Articulating the Relationship between Language, Literature, and Culture: Toward a New
Agenda for Foreign Language Teaching and Research
Author(s): Daniel Shanahan Source: The Modern Language Journal, Vol. 81, No. 2 (Summer, 1997), pp. 164-174 Published by: Wiley on behalf of the National Federation of Modern Language Teachers Associations Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/328784 . Accessed: 28/09/2014 17:36 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at . http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp . JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org. . Wiley and National Federation of Modern Language Teachers Associations are collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to The Modern Language Journal. http://www.jstor.org This content downloaded from 188.54.93.112 on Sun, 28 Sep 2014 17:36:21 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions Articulating the Relationship Between Language, Literature, and Culture: Toward a New Agenda for Foreign Language Teaching and Research DANIEL SHANAHAN Department of English Groupe HEC 78351 Jouy-en-Josas France Email: shanahan@gwsmtp.hec.fr Today, university teachers of foreign language (FL) in the U.S. face a pedagogical environ- ment in which two camps have developed, one basing its emphasis on communicative competence, the other on the importance of exposure to culture and, especially, literature. The reliance of the former on data from empirical studies often conflicts with the feelings of the latter that nonquantitative, intuitional aspects of language learning are essential to language acquisition. However, much research into the role of culture and literature in language learning remains to be done so that these feelings may be articulated and applied systematically to the development of materials, syllabi, and curricula. Areas in which such articulation might take place include: (a) the extent to which language itself is laden with affect that may be catalyzed as an inducement to learning; (b) the extent to which the affective element is embedded in the nature of symbolic expression-and thus metaphor, myth, and literature; (c) the specific ways in which language and literature may encode culture and have an affective impact on learners in the classroom. Research already exists that lends itself to a close examination of these areas. By taking advantage of that research, FL teaching in the U.S. could establish the importance of literature and culture in the language classroom in ways that would solidify its role in an environment fraught with transformation and change. IN AN EXCEPTIONALLY THOUGHTFUL AR- ticle published in the ADFL Bulletin in the Win- ter of 1993, Henning attempted to confront what may be one of the most pervasive and yet perennially unresolved dilemmas faced by uni- versity teachers of foreign language (FL) in the U.S. today.' The complexity of this dilemma is revealed by the difficulty one has in stating it in a satisfactory way. Formulated by a management professor, it might go something like "How can FL departments justify offering literature courses when our students can't speak the lan- guage well enough to carry on a routine set of business negotiations?" Formulated by a re- searcher in applied linguistics, the question might be "What does literature contribute to language learning when communicative com- petence must clearly be our goal?" Expressed by a member of a FL department whose degree work was in literary studies, one might hear any- thing from "Why can't these people see that literature is as central to language learning as management vocabulary and cloze tests?" to "Should I go on beating my head against this The Modern Language Journal, 81, ii (1997) 0026-7902/97/164-174 $1.50/0 ?1997 The Modern Language Journal This content downloaded from 188.54.93.112 on Sun, 28 Sep 2014 17:36:21 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions Daniel Shanahan 165 wall or take my brother's offer to join his real estate firm?"'2 All these questions are, of course, over- simplified characterizations of the more ex- treme positions in the debate that we are trying to describe.3 However, I doubt that anyone fa- miliar with the debate would fail to recognize the tendencies and biases that each characteri- zation represents. Moreover, it is revealing that all the questions asked in these characteriza- tions (except, perhaps, for the last) are rhetori- cal, for it is quite clear that the debate has at least the undercurrent of adversarial perspec- tives, well staked-out territory, and, as is often the case in cross-disciplinary disputes, conflict- ing premises. Those premises will be discussed later in this article. Professor Henning (1993) tried to address the problem as an administrator situated in a language and literature department, who is sympathetic to the concerns of all sides. She offered what one might call a functional- structural solution, asking what functional goals we have for students and what structure will allow them to reach those goals. She also argues, rightly, that culture must be woven into the curriculum and that literature is one fea- ture among many in the cultural domain that provides what one might call "added value" be- yond the level of language acquisition. "Through literature," she says, "students can develop a full range of linguistic and cognitive skills, cul- tural knowledge and sensitivity" (p. 24). In other words, her article suggests that one can offer a curriculum that satisfies the practical concerns held by some while serving "larger," more humanistically based purposes at the same time. The solutions offered in Henning's (1993) ar- ticle are important ones, and they highlight as- pects of the dilemma that are all too often ig- nored by both sides: the need for a clearly identifiable set of functional goals, for instance, and the need to recognize the added value that the study of literature-any literature--brings with it. However, if there is a weak point to Hen- ning's article, it is its failure to confront an underlying-and I suspect largely unexamined-- assumption about the means and ends of lan- guage