6. Learning Language: Probing Possibilities in Literature-Eti Sharma

The art of communication has ever existed since time immemorial. People used to convey their messages in the early ages through symbols, signs paralanguage etc. Thus, the similar kinds of activities of people belonging to a particular clan became their own language. Since they all were used to those daily ways of communicating things, they were comfortable, and very much confident and certain of the successful transmission of their thoughts. Since then, time has seen enormous changes; the world is no more a shrunk or a secluded place for its inhabitants. The very word globalization makes it clear how it has become the need of the hour to get fit in the demand of today’s times which is proper communication, not with your people in your arbitrary signs and language, but with the people outside your clan and in a language which can be mutually understood.

When one thinks of learning any language (here, English), one at once turns to literature. Be it any genre, mode or form of literature, it possesses the power to bring great and unprecedented changes among its users. Literature is very much present even in the slightest of our mundane activities: it is in the newspaper one reads; it is in the television one watches; it’s even in the momentary conversations one has. But, most of the times we are ignorant of its presence and thus of its usages and possibilities. When it comes to teaching English language through literature and that too, to the non-native learners, that is an intelligent and indispensable idea; one has to take its shelter to solve the purpose. The only prerequisite the pedagogy demands is the keen observation and deep study of the users of literature. It, to a large extent, depends on the teacher to foresee the possibilities of the multiple ways to use it in the path of opening, easy and convenient avenues for emancipating the learners. This paper is an endeavor oriented towards probing the possibilities and promises literature offers.

Literature occupies a place in one’s routine activities. We need and thus make use of it frequently, often without realizing it. This is because our mother tongue is so deeply rooted in us that the knowledge of it comes obvious to us. But, to a non-native learner the same language, if not completely, is very much alien. He is faced with multiple hurdles in the way to learning language. Hindi language, for example, has a different syntax from the English language. For a small kid we can start with alphabetical teaching and so on. But the grownups need much more. There will and must be a difference in the approach. The adults require something instant. This very nature of today’s generation can be dealt only with thoughtful strategies. Adults will love to do the things which interest them. The teacher has to make sure that the interest of the student is maintained throughout, because many times we give up in the absence of interest even though it is an urgent need on our part.

What is that which can be a quick, intelligent and interesting way to learn English? What is that which can acquaint the non-native learner with the various usages of the language? It would not be an exaggeration to say that literature comprises all these features that possess the capability to turn a non-native learner into an understanding and well versed speaker of English language. Various literary genres have proved and been working as the wonderful tutor of the language. One can do wonders with language learning. The prerequisite is that the user or the learner should be aware enough and realize what he is reading. He should have a keen observation of word formation and different expressions in different situations and contexts. This observation and careful use of the literary material can be communicated to the students by the teacher. The teacher should take the responsibility to expose the students to various literary genres and material depending on the needs and grasping power of the students.

We have innumerable examples in literature that substantiate the very fact that literary works can and have been used in the language learning process. We have literature in everything or we can say everything is literature. Well, that’s not the point here to be discussed. The point is how literary genres are helping as a great force in language learning – from drama to poetry, to novellas or novel proper, to travelogues to short stories. And again in the distinctive literary modes like comic poetry, tragic poetry, heroic poetry, pastoral poetry, and so on, one certainly finds various kinds of techniques to put the English language into use according to the context or situation; it teaches the intensity and importance of a particular word compared to others. Whereas poetry with its various kinds and forms teaches with its serene, rhythmic and a particular tone based on the theme and subject, Novel and play teach with words woven into dialogues by various characters of different temperaments.

Poetry expresses the mood of the poet or the speaker in the poem. The mood may be happy describing beauty of things around the poet. The poet fetches the most intense and powerful words that can best describe his evaluation of the beauty. Here, one is reminded of Wordsworth, Milton, Cowley and many such poets who showed the magical use of the English language. One can start with Wordsworth whose works have aimed at articulating and celebrating the nature and the humble people and who has always tried ‘to bring my language near to the language of men”. His diction is simple while being equally attractive. He uses conceits, images, symbols, metaphors, similes, alliterations etc. The figurative language adds on to the beauty of the language-understanding of which takes the learner one more step forward to the proficiency in the language. In the same vein we can take up Milton who has flair to show the beauty even of the devil Satan. He marvelously describes the physical beauty of the serpent Satan. One also has the Indian writers writing with equal proficiency and ease. Bharti Mukherjee, Meena Alexander, Jhumpa Lahiri, Kiran Desai are some of the women diasporic Indian writers who have vented their diasporic thoughts, emotions and sensibilities in their works. Their works represent the plight of a woman that too being a part of an alien world. So, we have a variety of literary works that is capable of teaching learning and expressing in the English language. The woman diasporic writer, Meena Alexander has so flawlessly rendered her predicament being a female and an expatriate in a foreign land. The renderings are presented in strong yet simple words. In poems such as ‘After the Wedding’, ‘A Picture from My Street’, and ‘Her Mother's Words’ published in her collection House of a Thousand Doors, she explores the scenes and sounds that frighten and anger her. She declares:

Only a woman

Mute in this land

Can know:

Sight mutilates

Light cannot heal

At one point, in her autobiographical Fault Lines, she says: “Colonialism seemed intrinsic to the burden of English in India and I felt robbed of literacy of my own mother tongue."

Novels and plays sometimes prove simpler as they have complete sentences in the form of dialogues. These dialogues are spoken by different characters with different intentions. The diction used by the various characters opens a new world of the possibilities with language; it may be full of simple sentences, sometimes full of ambiguities, and sometimes it may carry figures of speech .These works may take us back and forth in time. Things which are spoken in the present tense may suddenly turn into the past and then to present again. Short stories are no less important than the other genres. From the story of Cinderella to Snow White, to Tom Sawyer and many more we come across a number of useful words as well as sentence constructions which further add to our language proficiency maintaining our interest at the same time.

Besides reading literature, one can watch and listen to literature too. Literature is not limited only to writing. One can listen to the English news that would allow the learner to be equally proficient in understanding pronunciation of the language. Similarly, one can watch plays, movies, etc., which would again enhance the critical and the creative capabilities of the learner. Watching will also help the learner to differentiate between the various verbal expressions with the help of the facial ones. Thus, he/she will also be able to connect with the literature.

Works cited

Alexander, Meena. House of a Thousand Doors. Washington DC: Three Continents Press, 1988.

__________. Fault Lines: A Memoir. New York: Feminist Press, 1993.

Milton, John. Paradise Lost: Book Four. England: S. Simons, 1667.

Wordsworth, William. Daffodils: Poems in Two Volumes. 1807.