Sense and subjectivity: Teaching literature from a sociocultural perspective
Issue: Vol 1 No. 2 (2014)
Journal: Language and Sociocultural Theory
Subject Areas: Writing and Composition Linguistics
DOI: 10.1558/lst.v1i2.179
Abstract:
The mainstream American undergraduate foreign language curriculum has received major criticism over the last few decades for its conventional separation between language and literature instruction. This unnatural schism is often underpinned by other curricular and theoretical divides such as the separation of language from knowledge and culture. In this view, language is more often than not taught as a repository of rules of thumb mostly concerned with sentence-level grammar. On the other hand, conventional literature instruction often capitalizes on encyclopedic knowledge as a prerequisite for proper interpretation of texts. The present article describes an alternative pedagogy of literature grounded in Sociocultural Theory and other research frameworks, which was implemented in an intermediate Spanish language course at an American university. Data pertaining to aspect and notions of language and texts will be discussed.
Author: María-del-Carmen Yáñez-Prieto
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