learning, which is implied in much of today's discussion about the place of literature in the curriculum. For while she argues-again, rightly-that language teachers should relin- quish their defensive posture and adopt a more assertive one, she does not really challenge or recast the premise that has forced those teach- ers onto the defensive: the prevalent attitude in the U. S. that FL learning is fundamentally an exercise with utilitarian (i.e., career) goals and that those goals should be the predominating factor in the development of the language cur- riculum, especially with regard to methods and materials.4 Although it is rarely stated so baldly as this, no one in or close to the profession is likely to disagree that the environment sur- rounding the teaching of FL is heavy with such reductively utilitarian logic. Henning's article cites several illustrations of that logic at work: the fact that FL texts tend to take a touristic rather than a cultural approach; the fact that management (and, one should add in fairness, many other) departments are often at the fore- front of demands to increase students' commu- nicative skills; the fact that it is the changing global and economic situation (not the inher- ent value placed on language, literature, or cul- ture) that may allow language teachers to be- come more assertive about their importance. This last example, especially, underlines the shortcomings--let us say the incompleteness- of any functional-structural solution to the di- lemma faced by teachers of language and litera- ture today. Although it may be heartening to see that the climate of opinion seems to be changing in the favor of language learning, at least for the moment, few would be foolish enough to think that this climate reflects an enhanced appreciation of the importance of liberal education. Nor can one be justified in thinking that increased interest in language ac- quisition by those outside the language teach- ing profession makes a structural-functional approach to pedagogy the best or most com- plete-although it certainly does make it an im- portant tool in curriculum development. The danger of taking too much comfort from the favorably changing environment is that it may distract us from a question that is far more cen- tral to our own profession and to its premises: What is it that convinces us that literature has, in and of itself, something deeply significant to contribute to the process of language learning, whatever the ultimate goals of the learner may be, and how do we articulate that "something" in a way that establishes us on firm ground in the contemporary professional environment? Clearly, the problem of the contemporary professional environment is a formidable one. Not only do we operate in a profoundly util- itarian society, but the last 30 years have wit- nessed an explosion in research into language learning that is based largely on nonforeign lan- This content downloaded from 188.54.93.112 on Sun, 28 Sep 2014 17:36:21 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 166 The Modern Language Journal 81 (1997) guage teaching (i.e., English as a second lan- guage[ESL]) and premised on the belief that data-based research is the most valid means of developing and applying a language teaching rationale. In such an environment, the lan- guage and literature teacher may understanda- bly feel like an alien from another planet be- cause (a) he or she believes intuitively in the value of literature and (b) data-based rationales seem completely inapplicable to that intuition. With respect to the second of these points, we must, I think, temper any hopes of an easy rec- onciliation of views, at least in the short term: Data-based research on literature's impact just does not seem to work (though this might even- tually change if we establish firm ground upon which it could be conducted), and the premises of the two camps--data-based and literature-- are not likely to find many overt points of agree- ment without a further articulation of premises on the part of the latter.5 This brings me to the first point of my argument: Although the litera- ture camp (one should say, perhaps, literature- culture camp because the two, when taken to mean "the 'informingspirit' of a whole way of life" (Williams, 1982, p. 11), are often closely linked in pedagogical practice) may not yet be able to offer convincing data-based research for the im- portance of literature in the learning of a FL, I believe that it can do a better, more comprehen- sive, and more systematic job of explaining the underpinnings of the intuitive conviction that literature does have an important impact on de- veloping communicative competence in the lan- guage learner. Furthermore, we must not flinch at any of the implications of that articulation once it has been undertaken. One of the first impediments to be sur- mounted if we are to develop a clearly articu- lated rationale for the impact of literature on language learners is the fact that the intuitive nature of our belief in the value of literature for the language learner (which itself springs in no small part from the fact that much of litera- ture's impact takes place at a subliminal level) sometimes spills over into our notions of how that impact can be articulated. That is to say, in a utilitarian environment, we feel the need to resist the utilitarian tide, and I have heard many a good language teacher express resis- tance to explaining his or her intuitive convic- tion of literature's contribution to language learning in terms that are, or seem to them to be, counterintuitive. However, one must avoid confusing the issues here: The fact that intu- itions about the impact of literature do not seem at first glance reconcilable with the more empirically based premises of data-based re- search does not mean that one cannot develop a rationale for those intuitive beliefs, even a highly detailed and systematic one. As students of literature, we believe in the value of analyzing intuitive forms of knowledge; we should not hesi- tate to use those same analytical skills to deepen our understanding of so central an aspect of our own