1.

2 Definition of Culture

Culture is a contested phenomenon which is understood to mean different

things by different groups. It is the integrated pattern of human knowledge, beliefs
and behavior. Culture embodies language, ideas, beliefs, customs, taboos, codes,
institutions, tools, techniques, and works of art and so on. Culture consists of shared
values, beliefs, knowledge, skills, and practices that underpin behavior by members
of a social group at a particular point in time. It is creative expression, skills,
traditional knowledge and resources. These include, craft and design, oral and written
history and literature, music, drama, dance, visual arts, celebrations, indigenous
knowledge of botanical properties and medicinal applications, architectural forms,
historic sites, and traditional technologies, traditional healing method, traditional
natural resource management, and patterns of social interaction that contribute to
group and individual welfare and identity. It is generally accepted that culture
embodies the way humans live with and treat others and how they develop or react to
changes in their environments.

That is to say, culture is a broad concept that embraces all the aspects of the
human life. It includes everything humans do or learn to do as members of society
and it shapes our thoughts and actions, and often does so with a ‘‘heavy hand ’’.
Furthermore, culture has several meanings and definitions, but two are the major
importance to both teachers and learners: Hearthstone or ‘‘little c culture’’ where
culture is defined as everything in human life, it is also called culture BBV 1, and
Olympian or ‘‘big C Culture’’ where culture is the best in human life restricted to the
elitists, it also called culture MLA2.

According to its complex nature, Nieto defines culture as a shape in meaning

term and it has not one stable definition, it can mean different things to different
people and in a different context. So it defined it by saying that culture is connected
to people with formal education and high social status like those who attend TV
shows with a high cultural format like The Oprah Winfrey Show. On the other side,

1
BBV: beliefs, behaviors, and values.
2
MLA : Music, literature, art.
some people reduced the meaning of the word culture to food, holidays, and lifestyle.
However, it is not restricted and limited to these meanings because culture is a
combination of beliefs, customs, shared values as well as history, geography, religion
and even language that a specific group of people in society share.

Other scholars in other fields like Yule defines it as a social knowledge that
unconsciously acquired by a group of individuals in the same society where they
share the same ideas, beliefs and even their way of life. In the same vein, Hinkel
claims that the term culture has many meanings that usually deal with forms of speech
acts, rhetorical structure of discourses, society rules and conventions and knowledge
constructs. Moreover, culture is highly required and important in our daily life
because of its big vitality and importance to understand the world’s view of life. For
this the US Senator Paul Simon said,

“Knowledge of the world’s languages and cultures is more vital than ever. In order
to compete in the global community, we must be able to communicate effectively
and to appreciate, understand, and be able to work in the framework of other
cultures”

In general, culture is not an easy issue to answer; it is a vast and a deep sea
according to the scene and the angle that we want to define culture through it.
However, due to our previous readings and researches, we can define it as a
framework of beliefs, expressive symbols, and values in term of which both
individuals and groups define and express their judgments and feelings in a
democratic and a free way.
1.3 Definition of Literature

Literature is understood in multiplicity of ways. It is a body of written and oral

works, like novels, poetry, or drama that use words to stimulate the imagination of
the reader and provide him with a unique vision of life. The underlying assumption
here is that a literature is a creative work, global form of expression that addresses
the spiritual, emotional, and intellectual humans concerns. However, this idea is from
the fourteenth century. In the eighteenth century literature was viewed as “well-
written books of an imaginative or creative kind”. Good literature is believed to
demonstrate artistry and to have the power to raise questions and debates, provides
new points of view, and let the reader expands his understanding to himself and to
the whole world and even refresh his spirit.

In addition, literature is any factual, imaginative, and creative work about

people’s life and what they have done in their lives as an achievement, what they have
believed, and what they have created or have thought to create. Moreover, literature
is a multitude of works that are written in; books, newspapers, or articles; spoken,
acted, filmed, sung, or drawn as cartoons on television. It should not portray one view
about the human life, for instance only the positive side of their life, literature should
portray different and real visions to the human life whether it was positive or negative
because this implies a balanced and a viable representation of the human life realities
and existence.

Furthermore, literature can be lived through different varieties of media; audio,

audiovisual, oral and so on. It is an expression of culture because it conveys the
human knowledge, beliefs and behaviors.

Now, after we defined literature as an art and as something creative, it is

vital define it in a linguistic method. Any method or approach towards using
literature in the classroom must take as a starting point the question: What is
literature?. The Macmillan English Dictionary and the Oxford Basic English
Documentary give the following definition:
 Literature/noun
1. Stories, poems, and plays especially those that are considered to have value as art
and not just entrainment3.

2. Books, plays, novels, and every piece of art that defines special society4

Many authors, critics and linguists have puzzled over what literature is. One
broader explanation of literature says that literary texts are products that reflect
different aspects of society. They are cultural documents which offer a deeper
understanding of a country or countries. Other linguists like Eagleton argue that there
is no inherent quality to a literary text that makes a literary text; rather it is the
interpretation that the reader gives to the text. This brings us back to the above
definition in the sense that literature is only literature if it is considered as an art.

