The Use of referential and representational texts in literature classes in ELT departments

ABSTRACT THE USE OF REFERENTIAL AND REPRESENTATIONAL TEXTS IN LITERATURE CLASSES IN ELT DEPARTMENTS Hülya ARSLAN Master Thesis, English Language Teaching Department Supervisor: AssC. Prof. Dr. Zuhal Akünal OKAN December 2001, 193 pages The purpose of the present study is lo help students of ELT Departments differentiate between the texts accepted as "referential" and "representational" and "literary" and "non-literary" and thus make them aware of the similarities and differences between them. For this purpose, two groups, a control and an experimental, were formed In the conirol group, canonical literary works (only canonical poetry) were utilized within the framework of content-based approach to teaching literature. However, the researcher utilized the same canonical literary works within the framework of language-based approach to literature for the experimental group. In addition to canonical poems (same poems that were used for the control group), some non-canonical or non-literary texts such as newspaper articles or advertisements (i.e. literature with a small "I"), having the same topic or same language structure found in the poems, were used together in this group. By means of two pre-tests and post-tests, two questionnaires and written comments of the students about the lessons, two approaches (language-based and content-based) were compared and literary competence of these students was assessed.In Chapter 1, after giving a brief background to the study and presenting the problems encountered in literature courses, the aim and scope of the study are clarified. Then, research questions and hypotheses are stated. Some terms that are important for this study are also defined. İn t lie first part of Chapter 2, discourses that are labelled as "literary" and "non-literary" are presented in a detailed way Within this framework, categorization of the texts as to "literary versus non-literary", "representational versus referential" and "canonical versus non-canonical" texts are given on the basis of "literariness" scale. Approaches to teaching literature are presented in the second part of Chapter 2. By putting the emphasis on Language-Based Approach to teaching literature, principles, techniques and activities, and roles of both teachers and students in these approaches are given. The final section of this chapter focuses on the contributions of Language- Based Approach to literature classes in the L2 context. Methodological information such as subjects and instrumentation is presented in Chapter 3. In addition, how data is collected from those subjects is explained in detail in this chapter. The analysis of the data collected is demonstrated in Chapter 4. This chapter shows the analysis of three instruments used in the study. These are tests, questionnaires, and written feedbacks. Last chapter deals with conclusions of the present study and then offers some suggestions for other researchers who want to conduct similar studies Key Words: Referential Texts, Representational Texts, Language-based Approach, Content-based Approach, Poetry, Literature with a small "I", Literary Competence