world view as literature's impact on the language learner. How do we begin? Where do we uncover a rationale in the endless volumes that have been written on the nature of literature and, if possi- ble, match it with what we have learned in the relatively recent past about the nature of lan- guage learning? I think we can build on two things: (a) our own personal encounters with literature and (b) a gap of significant propor- tions in current second language acquisition (SLA) research with respect to the role of af- fect. Let me address the first of these by re- counting a personal experience that, although it does not specifically reflect the language learning setting, illustrates all the same an im- portant aspect of the nature of literary encoun- ters and, especially, some of the cultural fea- tures they embody. Shortly after finishing graduate school, I had the opportunity to conduct a travel-study tour of the People's Republic of China. At the time, I was involved in studying ideological back- grounds to literature, especially Marxism, and was anxious to discover what the flavor of life might be like in a country where Marxist thought had been institutionalized. However, during the trip itself, Marxism fell into the background as I found myself submerged in the East-West/North-South encounter that a trip to China represented; the impact of the cultural experience far outweighed any ideological in- sights I might have had. Moreover, a month af- ter my return, I accepted a year-long Fulbright fellowship on the Dalmatian coast of Yugoslavia, and very quickly, my 2 weeks in China became a distant, dream-like memory. Five years later, while preparing for a course on literature across cultures, I picked up an English translation of Dream of Red Mansions, the classic 18th-century Chinese novel, and began to read the first chap- ter. Suddenly, after only a few paragraphs, I found myself awash in the sensations of my trip 5 years before: Here, after so long, was China, the mysterious, definitively non-Western entity that I had experienced so intensely but with which I had lost touch. It was like tasting This content downloaded from 188.54.93.112 on Sun, 28 Sep 2014 17:36:21 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions Daniel Shanahan 167 Proust's madeleinewith an almost hallucinogenic intensity. Yet almost immediately, I was brought up short by the logical inconsistency of these sensations. I had visited 20th-century, post- Mao, Marxist China; how could an 18th-century novel about aristocratic China trigger the flavor of that experience so intensely? There could be only one answer, of course: the power of literary language and the complex coding of culture that is embedded into it. The language of Dream of Red Mansions-a mere half dozen paragraphs in translation6-was acting much like a holo- graphic plate, reproducing vivid and complex imagery that had been encoded into the me- dium and that lay there dormant until acted upon by an appropriate agent-namely, the reader.7 This episode will appear to some as a digres- sion into unverifiable subjective experience, and I fear that I have little to say that will refute such objections, at least on their own terms. However, anyone who has enjoyed literature will understand that (a) literature is a powerful ve- hicle for all kinds of evocative material, (b) that material is released in a moment of catharsis when the reader is exposed to it, and (c) much literature carries with it strong undercurrents of the time and place in which it was written-- undercurrents that have just as much emotional impact when they are released as do such fea- tures of literary production as character, struc- ture, pacing, and the like. No one who has genu- inely exposed himself or herself to a work by Dickens can claim to be a stranger to the world of 19th-century Britain; no one who has read Dante can visit contemporary Italy without a sense of deja vu. These are aspects of the study of literature that we take for granted. However, because they involve experience that is heavily laden with emotion--"affect" in psychological parlance-and because that may make them suspect when scrutinized in a formalistic re- search setting, we often fail to see them for what they are: "data" -albeit of a different kind than the word normally implies-that is, clear evi- dence that there is a feature of the literary expe- rience that goes beyond aesthetics, at least in its more narrowly defined sense. Most language teachers who have been trained in literature feel that this "data" reflects the fact that litera- ture represents a means of powerfully energiz- ing the learning of language. Let us shift for a moment to the question of data-based research in SLA. Research in ap- plied linguistics has experienced an exponen- tial leap during the last 30 years, thanks to which we now know much more about the lan- guage learning process and are much better able to prepare teachers of language to do their jobs well. However, when one surveys the land- scape of language pedagogy through examina- tion of such features as textbooks designed for teacher training programs in language study, one is struck by a glaring gap in research about the extent to which the affective side of the lan- guage learning experience may be an inducement to the learner's success. It is true that such methods as Suggestopaedia and the Silent Way play to a greater or lesser extent on the positive emotional aspects of the learning process, but they are not infrequently relegated to the mar- gins of SLA theory: A glance at the index of almost any contemporary text for teacher train- ing under "affect" or "emotion" reveals entries such as "affective filter"8 or "emotional blocks to learning." In other words, there is a strong tendency to see the affective side of language learning primarily as an obstacle,9 and one finds almost no discussion of how language it- self may be laden with affect that can be turned to the learner's advantage. Yet the affective element of language clearly has a profound ability to engage us, to motivate us, even to move us deeply. We are riveted by certain kinds of utterances: a