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 Text-
Based 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
engage reader's attention
create characters
to set a mood or create an atmosphere
to bring writing to life
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 non-
literary 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
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