For us, we can define it using different perspective but it keeps it in the same
vein, literature simply means anything that is written: time tables, dialogues,
textbooks, magazines, articles and so on. For instance if you want to buy a car or a
washing machine, you will probably want to see the literature about it, if you are a
doctor and you are going to do a specific surgery to a person, you will certainly see
the literature about that surgery, even in advertisements and marketing, because you
will not buy a product without having an idea about its literature. Furthermore, we
can divide literature and this large mass of materials into two groups, “informative
literature” and “imaginative literature”. Informative literature basically deals with
informations, facts, explanations, history, etc. it tells us about the real word. For
instance a biography about a famous person like the Prophet Mohammed or Nelson
Mandela, its main purpose is to give an idea and to offer knowledge to the reader. In
the other hand, imaginative literature aims to arouse thoughts, imaginations, and even

3
The Macmillan English Dictionary. (c) Macmillan Publishers Ltd. 2003
3
Oxford Basic English Dictionary, 3rd edition. Oxford University Press
feelings. Its author express hid ideas and feelings in an artistic way, he would not
convey facts but he basically try to communicate with the reader by his emotions and
feelings in a real artistic way and for the sake of the art in general.

1.4 Relationship Between Language and Culture

The phenomena of language and culture are deeply related by many ways.
Language, surely, is determined by culture, and culture, of course is determined by
language of course, this is based on the replicators that created both. So, we obviously
can claim that language and culture are bounded together by way or by another.

1.4.1 Culture Determines Language

Words determine thought, starting from this point and the saying of Paul
Valerie “words are the tombs of meanings”, anthropologists viewed that language
and its entire structures were entirely dependent on the cultural context in which they
existed. This was a logical extension of what is termed the Standard Social Science
Model, which sees the human mind is an indefinitely easily managed structure that is
capable of grasping and absorbing any sort of culture without force of genetic factors.
In the same vein, Verne Ray who is an anthropologist made an interesting study by
giving color samples to different American Indians tribes and asking them to give the
names of the colors. As a consequence of this experiment he concluded that the
spectrum we know as “green”, “red”, etc, was an arbitrary division and each culture
divided the spectrum separately. Thus, the divisions seen between colors are a
consequence of the language that they learn, and do not base on divisions in the
natural words. Moreover, a similar study been upheld to Eskimo words for “snow”
where they have almost more than twelve different terms for “snow”, which is not
many more than English speakers and should be expected since they live in a cold
climate.

Surely, there are ways in which culture does really determine language.
Obviously, the ancient Egyptians did not have words and names for televisions,
airplanes, phones, or laptops because simply they were not a part of their culture.
Also, uncivilized tribes in Latin America did not have knowledge to certain Roman
 laws such tribunes or praetors because simply it was not a part of their cultural
context.

Our culture does, sometimes, restrict what we can think about efficiently in our
own language. For example, some languages have only three color terms equivalent
to black, white and red; a native speaker of this language would have a difficult time
expressing the concept of “purple” efficiently. Some languages are also more
expressive about certain topics. For examples, it is commonly acknowledged that
Yiddish is a linguistic champion, with an amazing number of words referring to the
simpleminded5.

1.4.2 Language as a Part of Culture

Language is not just a medium for showing and introducing culture, but it is
surely a part of culture. And this is quite spread between immigrants in foreign
countries where they tend to speak their first language between each other even if
they feel comfortable using the foreign country’s language, because they always tend
to preserve their own legacy which includes customs, traditions and even language.

Linguistic differences are also seen as the mark of another culture, and may
create divisiveness among neighboring peoples or between different groups in the
same area. For instance, an issue is rising in America as speakers of standard
American English - which spoken by the whites and the educated category – observe
the growing number of speakers of Black English colloquial. Such issue raised a
debate of the necessity of teaching black English language in schools as soon as it
reflects a part of their “black culture”, In the same vein, in some African countries
there is a serious issue where we find the mother tongue which is completely different
from their official first language because their cultural life enforces them to stick to
their native mother tongue language. This issue is presented in almost all over the
world, where we find two or more groups live in the same country for centuries and

5
Steven Pinker, ‘’The Language Instinct’’, p.260.
 emanate from the same origins but they speak as different because of their cultural
context.

Generally, we can claim that language and culture are related in the way they
affect each other, that is to say, language and culture are two different sides for the
same coin and they both embody each other.

1.5 Relationship Between Literature and Culture

For centuries, people have felt the need to express their opinion on things and
events happening around them and to them. The necessity to demonstrate and locate
their own position in the spatial and temporal dimension naturally led to the process
of documenting these events in various forms and by various media. Such as
Imaginative literature, where it proved to be one of the most vital tools to reflect the
happenings around us. In the words of Philip Tew,

“[n]ovels both rationalize

and engage dialectically with our historical presence, playing their part,
however provisionally at times, in our understanding of and reflection upon
our lives”6

Moreover, as Tew argues,

“[t]o cite history and critical
longevity as offering the only correct or worthwhile arbitration of literary
worth […] is at best questionable and certainly naïve”7

Moreover, literature is seen as a reflection of culture and society, portraying

people’s ideas and dreams set in certain time and space frameworks in the most
creative and imaginary way. It both depicts and inspires social changes and is often
treated as a credible source of culture representation. Following Hanauer (2001) who
argues that literature is a valuable source of cultural knowledge precisely because it

6
Phillip Tew 2007. “The Contemporary British Novel”. p 07. London/New York: continuum.
7
Ibid. p15
does present a personal interpretation of the life and values as the author of the literary
work experiences them. Thus, Cruz argued that the study of literature allows people
to develop new ideas and ethical standpoints, and can help individuals to present
themselves as educated members of society, and he focused also on that studying
literature can be an enriching eye-opening experience.