Martin Luther King booming "Free at last, free at last," a Robin Williams manically spewing out free- association one-liners, or a Richard Burton intoning "Burgen and water ... burgen and wa- ter." Such utterances combine music and mean- ing, sound and sense, to draw us into language and may be every bit as strong in their impact as any resistances associated with producing speech. Language is one of the means by which we engage in those most human of activities, expression, and communication; these activ- ities, by virtue of the fact that they are human, contain affective elements, whether they are un- dertaken in our native language or in another tongue. However, current SLA theory, particularly theory that springs from data-based research, rarely engages the question of how the positive features of linguistic affect may be brought to bear on language learning. There is, to be sure, no fault in the fact: Applied linguistics, by its very name, implies attention paid to the practi- cal aspects of language. Learning is one of them, and resistance to language learning looms large on the landscape, especially in the American environment. Whatever the vehicle, the squeaky wheels tend to attract more atten- This content downloaded from 188.54.93.112 on Sun, 28 Sep 2014 17:36:21 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 168 The Modern Language Journal 81 (1997) tion than those that spin effortlessly, and thus it is only natural that the learner's resistances leap to the forefront of the researcher's field of vision. Practical obstacles to language learning, how- ever, represent only half the story of the affec- tive aspects of the learning process, as research into first language acquisition is beginning to show (e.g., Ochs, 1986; Locke, 1995). We need to know much more about how to invoke the affec- tive domain as an inducement to learning, espe- cially with respect to the ways in which the affec- tive loading inherent in language can be turned to the learner's advantage. There is a need for a close and systematic look at this side of lan- guage learning and for the development of a model that would help us better understand how it works. Moreover, I would argue that such research, when combined with a systematic ar- ticulation of some of the intuitive beliefs of lan- guage teachers whose background is in litera- ture and culture, could form the basis of a new agenda for examining the relationship between language learning, literature, and culture. The premises upon which such an initiative would be based are quite simple: 1. There is a clear gap in current SLA theory and research about the affective features of lan- guage itself and the ways in which those fea- tures might become an inducement to language learning. 2. Literature is one of the forms of language that most calculatingly plays upon affect as an inducement to communication. 3. The cultural features of literature repre- sent a powerful merging of language, affect, and intercultural encounters and often provide the exposure to living language that a FL stu- dent lacks. We have, in reverse order, discussed the first two of these items; let's look at the third for a moment. In Context and Culture in Language Teach- ing, Kramsch (1993) has masterfully laid out some of the questions surrounding the ways in which one deals with the cultural and literary interface in the teaching of FL. Among her most valuable constructs is the notion of "third places"-a kind of neutral ground that the learner must discover for him or herself in order to arbitrate between the familiar world of the native tongue and the new world of the FL (chap. 8). This notion of "third places" illus- trates a pivot upon which the relationship of affect and culture turn. Imagine, for a moment, that languages and the cultures with which they are associated are planets, each with a gravita- tional pull. A learner is a kind of space traveler attempting to move from Planet A-his or her own native language and culture-to Planet B-a second or foreign language and culture. The gravitational pull of the home planet, A, is one of the many affective resistances that make "liftoff" and "planet escape" difficult. How- ever, as the motion of the tides on the earth demonstrates, other planetary bodies exert their gravitational influence even before a space traveler embarks, and that influence will draw the traveler towards Planet B from the outset, with increasing force as the final desti- nation is neared. In the case of many FL learners, Kramsch's "third places" might be seen as reflecting the period during the jour- ney when the gravitational pull of Planet B be- gins to become dominant, but at which point the learner begins to become conscious of the differing features of Planet B's gravity. At this stage, the pull of Planet B is potentially much greater than that of Planet A and can greatly facilitate the passage across the space that re- mains. However, at the same time, the new and perhaps very distinct features of Planet B's grav- itational pull begin to become apparent, and the traveler must begin to negotiate the differ- ences between A and B in a whole variety of ways: Planet B's relative mass may be smaller than that of Planet A, its density may be greater, its magnetic poles may be reversed, and it may or may not rotate on an axis. All of these factors may influence the nature of Planet B's gravita- tional pull, and those who attempt to inhabit its surface must learn to adjust to these influences. Language teachers who believe intuitively in the power of literature to influence language learning have tended to do so on the basis of their own travels across languages and cultures, many of which may have been undertaken be- cause of necessity, natural gifts, a barnstorming style, or coincidence of personal history. We have made our voyages and discovered in the process-as I did in my experience with Dream of Red Mansions--that literature is an instrument that gives us powerful readings about the na- ture of the gravitational field(s) that we have encountered or will encounter.10 However, if we are to make the most of the personal discovery that literature