TEXT-BASED APPROACHES

Formalism, Structuralism and Stylistics

INTRODUCTION

It is inevitable to appreciate sufficiently the potential of language for making literary communication successful and establishing discourse togetherness Detailed analysis of the language of the literary text helps the students to make meaningful interpretations or informed evaluation of it At the same time, students increase their general awareness and understanding of English EFL/ESL instructor should encourage the learners to draw on their knowledge of familiar grammatical, lexical, or discourse categories to make aesthetic judgments of the text as literary discourse

A text-based approach is quite a broad approach which covers a range of different goals and procedures in terms of the wide-ranging domains of language Generally speaking, text-based approach focuses on a closer integration of language and literature in the EFL/ESL classroom, since this assists the students in achieving their main aim which is to improve their competency of, and proficiency in English

Techniques and procedures IN TextBased Approaches in EFL/ESL Context

A text-based approach to using literature includes techniques and procedures which are concerned more directly with the study of the literary text itself Text-based approach provide the students with the tools they need to interpret a text and to make competent critical judgments of it The overall aim of text-based approach to using literature is to let the students derive the benefits of communicative and other activities for language improvement within the context of suitable works of literature

Textual types
Descriptive Type Text Used to

reader's attention create characters to set a mood or create an atmosphere to bring writing to life

engage

Narrative Type Text

The focus of the text is on a series of actions The complication usually involves the main characters often mirroring the complications in real life the focus is on the following characteristics: Plot: What is going to happen? Setting: Where will the story take place? When will the story take place? Characterization: Who are the main characters? What do they look like? Structure: How will the story begin? What will be the problem? How is the problem going to be resolved? Theme: What is the theme / message the writer is attempting to communicate? Resolution: There needs to be a resolution of the

Expository Type Text

It aims at explanation i.e. the cognitive analysis and subsequent syntheses of complex facts Example: An essay on "Rhetoric: What is it and why do we study it?"

Argumentative Text Type Based on the evaluation and the subsequent in answer to a problem. It refers to the reasons advanced for or against a matter

What is Formalism?
What is Literature if there is any literary theory ? An attempt may be to equate it to imaginative writing, fiction What include under the heading of literature? All Literature Difference between fact and fiction Difference between historical and artistic truth Can literature be defined in above terms? Can literature be defined in terms of writing or because of specific use of language? Role of Texture, Rhythm, Resonance, Abstract meaning

Developed in 1920, pejorative ,ended in 1930 Started from Moscow, Founded in 1915 the society for the study of poetic language Main Figure (Roman Jakobson 1896- 1982) founded Prague School The Russian Formalists were interested in the way that literary text achieve their effects and in establishing a scientific basis for the study of literature Human contents in literature did not possess for them any significance (emotions, ideas, action, reality) Formalists collapsed the distinction between form and content Monism (writer cipher, working or reworking with the available literary devices and conventions) Importance of formal devices used in the text Negligible importance of author, no poets or literary figures

Literature is the sum total of stylistic devices employed in it Stress on Literariness by means of Defamiliarization or Estrangement, by the application of linguistic elements, presented by Victor Shklovsky Formalists developed theory of narrative Distinguished between plot (refers to order and manner in which events are presented) and story (refers to chronological sequence) Boris Tomashevsky used the term motif to the smallest unit of plot Distinguished bound and free motifs Concerned with the conception of motive

For Formalists literary content is subordinate to its formal devices Literary content is dependent on external nonliterary assumptions called motivation Concept of literary devices give way to the concept of function in literature, dependent on purpose and genres Evolution of the theories of function and structure Prague school united Russian Formalism and Saussurean Linguistics Moved toward Structuralism

STRUCTURALISM

Began in language with the work of Ferdinand de Saussure (1857-1913) Human LANGUAGE is to be understood as a system of signs Main thesis: Linguistic signs are composed of two parts, a signifier-the word and a signified-the concept Language works simultaneously at two axes: Syntagmatic and Paradigmatic Sign relationships are arbitrary Focus on the notion of value

ROLE OF STYLISTICS IN UNDERSTANDING LITERATURE IN EFL/ESL CONTEXT

Being EFL/ESL learners, it is difficult to have a great deal of intuitive knowledge about linguistic appropriateness and correctness In EFL/ESL context, we are always at loss due to the lack of a relatively subtle stylistic awareness in relation to the general lack of linguistic responsiveness in its most fundamental forms Stylistics focuses on the literature as a product to the view that literary study is an analytical and exploratory act engaged in by both learner and instructor

USE OF STYLISTICS IN EFL/ESL CONTEXT

In EFL/ESL literature classroom, the aim is to equip the learners with a substantial and contextualized body of text, students gain familiarity with many features of the written language-the formation and function of sentences, the variety of possible structures, the different way of connecting ideas-which broaden and enrich their own reading, writing and analytical skills and Stylistics is one of them Stylistics involves the close study of the linguistic features of a text in order to arrive at an understanding of how the meanings of the text are transformed

Stylistics in EFL/ESL Literature Classroom

Stylistics has three main objectives:

firstly, to enable learners to make meaningful interpretation of the text itself secondly, to expand students knowledge and awareness of the language in general thirdly, to provide excellent language practice within the classroom situation

For a second language learner, stylistics has the advantage of exemplifying how specific linguistic forms function to convey particular messages through literary discourse Stylistic approach also offers a way of comparing different types of texts-literary or non-literary-in order to determine the factors responsible for this difference as well as how they accomplish different social functions as discourse The exploitation of language as a flexible tool to study literature can modify the EFL/ESL learners' orientation to the target itself as well as to literature, also the focus on language helps to improve students' understanding of a literary text

Apart from offering a distinct literary world which widens learners understanding of the linguistic arenas, it proffers opportunities for personal expression as well as reinforce learners knowledge of lexical and grammatical structure Linguistic enquiry proposes strategies to the EFL/ESL learners to analyse and interpret language as a product bearing self-contained reality in order to recognize not only how language is manipulated but also why Stylistics not only suggests analysis of the text at a surface level but at a deeper level and exploration into how the message is conveyed through overall structure and any special uses of language - rhythm, imagery, word choice, linguistic devices etc

Linguistic, Methodological and Motivational Force of Stylistic in EFL/ESL Context

Linguistically Stylistics, by exploiting a wide range of authentic texts, introduces the learners to a variety of types and difficulties of English language Methodologically, literary discourse sensitises learners to the processes of analysis and interpretation e.g. the use of schema, textual strategies, conflation of the levels of discourse and so on Motivationally, literary texts are prioritised by Stylistic approach to the understanding of the literary text to the possible extent within the scope of the text

Stylistics, in a broader sense, embraces a mode of internal survey into the language which considers the interaction between the product, the process and the effect of linguistic activity Stylistics is more interested in a literary work for what it does than for what it is Stylistic analysis can supply the learners a method/way whereby they can associate literary experience with their own of how language functions and so extend that experience to the text at hand and thereby arrive at an interpretation

Stylistic Domains

Individuality: mind style, literary perspective and point of view, unique properties exploited with reference to language Dialect and Register Time: Spatio-temporal order and atemporality Discourse: simple, complex Medium: speech/writing Participation: Monologue/Dialogue Inter and intralinguistic Context Levels of discourse: Discourse and discourse situation/Focalization Transitivity patterns Characterization General stylistic features: use of the type of verbs, adverbs, nouns, topographical features, simple and complex structures, figures of speech Levels of cohesion and coherence

THE END