Literature and culture are deeply interrelated and both have a strong
relationship with each other, because during years and from the oldest of time,
literature embodied culture; The first literary work in English language that conveys
cultural context about life is written in Old English which appeared in the early
Middle Age, and here we mean “Beowulf” from Anglo-Saxon literature, which is a
heroic epic poem. Usually, many writers would like to write about heroine epic poem
or stories in the Old English, telling the story of how the heroes destroyed the evil
and restored their glories. In the poem of Beowulf, the hero Beowulf himself had to
face many battles against the devils called Grendel, Grendel‟s mother, sea serpents,
and the dragon. Generally, this poem of Beowulf in Old English Literature displays
the actual history of ancient Old English period in which the heroes went to
campaigns, fighting against the devils or bad things and finally they returned home
with glories. In the 12th century, the new form of English known as Middle English
evolved which started the Middle English literature. There were three main categories
of Middle English literature: Religious, Courtly love, and Arthurian.

Moreover, the literature written in England during the Middle English period
reflects fairly accurately the changing fortunes of English. French language was best
understood by the upper classes, the books they read or listened to were in French.
The most significant Middle English writer was Geoffrey Chaucer who was also
called as the Father of English literature, and was widely considered as the greatest
English poet of the Middle ages, and wrote “The Canterbury Tales”, a collection of
stories in a frame story between1387 and 1400, giving the general prologue a
matchless portrait gallery of contemporary types, and constituting in the variety of
the tales a veritable anthology of medieval literature. In The Canterbury Tales, it
reflected diverse views of the church in England. After the Black Death, many people
 began to question the Church of England and even to start new monastic orders.
Several characters in the Canterbury Tales are religious figures, and the very setting
of the pilgrimage to Canterbury shows the religious and significant theme of the
cultural context in England.

Later in 1476, William Caxton introduced a printing press into England which
flourished the Renaissance literatures such as poetry, drama, and prose8. Furthermore,
English literature was spread by various writers in the early modern period of England
such as William Shakespeare who wrote “Hamlet”. Despite there were various writers
of English literature, the works of William Shakespeare influence throughout the
English-speaking world. Where this play conveyed many political issues between
nations that took place in Europe in that era, and this was a part of culture about that
era which is presented in a piece of literature.

In conclusion, literature stands as a voice that expresses values and beliefs, and
shows how people live as individual or as group with this perspective and how their
cultural life was and how their culture and traditions used to be; literature becomes
the ideal tool to show the learners the English speaking world and to lead them to
discover English culture. It gives a great opportunity for the learners to increase their
world knowledge as they will have access to a variety of contexts and, which is
undoubtly related to the target culture. By developing a literary knowledge of the
English language, learners will also understand and interact effectively with the
English people. They acquire effective linguistic and cultural competences because
the study of the target language is bound to its literature and fine arts.

8
William Caxton, “Baugh & Cable”, 2000, p. 195
 1.6 Interrelationship Between Culture and Language

Since 1990, different scholars have dealt with the relationship existing between
language and culture, Risarger (2006) considers culture as a component and a part
that cannot be separated from the language. She adds that linguistic production and
practice is a way of cultural practice since language is always embedded in culture.
Furthermore, Kramsch (1998) relates language to identity and culture. She believes
that there is a natural connection between speakers’ language and their identity, in
other words, by their accent and vocabulary, speakers are identified to a given speech
community. Speakers draw a social importance, pride, historical, and cultural unity
by using the same language as the group they belong to.

“Language pre-eminently embodies the values of

meaning of a culture, refers to cultural artifacts,

and signals people's cultural identity. Because of its

symbolic and transparent nature; language can

Stand alone and represents the rest of cultures phenomena”9

Moreover, Byram (1989) believes that language is a tool to express speakers’

knowledge and perception of the real world. Thus, it reflects their cultural concepts
and values. He goes on saying that one cannot learn a language and neglect its culture
because speaking a language means expressing its culture, exchanging a language
represents a particular way of thinking and living. Language is bound up with culture
in different ways. First, language expresses speakers’ beliefs, point of view, and
assumptions about the real world. People of the same social group utter words which
express common experiences. That’s why we can say they refer to facts, events, and
ideas that are shared and known among the same social group. In addition, the
languages people speak reflect their authors’ attitudes and beliefs. Second, members

