Integrating Language and Literature: A Text World Theory Approach

Abstract

In UK schools, there remains a compartmentalisation of English into ‘language’ and ‘literature’, evident in the ways that the subject is taught and examined and in the degrees to which teachers perceive themselves as being either a ‘language’ or a ‘literature’ teacher. In this paper, we suggest that an approach informed by cognitive linguistics and cognitive stylistics offers a wealth of affordances to the teacher who wishes to integrate aspects of linguistic and literary studies into their teaching. We argue that, in particular, the cognitive discourse grammar Text World Theory provides an accessible and usable set of pedagogical principles, and present two case studies of collaborative research with teachers in which they drew upon Text World Theory as a model for thinking about grammar teaching, literature teaching, lesson design, classroom talk and their own identity as a teacher of English. The data suggests that this approach may have positive benefits for students engaging in high-level linguistic analysis and the developing of responses to literature, and for teachers thinking about lesson and activity design.

Publication DOI: https://doi.org/10.7203/JLE.2.13842
Divisions: ?? 53981500Jl ??
College of Business and Social Sciences > School of Social Sciences & Humanities
Additional Information: Authors who publish with this journal agree to the following terms: Authors retain copyright and grant the journal right of first publication with the work simultaneously licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution License that allows others to share the work with an acknowledgement of the work's authorship and initial publication in this journal.
Publication ISSN: 2659-3149
Last Modified: 19 Feb 2024 08:23
Date Deposited: 07 Mar 2019 14:08
Full Text Link: https://discove ... print/10069711/
Related URLs: https://ojs.uv. ... icle/view/13842 (Publisher URL)
PURE Output Type: Article
Published Date: 2019-12-21
Accepted Date: 2019-03-05
Authors: Cushing, Ian
Giovanelli, Marcello (ORCID Profile 0000-0001-8470-3800)

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