is one form of very valuable in- strumentation on these voyages, we need to know much more about the physics of cultural and linguistic gravitational pull and the way in which literature helps us to "read" it. Further- more, we especially need to know much more about the way in which the gravitational pull of This content downloaded from 188.54.93.112 on Sun, 28 Sep 2014 17:36:21 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions Daniel Shanahan 169 our students' destinations can be used to make their voyage easier and more productive. Work done by Kramsch (1993) and others" has greatly enhanced our appreciation of how certain parts of the voyage may be facilitated by increased awareness of the features of the desti- nation culture and their relation to language learning, allowing us to focus on such elements of intercultural encounters as resistance, the need for tolerance of ambiguity, and a compara- tive approach to values and mores. However, we lack an interpretive framework that will allow us to map out systematically such questions as what the affective nature of language is, how language allows literature to capitalize on the affective, how literature impacts the language learner, how that impact carries cultural coding along with affective impact, and so on. In other words, we need an initiative that will allow us to learn much more about affect, language, litera- ture, and culture and to use the findings gained therein to enhance the language learning expe- rience. Specialists in a variety of related fields will be more qualified than I to identify which specific areas of current research in first, second, and foreign language acquisition, discourse anal- ysis, literary theory and criticism, cross-cultural communication and anthropology-to name only the most obvious related fields-should play a role in the kind of initiative being pro- posed here. Moreover, I think we must be aware of what Langer (1957) calls "the obstacle of too much knowledge," that is, the inability to assemble an overview by virtue of "the so-called 'find- ings' of specialists in other fields, 'findings' that were not made with reference to our search- ings, and often leave the things that would be most important for us, unfound" (p. 218). How- ever, if the ultimate goal is kept in mind-the need to develop a systematic rationale for the intuitive faith that many of us place in the value of literature in the language learning experi- ence-it should be possible to distill the infor- mation that we need from the myriad sources at our disposal and to construct that ratidnale. There are several areas that seem to require close examination. First, there is much work to be done, even at the epistemological level, about the relationship between affect and lan- guage. Because of language's unique role as a vehicle for higher cognitive functions, which also makes it the ideal medium through which to view some of those functions, discussion of language tends to focus on the cognitive. As we have seen, this is no less true of the discussion of language learning. However, it is quite clear that language has roots deep in the affective dimension of the human experience,12 and the nature of that relationship is critical to our un- derstanding of the process of language learn- ing, especially with respect to the role of litera- ture and culture and to the way in which they can contribute to what we might call the "affec- tive magnet," that is, the power to turn affect into an inducement rather than an obstacle to learning. Some of the work currently being done in first language acquisition will help even out the balance of our interest in the cognitive and affective sides of language. However, much remains to be done to illuminate the extent to which the very nature of language itself is inher- ently laden with affect, even at such basic levels as morphology and the origins of language.13 Moreover, any discussion of the affective na- ture of the interaction between the language learner and the literature of the target language will, by necessity, have to take into account reader-response theory. Space travelers' en- counters with new worlds are made with the equipment that the travelers bring with them, and new worlds may require interpretive tools that not only measure things differently, but also measure things heretofore unmeasurable. If language teachers are to make such encoun- ters a successful part of the language learning experience, they must be aware not only that the new worlds may be strange to the learner, but that the learner's instrumentation may need recalibration if he or she is to understand the new environment fully. Any attempt to un- derstand systematically the role of affect in the language learning process will have to include a detailed examination of the learner's character and culture and all the variables implied therein.14 Second, if we are to probe deeply into the nature of literature's impact on the language learner, we also need to develop a model that takes us from language through myth, symbol- ism, and metaphor to the literary work itself. That is to say, we need to revivify a branch of theoretical discourse that contributed much to our understanding of these elements of human expression in the early and middle part of this century,1'5 but that seems to have borne little subsequent fruit in the rise of structuralist and postmodernist schools of literary criticism. There is much to be gleaned from the analytical methods that deal with the question of symbolic expression, such as the Freudian and Jungian schools, the work of anthropologists such as Sa- This content downloaded from 188.54.93.112 on Sun, 28 Sep 2014 17:36:21 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 170 The Modern Language Journal 81 (1997) pir and Malinowski, and even the structuralist anthropologists such as Levi-Strauss. However, we need a unified model that, without disput- ing the interpretation of one school or another, posits symbolic expression as a fundamentally human characteristic and traces its develop- ment from the emergence of language through the birth of myths, symbols, and metaphor