9
Byram. Internet article, Teaching Culture in Second Language English Classroom, E-book of Intercultural
Competence 1989:41
 of the same social group create experience through language. They give meaning to
it through the way they interact with each other either with verbal aspects like «face-
to-face conversations”, speaking on the phone or non verbal ones such us gestures.
For instance, the way of sending an e-mail or message creates meaning that members
of the same society understand. Because language always embodies cultural reality.
Thirdly, language itself is seen as cultural value. In fact, it is through language that
speakers identify themselves as members of the same social group having the same
culture. Simply and conventionally, language is the mirror of any society which
reflects all the different characteristics such: social, political…etc. All in all, Kramsh
puts three links between language and culture which can be summarized as follows:

1. Language expresses cultural reality.

2. Language embodies cultural reality.
3. Language symbolizes cultural reality.

In the same vein, Fishman (1985) is the sociolinguistic who has dealt most with this
issue. He, as Kramsh, identifies three links between language and culture. First
language is an inseparable part of culture because it is impossible to ignore the place
of language in a given culture. Therefore, in order to understand a given culture, it is
crucial to study its language. The second links that he puts is that language reveals
the ways of thinking and norms which are common in the culture. Finally, he
considers “language as a symbolic” of culture. That is, language can be considered
as symbol to defend or attack, encourage or reject the culture associated with it.
Fishman summarizes the relationship between language and culture as follows:

a. Language as a part of culture.

b. Language as an index of culture.
c. Language as symbolic of culture10.

However, the most influential scholars dealing with this issue are Edward Sapir and
Benjamin Worlf. Their theory is known as “Sapir & Worlf theory”. According to
them, people from different cultures think differently and so they perceive the world

10
Risarger, “Language and Global Flow and Local Complexity”. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters
in a different way. Let’s back again to the Eskimo as an example. Their speakers’
view of the world is different from that of the English one because the word “snow”
has different meanings in their language.. For instance, snow on the grounds, snow
in the air…etc. However, there is only one meaning for the word “snow” in the
English language. So, language obliges the speech community to a restricted view of
the world.

1.7 Language, culture and thoughts. Language shapes the way we think

Is it true that the language I speak shapes our thoughts? People have been
asking this question for decades and decades. Linguists have been focusing and
paying special attention to it since the beginning of the 1940s, when Benjamin Lee
Whorf studied Hopi, a Native American language spoken in northeastern Arizona.
According to his studies, Whorf claimed that speakers of Hopi and speakers of
English see the world differently because of their language differences. What we have
learned is that the answer to this question is complicated. Somehow, it’s a chicken
and- egg question: Are you unable to think about things you don’t have words for, or
do you cannot find words for them because you don’t think about them? Part of the
problem is that there is more involved than just language and thought; there is also
culture. Our culture ,that is to say the beliefs, the traditions, lifestyle, habits, actions
and so on that we grasp from the people we live and interact with, shapes the way we
think, and also shapes the way we talk.
There’s a language called Guugu Yimithirr in Australia (spoken in North
Queensland Australia) that doesn’t have words like left and right or front and back.
They always describe directions using the Guugu Yimithirr words like east, west,
north and south. So, they would never say that a girl is playing in front of her home,
or that the school located in the left of the hospital; instead, they’d say the girl is
playing (for example) east of her home, and the school is located west of the hospital.
Undoubtly, they’d also think of the girl as standing east of the house, while an English
speaker would think of her as playing in front of the house. Has our language affected
our way of thinking? Or has a difference in cultural habits affected both our thoughts
and our language? Thus, most likely, the culture, the thought habits, and the language
 have all grown up together. The problem isn’t restricted to individual words, either.
In English, the grammatical form of the verb in a sentence shows whether it describes
a past or present event (Lisa plays vs. Lisa played). Hopi doesn’t require that; instead,
the forms of its verbs tell how the speaker came to know the information — so you
would use different forms for first-hand knowledge like (I’m thirsty) and generally
common information like (the sky is blue). English speakers might choose to include
information such as (I hear Lisa passed the test), but it’s not required. Whorf believed
that due to this difference, Hopi speakers and English speakers think about events
differently, with Hopi speakers focusing more on the source of the information and
English speakers focusing more on the time of the event.
Objects also are treated differently by the syntax of different languages. In
English, some nouns like (potato) are ‘countable’ and can be made in plural
(potatoes), while others are ‘mass’ and uncountable and can’t be made in plural like
the word rice, for instance you can say two cups of rice but you cannot say two rices).
Other languages, like Chinese, don’t make this distinction; instead, classifiers like
cup of are used for all nouns. Researchers are studying whether this property of the
language makes English speakers more aware of the distinction between individual
objects and substances11. So, it seems likely that language, thought, and culture form
three channels of a chain, with each one affecting the others.
Furthermore, it is possible to think about something even if we don’t have a
word for it. Take colors for example, there are an infinite number of different colors,
and we cannot find names for all of them. If you have a T-shirt painted by red and
slowly add yellow to it, drop by drop, it will very slowly change to a reddish orange,
then completely orange, then yellowish orange. Each drop will change the color very
slightly, but there is no one moment when it will stop being red and becoming orange.
The color spectrum is continuous. Our language, however, isn’t continuous. Our
language makes us break the color spectrum up into ‘red’, ‘orange’, and so on.
Moreover, the people of New Guinea have only two basic color terms in their
language — one for ‘dark’ colors including blue and green, and one for ‘light’ colors

