realization is crucial to the functioning of civilized societies and democracies. As Rosenblatt (1995, p. 171), observes:
Education in this era of social transformation must serve both critical and constructive ends. On the one hand youth need the knowledge and the intellectual tools required for critical appraisal of ideals and social mechanisms -new and old. On the other hand, youth need to develop positive emotional drives that will quicken intellectual insight. Thus they will be enabled to free themselves from antisocial attitudes and will be impelled to achieve a world that will safeguard human values.
At this juncture it should be noted that safeguarding of human values demands an assimilation of ideas and attitudes, which could be accomplished through reading literary texts and writing about them. As argued in the Introduction, the need to use engaging and persuasive texts becomes an inevitable educational practice in the light of the problems discussed there. Furthermore, the educational and social benefits of using literature in the language classroom far outweigh the drawbacks and disadvantages pointed out by Edmondson. Yet again the objections of the literature-wary may fail to make a case. Conversely, they serve to reinforce the efficacy of literary texts in the educational practice of reading and writing (Carter and Long, 1991; Lazar, 1993; McRae, 1991; Rosenblatt, 1995).
The charges merely serve to reveal his aversion to functional competence in reading (as he has strongly discounted the use of written texts in language teaching) and a critical consciousness formed on the basis of ill-informed theoretical inquiry and interpretation. In sum, Edmondson’s criticism is a good example of reading and thinking at its worst. Ill-founded criticisms such as Edmondson’s cannot in any way detract from the values and merits of using literature as a language teaching resource in FLL/SLL.
On the contrary, they serve to situate literature in the heart of FLL/SLL. Edmondson's attack on the use of literature in language teaching uncovers numerous theoretical constructs, which underscore the role of imagination and creativity in language learning. The essentialist-non-essentialist dichotomy used by Edmondson renders his cognitivist stance untenable. I hasten to suggest that a rationalistic research approach to literature for the sake of quantifying the findings will serve no educational purpose. Objectifying the language of literature in order to support the use of literature in FLL/SLL settings will be ‘like polishing shoes with a nail file’ (van Lier in Candlin and Mercer, 2001, p. 90). It is argued that the efficacy of the role of literature in language teaching can only be understood hermeneutically and not rationalistically. In this regard, the dynamics of using literature texts in foreign/ second language education can be understood well only through longitudinal studies. Therefore, Edmondson’s opposition to the use of literature in language teaching on the grounds that it does not provide empirical justification is an ill-founded one. Moreover, the paper views his attack on literature as a blatant rejection of the educational values that accrue through the use of literature in language teaching.
Conclusion
Those of us who learned a foreign language through an exposure to its literature will always be willing to speak in support of its primacy and efficacy in foreign language teaching. This is to suggest that we have a deeper understanding of literature’s positive impact on our affective and emotional dimensions. By contrast, SLA research, which claims to account for second language learning, has not been able to provide a convincing explanation of affect in second language learning situations. In this respect there appears to be ‘a gap of significant proportions’ in SLA research (Shanahan, 1997, p. 166). It is argued that a focus on motivational factors necessitates a focus on subjective and inter-subjective experience in foreign/second language settings. In this regard, the prevalence of literary texts in FLL/SLL is better placed to examine the cultural, motivational and social dimensions that characterize/conceptualize our students’ attempts to read and write. Such an outcome can provide a basis for formulating research agendas aimed at providing a far more humane/beneficial understanding of SLA than the rationalistic-technological stance that hegamonizes our current educational policies and practices at the cost of denying voice and subjecthood to our students.
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