to the literary work. There is an obvious intersec- tion here between the analysis of the role of affect in language and the development of such a model: Much of what myths, symbols, and metaphors do is rooted in the affective dimen- sion of the human experience. By developing a unified model of how symbolic expression moves from language to literature-and adding the assumption that, in some way, phylogeny re- capitulates ontogeny-we establish a means by which we can link what we discover about the affective nature of language with the way in which that affect is put to work in the creation of other forms of symbolic expression, such as the literary text. Third, points one and two are, of course, only two legs in a tripod that must engage, not sim- ply the gravitational impact of affect in lan- guage and artistic expression, but the added dimension of learning a FL, which turns stu- dents into voyagers across intercultural space. A working model of the relationship between lan- guage and culture that can be applied to the language learning experience is absolutely es- sential to any systematic articulation of the ways in which literature may contribute to that expe- rience. The relationship between culture and language is a topic with a curious and somewhat controversial history in the 20th-century, due in no small part to the fact that it is often associ- ated with the Sapir-Whorf analysis, which has itself swung in and out of favor since it began to emerge on the linguistic scene over a half cen- tury ago.16 The notion that language is instru- mental in both creating and expressing a cul- ture's "informing spirit" (Williams, 1982, p. 15) is as old as Herder and Vico, but a debate that hovers between cultural determinism and cul- tural relativism has sometimes made it difficult to focus on developing a model of how lan- guage may reflect culture and vice versa. How- ever, such a model will be essential to any sys- tematic examination of the ways in which literature may contribute to language learning, and its development will require us to identify more rigorously the specific discourse strate- gies, from grammatical nuances to rhetorical and metaphorical devices, that characterize cul- tures where the target language is spoken, as well as those that may distinguish one target language culture or subculture from another.17 Recent works8 in discourse analysis and sys- temic grammar suggests that the conceptualiza- tions that one needs to develop such a working model have begun to appear. Some of this work follows upon Kaplan's (1966) seminal "Cultural Thought Patterns in Intercultural Education," taking the notion that "the rhetorical structure of languages differs" (Kaplan, 1987, p. 9) and applying it to a much broader range of dis- course strategies. Other researchers take as their premise the notion that discourse emerges from a social context and that such features as register repertoires "are not identical across [language] communities" (Hasan & Perrett, 1994, p. 182): This approach then sets out to analyze the variety of ways in which the cultural context may influence, not merely the values and perceptions that one tries to express, but the ways in which they are expressed, even at the level of grammar and syntax. It remains to be seen whether or not the de- velopment of such a working model-or mod- els, because we are dealing here with an almost infinite number of languages, cultures, and subcultures--would then allow us to develop a template whereby one could use a culture's lin- guistic practices to identify its salient charac- teristics. Anyone who might squirm at the no- tion that this approach runs the risk of cultural determinism should remember Kramsch's (1993) remark, "Because of the multiplicity of meanings inherent in any stretch of speech ... any established 'culture' is alternately adopted and contested, adapted and ironicized, by the emergence of new meanings" (p. 67). By devel- oping a profile of the discourse strategies char- acteristic of a culture's use of its language, we should then be able to enter into a discussion about which kinds of literary texts serve as navi- gational instruments for students as they make their linguistic voyages across cultures. In the absence of discovering a DNA-like feature that allows us to identify cultural coding in litera- ture, a quest perhaps better left to the struc- tural anthropologists for the foreseeable future, such discussions could be expected to afford us a much-needed methodological basis upon which both to choose materials for students of language and to help new teachers bring their own intuitions to bear on the use of literature in their syllabi. Of course, the use of literature for FL stu- dents is, a priori, limited to the degree of profi- This content downloaded from 188.54.93.112 on Sun, 28 Sep 2014 17:36:21 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions Daniel Shanahan 171 ciency that they enjoy in the target language. Even with a model or models of the kind I have described here, one must decide such questions as "how much," "when," and "which literary works" before reaching the final goal of syllabi that maximize the potential that literature has to offer.19 However, all too often, the fact that not all literature is accessible to language learners at all proficiency levels provokes a ten- dency to fall back on the kind of reductively utilitarian logic mentioned at the opening of this article. If research into the areas described in this article begins with the premise that any use of literature must be based on the extent to which students' levels allow them access to a literary work, insights offered by that research could be correlated and combined with what we already know about how cultural values are em- bedded in such literary features as theme and narrative20 and with many of the topics that stu- dents of literature have discussed for centuries: the power of imagery, the "rhetoric" of the work of art, the ways in which the affective features of language qua language resonate with the affec- tive language and content of literature, and so on. One would also hope that these efforts