Betty Birner, edited. “Does the Language I Speak Influence the Way I think”. Linguistic Society of America,
11

Washington DC 20036-6501
 including yellow and red. Their language breaks up the color spectrum differently
from ours. But that doesn’t necessarily mean that they cannot see the difference
between yellow and blue or the difference between red and yellow; studies have
shown that they can see different colors just as English speakers can and as we can.
So our language does not force us to see only what it gives us words for, but it
can affect how we put things into groups. One of the jobs of a child learning language
is to figure out which things are called by the same word. After learning that the
family’s St. Bernard is a dog, the child may see a cow and say dog, thinking that the
two things count as the same. Or the child may not realize that the neighbor’s
Dalmatian also counts as a dog. The child has to learn what range of objects is covered
by the word dog. We learn to group things that are similar and give them the same
label, but what counts as being similar enough to fall under a single label may vary
from language to language. That is to say, the influence of language isn’t so much on
what we can think about, but rather on how we break up reality into categories and
label them. And in this, our language and our thoughts are probably both greatly
influenced by our culture12.

1.8 Role of Literature in English Language Teaching

Literature is considered as a rich source of ‘authentic material’ because it

transfers two features in its written text: first one is ‘language in use,’ that is to say,
the use of linguistics by those who have mastered it into a fashion intended for native
speakers; and the second is an aesthetic representation of the spoken language which
is meant to represent language within a certain cultural context.
‘Language in use’ breaks through the stable nature that is established by the
textbooks grammar of a classroom. There is a common question that sooner or later
a student will ask: “where does the English we are learning come from?” Well, many
teachers will remain unsure in providing an answer. Though the textbook may contain
vocabulary structures that could lead the reader to think it is a British or an American
English, class instructors know better. Usually the object of study is a mixture of

12
Nunberg, Geoffrey. 1996. “Snowblind.” Natural Language and Linguistic Theory 14: p. 205–213.
 American and British English that is why it is better to answer that it is “random
English”, that is standardized artificially, and surely this is the origin of the conflict;
this random English (or nowhere English) is as neutral as it is primary situation. It
helps students to communicate with a native speaker but only at a ‘survival’ level that
is necessary to all this kind of students. Furthermore, it provides students with an
approach to the language fed by different linguistic uses of the language as well as
“forms and conventions of the written mode: […] irony, exposition, argument,
narration and so on” (Collie and Slater).
Literary works of some authors like Joseph Conrad or Mark Twain convey the
way language is spoken in certain geopolitical context. This provides students with a
good idea of how language is used for instance by Mississippi shore inhabitant in the
late nineteenth century13. It is necessary “to remind English students that these
reconstructions are no more than aesthetic recreations that in some cases include a
critical reflection about the use of language, and not direct samples of language from
those contexts”14. Paradoxically, literature as being something artificial and aesthetic
can be treated as a more authentic source and can inspire more authority both in the
use of language and in its enrichment than any other source or material like English
textbooks. Thus, this shall make students more eager to create and develop a
relationship with language since they are reconstructing it by themselves and for their
own learning purposes. However, according to Collie & Slater, language enrichment
is not limited to just this sort, because whether it is through an aesthetic reading or
through reading for the sake of getting information (efferent reading), it does provide
a rich context in which both individual and lexical items are made more memorable.
A literary text provides students with a clear idea about the syntactic structure of a
written text and how far the written language differs and shapes from the spoken one.
By getting used of the sentence function, the structure of a paragraph, and the section
or a chapter, their writing skill develops and their speech skill acquires fluency. For
sure, students expand their vocabulary and grammar base by being exposed and
attached to a literary text. That is to say, the process of “language enrichments”

13
Huck the protagonist of Mark Twain’s “The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn”
14
José Hérnandez Riwes Cruz, “The Role of Literature and Culture in English Language Teaching”.
http://relinguistica.azc.uam.mx/no007/no07_art09.htm
 automatically leads to the process cultural enrichments, because looking up for words
in a literary text leads for the looking up for cultural context.
In an efferent reading, the literary text provides a diversity of information
regarding the geographical location of the portrayed culture. Students, while reading
get an idea about the story and its historical background and even the way of life that
took place at that time. So they develop insight into the country that speaks the target
language they are learning. Moreover, an efferent reading emphasizes on the
descriptions of architecture, weather, dress, decoration, customs and traditions, and
other things, in which it helps the learners to enhance vocabulary, language, and a
cultural insight. This approach, however, presents two major disadvantages. First, an
efferent reading keeps the students alienated and separated from the text and
language, as it prevents what Robert Scholes described as an active environment of
creative experimentation at a personal and collective level15.

