Exploring Literariness in Language Teaching*

Abstract

Literature and Literariness

Recent articles of The English Teacher bear witness to a reappraisal of the role of literature in language teaching (e.g. O'Sullivan, 1991; Sithamparam, 1991; Leong, 1991; Talif, 1992; Malachi, 1992; and McRae 1992). This reappraisal may be seen in the context of a wider exploration of the nature of literature, how it should be studied, and its relation to language teaching (see, for example, McRae 1991; Montgomery, Durant, Furniss and Mills, 1991; and Widdowson 1992). These works and others have offered many fresh insights to the teacher of English. However, there is still a danger that "literature" will be fenced off, that literary texts will still be regarded as different in kind from other texts. In this article I hope to show that by linking literary and non-literary texts, the relevance of literature to language teaching will be made all the more obvious.