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C H A P T E R฀ Making฀Textbook฀Languag e฀ More฀Literar y฀ Mike฀Murphy฀ INTRODUCTION฀ In this chapter, the nature of 'literary' or 'representational' language, as opposed to 'literal ' o r 'referential ' language , will first b e examined (se e Chow e t al., 1995). It will the n b e argue d tha t there is a need fo r a greate r us e o f mor e literary text s by Hong Kon g English teacher s because there is a shortage of such text s i n th e textbook s currentl y use d i n school s today . I t wil l the n b e shown ho w on e textbook-type tex t can be changed int o a more literary tex t relatively easily, and it will be suggested that if Hong Kong teachers try to do this themselve s thei r student s wil l benefi t an d thei r teachin g wil l b e mor e effective. Finally, a number of other literary texts created from the language of the textbook will be included. PRE-READING฀QUESTION S฀ Before reading the rest of this chapter, consider the following questions : 1. Wha t are the differences betwee n non-literary and literary texts? 2. Ca n you think of any examples of 'literary texts' that you have encountered in the past month? 3. D o you know of any English language textbook which contains a literary text? It woul d appea r t o be ver y difficult , i f no t impossible , t o distinguis h a clear set of criteria for classifying texts as literature (Wellek and Warren, 1949; 86฀Mik e฀Murphy฀ Eagleton, 1983 ; Lott, 1988). What is not so difficult, however , is to distinguish a certain kind of language which has been specially selecte d and formed i n a way that is different to the kind of language which is normally used in everyday real-life situation s (Moody , 1971) . Poetry is the most clearly distinguishabl e kind o f language i n this regard. Poets , in fact, d o violence to 'everyday' , o r 'conventional' language (Widdowson, 1983 ) in a consciously organized way. However, many writers, not only poets, deliberately choose and manipulate, transform an d intensify languag e and arrange it in a particular way not only to communicate o r t o inform , bu t t o produce a specia l effec t o n th e reader o r listener (Chapman , 1973) . In other words, the way th e language is used an d not just the language itself plays a very important role in conveying the meaning or th e message . Thi s i s wh y w e ofte n canno t paraphras e literar y language , especially poetry, without an essential part of the meaning being lost. Another ver y recognizabl e characteristi c o f literar y languag e i s the fac t that i t i s 'highl y connotative' . Th e reade r i s expecte d t o attribut e furthe r implications to the meaning of a word besides that which it primarily denote s (Wellek and Warren, 1949). That is why this kind of language is often referre d to as 'non-pragmatic' discourse, in which what is said is not meant to be always taken as literally true and the way something is put is as important as what is said. McRae (1991 ) call s thi s kin d o f languag e 'representational ' language . He calls more literal language, 'referential' language , in which the words used are rarel y mean t t o hav e a meanin g 'beyon d thei r limite d spher e o f litera l reference'. Yet another characteristic o f literary language is that it is not as easy t o predict what is likely to come next. When reading literal or referential language, understanding i s helped by knowledge about the topic, about the lexical set s into which words related to the topic fit, and even about the layout. That is to say knowledg e o f th e 'schemat a o f contextua l meaning ' (Firth , 1934) . Th e 'schemata' of literary texts however, are embedded within the texts themselves and are waiting t o be discovered b y the reader by employing 'interpretativ e procedures in a way which isn't required of you in...

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