Second, cultural insight is very superficial according to the nature of the

efferent reading, since readers only follow the steps provided by the text itself, so
missing the intertextual references and sources that are provided by the literary work.
Well, in order to avoid this lack in the classroom, the efferent reading must be
connected and must have a relationship, and even supported by the virtues that are
offered by an aesthetic reading. Another institutional perspective, in the efferent
reading the text is viewed as a finished and closed object that a student can only
contemplate passively from the perspective established by the teacher. An aesthetic
reading helps the students make connection between the culture implied in the literary
text that they are dealing with and their own cultural context, and make them
recognize the influence that occurred to their identity due to the literary work and the
target language.

15
Translated. ZOREDA, Margaret Lee. 1999 “La lectura literaria como arte de performance: La teoría
transactional de Louise Rosenblatt y sus implicaciones pedagógicas” en Zavala, Lauro, comp. Y pres. Lecturas
simultáneas: la enseñanza de lengua y literatura con especial atención al cuento ultracorto. México: Universidad
Autónoma Metropolitana, Xochimilco.
1.9 Role of Culture in English Language Teaching

The debate about the necessity of teaching culture in English classroom and
whether or not it shall be included in a language classroom is from a long past; now
the discussion points to a matter of method16. Claire Kramsch argues that it is vital to
be aware that culture in language learning is not an expendable fifth skill; it is present
within the four language skills (writing, speaking, listening, and reading). She focuses
on the role of context and the circumstances about the right and the accurate use of
language. Culture offers ELT a vast view of perspectives that can be employed to
enhance and develop the dynamics of a class; even more undergraduate students, who
have already chosen a specific and a certain area of study and tackle specific case in
the field and may show hatred and ignorance to a teacher’s ambitious lesson plan if
they do not take it as relevant or important. So, it is important to know the methods
that a teacher might employ in order to avoid teaching meaningless symbols or
symbols to which the student gets the wrong meaning.
According to Dimitrios Thanasoulas, there exist two perspectives about culture
teaching and that have influenced and served as a model for integrating it to language
teaching:
One pertains to the transmission of factual, cultural information, Which consists
in statistical information, that is, institutional structures and other aspects of the
target civilization, highbrow information, i.e., immersion in literature and the
arts, and lowbrow information, which may focus on the customs, habits, and
folklore of everyday life.

16
We will use Claire Kramsh’s definition and observation as a starting point:
“Culture constitutes itself along three axes: the diachronic axis of time, the synchronic axis
of space, and the metaphoric axis of the imagination […]. Teaching culture means therefore
teaching not only how things are and have been, but how they could have been or how else
they could be. Neither history nor ethnography provide this imaginative leap that will
enable learners to imagine cultures different from their own […] culture is arbitrary, which
doesn't mean it is gratuitous, only that different events could have been recorded if other
people had had the power to record them, different patterns could have been identified,
these patterns in turn could have been differently enunciated; which is why culture, in order
to be legitimate, has always had to justify itself and cloak its laws in the mantle of what is
"right and just" rather than appear in the naked power of its arbitrariness.”
 All this perspective offers data unable to provoke a deep reflection in the class
and that restricts teachers and students to a mere awareness of the way of life of the
country where the information has been taken from, just like an efferent reading.
Since there is no other lead around this information that could direct students to
contextualize it, their idea of the culture of the country that produces this “amounts
to facts,” and could remain as sterile as if it came from a printed travel brochure. The
other perspective, which draws upon cross-cultural psychology or anthropology, “has
been to embed culture within an interpretive framework and establish connections,
namely, points of reference or departure, between one’s own and the target country”
(Thanasoulas). According to him, the boundaries of this approach are that it shall only
give learners cultural knowledge and it is up to them to integrate it with the
assumptions, beliefs, values and traditions of their own society. However, at this point
the role of the teacher can make a difference. As in an aesthetic reading, the teacher
needs to guide the students so that they can build their own interpretation using their
own experience, by their use of critical thinking and then comparing and contrasting
the two different cultures.
In order to avoid a similar approach to the application of Eco’s theory about
the open work, the teacher must Supply guidelines to prevent over interpretation and
make sure that their critical thinking is grounded. The students after they find the
influence of the target language culture by their own, they will develop a critical
reaction about how this culture has been transformed and adapted by their own, and
what their culture’s response has been. Afterward, the teaching of culture is seen as a
mean of ‘developing an awareness of the values and traditions of the people whose
language is being studied’17. Similarly, it empowers the values and traditions of the
students’ own culture, and so makes them more involved human beings in the society
and in the world. This can be viewed as an international cultural communication or
called as an intercultural communication, just what Byram emphasized on. According
to Michael Byram, the process of intercultural communication is a function of the
skills that are brought by the student to the interaction and to the field. These skills
can be divided into two categories: the first one is called Skills of interpretation and

17
Adopted from Byram’s “Teaching and Assessing Intercultural Communicative Competence”. 1997
 establishing relationships between aspects of the two cultures, which is about
analyzing data from both local and foreign and test the relationship between them.
While the second is called Skills of discovery and interaction. This basically is about
the discovery of new data and the interaction with other speakers. Most generally
these skills are gathered in the same category because most of the times the skills of
discovery come with the skills of interaction. However, in some cases and
circumstances Skills of discovery can be treated separately and independently from
skills of interaction.
At the end, the role of culture in ELT is considered as vital and crucial, since it
means the difference between occasional speakers who remain outsiders and speakers
who understand the meaning behind the words and the world that is constructed by
them. As Samovar, Porter, and Jain observe:
Culture and communication are inseparable because culture not only
dictates who talks to whom, about what, and how the communication
proceeds, it also helps to determine how people encode messages, the
meanings they have for messages, and the conditions and circumstances
under which various messages may or may not be sent, noticed, or
interpreted... Culture...is the foundation of communication.