would help us understand a great deal more about the relative potency that other kinds of cultural artifacts, such as television, popular music, and even commercial advertising, might have on the language learning experience.21 What is the likely outcome of all of this? No doubt there will be some adjusting of our intu- itive assumptions. There remain those scholars and teachers who like to think that literature is nothing less than the epitome of linguistic ex- pression and that we should be asked to do no more than expose students to the pinnacles of language and civilization that literature repre- sents. As one who would be happy to live a life in deep contemplation of great literary works with engaged students, I have no doubt that such expectations and the attitudes they repre- sent must be balanced by realistic assessments of how literature and communicative compe- tence complement one another; a systematic re- view of the premises upon which we base our belief in literature's value in the language learn- ing classroom will, no doubt, force us to temper our grandest dreams a bit. Our fundamental goal as language profes- sionals is to expand and enrich the lives of our students and the society in which they live. Our dedication to that goal, both at the personal and professional levels, has sustained our com- mitment to humanistic study even when it ex- ists, as is so often the case, on a bleakly unrecep- tive landscape. However, our dedication and commitment have not yet been complemented with a systematic rationale that would allow us, not only to defend ourselves against those who harbor the suspicion that the humanities are archaic and "soft," but to understand more fully the advantages that our perspective offers and to use those advantages to accomplish our goals more completely. Some empirically minded, "data-based" re- searchers truly understand the benefits of intu- itive thought and recognize that one cannot have quality science without intuition and sys- tem in a complementary relationship.22 In the humanities, there is no less need for such a bal- ance; nothing is likely to contribute more to research into language learning today than a deeper, more systematic understanding of how literature and culture can contribute to the learning of FL. There is every reason to believe that such an examination of our intuitions will confirm many of them, strengthen some, and eliminate a few to be sure. However, in the end, this process will provide us with both a vastly more effective and satisfying set of tools for do- ing the work that we have chosen and a great measure of the self-assurance and the respect from other colleagues that any professional wants and needs. To paraphrase Henning (1993), articulating the premises upon which foreign language and literature teaching and research are conducted is a task that only for- eign language and literature teachers and re- searchers can accomplish. They face, it is true, a profoundly difficult environment in which to operate. However, by taking the initiative and establishing the foundations for a solid and suc- cessful educational edifice, they not only shed an unnecessary defensiveness, but may actually achieve an uncommon consistency and reliabil- ity in an educational environment fraught with transformation and change. NOTES 1 Special thanks for their help in the preparation of this article go to Richard Kern, Thomas Miller, and Anthony Clark. The author would also like to ac- knowledge the Groupe HEC Faculty Research Pro- gram for the financial assistance it provided toward conducting bibliographical work related to the topics discussed herein. 2 The discussion of literature's role in the FL class- room is not a new one. Some of the overriding themes This content downloaded from 188.54.93.112 on Sun, 28 Sep 2014 17:36:21 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 172 The Modern Language Journal 81 (1997) of the discussion appear in Povey (1972), Seelye (1976), Marckwardt (1978), Widdowson (1982, 1990), and Kramsch (1993). 3 Moreover, the issues discussed herein are affected by a variety of other factors, such as administrative structures and prerogatives, proficiency standards, intercultural perspectives on literacy and the role of the text, and power relationships in multilingual contexts-each of which deserves an extended dis- cussion of its own not possible in an article-length treatment. The contrasts that exist between the two camps that are examined here have been chosen be- cause they highlight an ambiguity in the perspective of one camp. Resolution of that ambiguity could, I believe, greatly improve the efforts of language teachers and learners. Having taken that step, it would still remain necessary to study the points of intersection between the use of literature and culture in language learning and the many related issues that concern language teaching professionals. 4 For a program rationale that includes career ob- jectives but emphasizes a number of intermediate fac- tors in the logic of its design, see Shanahan (1993, pp. 23-24). 5 The tension between qualitative and quantitative perspectives is, in many respects, a reflection of the contrast between the "two modes of thought" dis- cussed in Bruner (1986). 6 I am aware that the problems that exist in the translation of literature are formidable and even greater for any generalization one might make about the cultural resonances that translated literature may produce. Steiner (1992) has addressed many of these problems, as has Barnstone (1993). However, I do not believe the fact that I was reading a translation dimin- ishes the validity of the experience. If this translation was able to act as a potent cultural "carrier" despite the attendant problems of lexical correspondences between languages, stylistic strategies, tone, and pac- ing, it supports the idea that there is great residual power in the way literature encodes culture's affective features. 