Enhancing students' linguistic competence and cultural awareness through literature

Abstract EN

Language studies or linguistics is a science that tackles language from the perspective of structure, form, meaning and context, while literature is the art of the written composition, expressed through poetry, prose and theatre.

Language, Literature and Cultural Studies aims at enabling the student to build a deep understanding of a culture based on the language and literature of that culture.

Language and literature are both a very powerful expression tools and they offer insight into the building elements of a culture, the particular characteristics of a society or social group in terms of spirituality, intellect, emotion and physical environment.

These forms of expression are some of the strongest transmission channels of the cultural heritage of a society and researching those helps understand the drivers and mechanisms of the culture in question.

The purpose of this paper is to familiarize foreign language instructors with the effectiveness of using literature as a mean of bridging the cultural gap between students and the target language.

It will also discuss how teaching literature can help students become more effective communicators in the target language and at the same time making them appreciate other cultures different from their own.