So, they emphasized on the importance and the necessity of integrating culture
with communication and vice versa because they represent an inseparable chain that
bound each other, and they help people to encode and understand universal messages
and meanings under any circumstances and situations.

1.10 Aims & Importance of Teaching Literature in EFL classrooms18

Most people see literature as an important part of education. But not everyone
truly thinks why that is. The importance of teaching literature lies in its ability to
make students acquire many abilities and talents; in encouraging their critical reading,
growing analytical thinking, building valuable skills and raising the students' view to

18
For further information. Read more : http://www.ehow.com/info_12020375_objectives-teaching-
literature.html
the whole worlds. Nowadays, the importance of teaching literature in classrooms is
sometimes and somehow questioned. For instance anybody can wonder why bother
students read stories and spend their time reading books about events that are not even
true or real instead of just teaching them what they need to learn and push them to the
world. Surely, such questions may seem ridiculous to many educators and scholars.
Without any doubt literature is important, and for this it plays a crucial and a central
place in the curriculum. But we can’t imagine how literature has many ways to
contribute in the education of learners with different ages. Because education is
something than should be above and beyond passing just flat information; it’s also
about raising critical thinking skills and fostering our understanding of the world
around us.

Cultural Value
Stories were and still having massive and central importance to humans since its
beginning, as far as we can tell. Undisputedly, cultures were built on stories, tales,
histories, myths, legends, religious stories and so on. Before the students understand
and participate in the culture in which they belong and even grasp it, they first are
invited to read about the stories that consist many cultural aspects and hide plenty of
cultural contexts within them. However, not only books provide these kinds of
“culture-providing” stories. Even religious books and stories do, let’s take the Bible
as an example, many biblical words and terms are transformed and got involved
within literary works that have references and allusions to the Bible itself.

Expanding Horizons and overcoming the boundaries

Everyone and particularly students have a desire to go over the limit and know what’s
going on in the whole world. Hence, the ultimate goal behind teaching and educating
literature is to expose and show them ideas from other cultures, and to teach them and
give them illustrations about histories and peoples of other times and places because
literature is considered as an idealistic way to do this. Mark Twain’s marvelous piece of
literature “Huckleberry Finn”, for example, puts the students into the mind of a boy

(Huck) living in the south of the Mississippi during the 1800s, letting them experience
his life’s event and knowing the mentality that took place during that era. Through
this experience they learn what it was like to live in that time period, and how the
people talked and thought and acted. This shall make them experience more events
and live them inside their minds, thus they will acquire the ability and the desire of
knowing more, and even they will find themselves eager to go beyond the limits and
the boundaries in order to feed their greediness.

Vocabulary Building and Enhancing

Having a large amount of vocabulary is vital for several reasons. It enhances both
writing and reading abilities, but it also push the way for certain complex discourse.
Because the larger your vocabulary range is, the more deep discussions and important
topics you face and both inside and outside of the classroom. Furthermore, in their
speech, people tend to use a limited range of vocabulary, so the best way to become
exposed to new words is to read more and more.
Thus, reading and tackling literature is considered as important due to its necessity to
construct and enhance vocabulary. Because any novel automatically contains
diversity of words that students almost never seen or heard before, and through this
they will acquire them and grasp their meanings and add them to their dictionary.

Enhancing Writing Skills

Writing skills is one of the toughest skills in the language because it requires more
than linking words and sentences together, it needs a high level of grammar and
vocabulary and a professional mind to master the rules and apply them. However, the
best way to become a good writer is through reading. When you read you are being
deep inside the language. Students who tend to read seem to have more knowledge
of how language works, and consequently they will have an advantage when they
start to write a piece of writing. And this can be happen by reading literary works and
books because many old literary works teach and convey their writers’ way of writing
and their method of dealing with language. For instance when you read a work of
Charles Dickens like “Oliver Twist” or “Hard Times” you will have an idea about
how Dickens’ language and writing style is elegant and remarkably artistic, and this
let the student eager to write like him and use his writing style because he is motivated
by Dickens’ creativity and uniqueness of the language. As can be seen, literature
serves as valuable teachers where it teach students how to use a previous written
language to make a new own one in order to improve their writing skills and
communicate with the world.

Growing Critical Thinking

Education make the students a critical and a communicative part due to its means and
tools to make them valuable elements in the society, and one of these tools is the
ability to think critically through analyzing and criticizing everything around them.
Literature as a part of education serves this goal as well as many novels encourage
critical thinking and require an analytical way of thinking in order to understand and
grasp the hidden meaning within them, that is why teachers tend to select such novels
to be taught in the classroom in order to grow the critical thinking of their students
and make them a critical minds in the society because literature promote this kind of
activity where it teaches the students how to read a passage and then it makes him
wonder how and why it was written like that and in this way.
Building Reading Skills

Students must practice reading regularly to build and enhance their reading skills,
because reading literature provides another path for this simple practice. Particularly
during early-reading instruction, teachers who read literature in their class often aim
to help students hone these all-important skills.