7 The possibility that the formation of a hologram directly parallels the way in which memory is stored and recalled has been extensively explored by neuro- psychologist Karl Pribram (1971). Anthropologist Francis L. K. Hsu (1983) offers an interesting inter- pretation of the differences between Chinese and Western fiction, including Dream of Red Mansions, but does not discuss language per se. 8 A term formulated by Dulay and Burt (1977). 9 Another exception to be mentioned is discussion of "learner motivation," which may be "instrumen- tal" (emanate from occupational needs) or "integra- tive" (reflect a desire to enter into the culture of the target language group), or both; see, for example, Schumann (1975) or Brown (1987). This has been a fruitful area of research; however, it focuses on affec- tive contingencies of the learner and his or her spe- cific situation, not on how language itself may be affect-laden. 10 Obviously, there are limits to the "gravitational pull" metaphor, and it begins to break down here: Literature is much more than an instrument manu- factured for data read-out. It might be better com- pared to Superman's nemesis, "kryptonite": a piece of the planet towards which we are moving, charged with features of that planet's magnetic field-except, of course, with the power to enhance our ability to adjust, rather than to diminish it. 11 See, for example, Widdowson (1990), Valez (1986), Nostrand (1988), and Brogger (1992). 12 See, for example, Cassirer (1946), Sapir (1921), and Malinowski (1927). See also Shanahan (1995) and Ochs (1986). 13 The notion that morphology could contain affec- tive elements may violate the current notion that there is no inherent relationship between individual words and what they name, but I must confess that I have never been entirely satisfied with the descrip- tion of the relationship between words and what they represent as arbitrary-at least in any absolute way. Onomatopoeia may only account for a minuscule number of words in any language, but it is hard to imagine the emergence of language or even proto- language (see Bickerton, 1990) without some form of the human experience of the "thing" having been projected into its naming. Pinker (1994) implies this in his discussion of phonetic symbolism (p. 167), and it seems implicit in what Cassirer (1946) says about the origins of language. Of course, if language did, in its emerging phases, have some logic based on the relationship between perceiver and perceived, that logic may have long ago been buried under ages of symbolic transformation, some of that quite genu- inely arbitrary. However, to cite a parallel case, though the anatomy of primitive protozoans may have only the most distant of relationships to our own, no respectable anatomist could go about his or her daily work without acknowledging the biological links that exist between us and them. I think there is room for the same kind of acknowledgement in our own attitudes towards language, both in its earliest forms and in the form we know today. 14 Rosenblatt's (1995) long-lived study of the impor- tance of the reader in the teaching of literature re- mains a benchmark in reader-response criticism; chapter 8, "Emotion and Reason," is especially appli- cable to the question of how learners must cross boundaries that take them beyond the confines of their own cultural constructs. For other discussions of reader-response theory, see Iser (1978), Fish (1980), and Scholes's (1985) critique of Fish. 15 I am thinking here, for example, of the work of Cassirer (1946), Langer (1957), and Burke (1957), and also of parallel work done in other disciplines by an- thropologists, sociologists, and psychologists. For the latter, see Part 4 of Parsons, Shils, Naegele, and Pitts (1961). 16 Hoijer (1988) views Sapir-Whorf quite positively; Pinker (1994) almost dismisses Whorf out of hand; Montgomery (1986) tries to take a balanced approach. This content downloaded from 188.54.93.112 on Sun, 28 Sep 2014 17:36:21 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions Daniel Shanahan 173 17 For example, British English and American English differ sufficiently so that one would almost never try to use a literary text from one to amplify the learning of the other, except perhaps by way of con- trast. Yet at the same time, one would almost certainly expect to find similarities between them that reveal common differences from, say, the cultures where French is spoken. At an even deeper level of compara- tive analysis, it would be interesting to see how Cana- dian francophone literature, by virtue of its proximity to anglophone North American cultures, might re- veal tendencies that one would not find in continen- tal French literature. 18 See Purves (1988), Kramsch (1993, chap. 2), and Brogger (1992). Hassan and Perret (1994) and Martin (1989) represent examples of comparative analyses that have a base in systemic grammar. Bruner (1986) provides an interesting comparative analysis of two texts, one scientific and the other literary, using Todorov's (1978) "transformations" as a means of drawing out differences between the scientific argu- ment and the literary narrative. It would be interest- ing to see whether or not such an analysis might be done of literary texts across languages to tease out characteristic cultural differences. 19 For an attempt to answer some of these ques- tions, see Shanahan (1987). It is worth remarking in this context that most teachers of literature deal with relatively advanced students, and that the lion's share of SLA and ESL research focuses on earlier phases of the language learning experience; this has, in my ex- perience, contributed significantly to the difficulties experienced when the two camps try to talk to one another. 20 See Kramsch (1993), especially chapter 5. Merrill (1985) cites several studies of how narrative "sche- mata" are culture-specific, namely Carell (1983), Johnson (1981), and Steffensen and Joag-dev (1984). Kramsch (1993) cites further research on the same topic (p. 124). 21 My own experience is that these kinds of mate- rials, and others like them, have great usefulness, es- pecially with young learners. However, I fear that some texts overplay this card, trivializing the learning of language in their attempts to make it "real-world." 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