Create Connections

Reading literature is not just learning about the literary works themselves, but also
about learning how the world works and runs. Through exploration of literature,
learners will have the chance to put themselves in others people’s life, giving them
the chance to see how people are connected and to make them better understand the
structural complex of the human relationship.

Create Students’ Enjoyment

Students can find enjoyment in reading literature and its works, that’s why the
teachers carefully select their literary works that will be taught in the classroom, to
show how these works are enjoyable for reading them. Because students don’t need
to read words that fill the pages in books, they need to live events and experience
facts through imagining and enjoying those works because this is the only way to
make them motivated to understand and continue reading these literary writings.

In a word, through the discovering of literature, students can immerse

themselves in the world more than any they have seen before, because literature
provides multiplicity of benefits for them, through conveying cultural context,
building their grammatical rules, enhancing their critical thinking, blending them in
the world and connecting them with societies. That is why the teaching of literature
in the EFL classes is considered as a high priority and with vital necessity.

2.3 Literature in T.E.S.L Programs

Literature was at first the principle vein of info for guiding in dialect classes in
the period of Grammar Translation Technique. Yet from that point forward it has
been dropped down the platform. Actually with the appearance of structuralism and
audio-lingual system, literature has been minimized and thusly dropped to the margin.
(Collie and Slater, 1987, p.2). Likewise in the period of Communicative Language
Teaching, literature was ignored and more consideration was given to dialogs and
discussions which were more functional and unmistakable in this present reality
circumstance. Maley (2001) contends that this state of mind toward literature is
because of a lack of observational examination affirming the criticalness of abstract
data for dialect classes. Maley asserts that what exists as of now as observational
 examination on composing and tongue instructing are certain to movement research
in little balances.

Taking regard of every one of these disapprovals, amidst the 1980s a few
professionals and dialect researchers revived literature as a dialect learning material
after a long extent of being disregarded. This can be affirmed by seeing such a variety
of distributions proclaiming the returning of literature in dialect classes (Maley,
1989). Moreover, connected etymology filled the arrival of literature for dialect
instructing. Publications which laid the red carpet for the arrival of literature were
productive right now including:

 Carter & Burton, 1982

 Maley & Mouldings, 1985
 Collie & Slater, 1987
 Bassnett & Grundy, 1993

2.3.1 For Literature in ESL

Literature is regarded as a crucial tool in language learning, scholars and researchers

in this field have cited many advantages for the use of literature in ESL programs.
What follows is a brief outline of what we can say the benefits and merits of literature
in ESL.

Authenticity
Literature is inherently authentic and provides authentic input for language learning
(Ghosn, 2002; Shrestha, 2008). According to Maley (1989) literature manages non-
trivial and serious things which are relevant. Authenticity is viewed as very important
in the literature in the ESL classes which naturally exist in the literary texts. In drama
for instance, authenticity can be seen in conversations, dialogues, feelings and
expressions that take place between the participants.

Motivations
Literary texts provide motivation for their authenticity and the meaningful context
that they offer to learners. Literature handles things that are fascinating in nature and
incorporates little of any uninteresting things (Maley, 1989a). Motivation is one of
the elements which guide learner to process. Motivation can be achieved if learners
are exposed to what they really want and what they really find their enjoyment in.
Studies revealed that students find their motivation and feel enjoyed when they are
exposed to literary texts for learning purposes.

Cultural Awareness
Literature was and still providing cultural and intercultural awareness (Van, 2009)
especially in the era of imperialism, industrialization and globalization). Nowadays,
since literature deals with universal concerns rather than individual ones, there is a
growing need to grab on literature as an input source in developing learners’ abilities.
Literature deals with universal concepts such as love, hatred, death, nature, traditions,
values and other elements that are common to all languages and cultures, where the
difference, similarity, and even the relationship between cultures and languages can
expand our understanding for life and enrich our vision to the whole world.

Intensive & Extensive Reading

Literature is considered as beneficial for both extensive and intensive reading

processes due to its diverse content, where novels and books are one of these.
Learners can be given a week just to experience a novel without broad use of word
reference or dictionary. A test like this shall increase their reading speed and help
them improving their meaning guessing in reading any literary text. Consequently
students will learn and get used of how to read a lot in a short period of time. For
instance some of us can enjoy their experience of reading his/her favorite book in a
short period of time and will see how this process is helpful for increasing self
extensive reading.
On the other hand, poetry can be the suitable literary genre for intensive reading,
because poetry requires deep and close analysis. Thus, the students are invited to read
 carefully and dig for hidden meanings in each stanza of a particular poem such as
allegories and metaphors in order to grasp the real meaning of that literary text.

Enhancing Language Skills

Similarly with the standards of CLT19 (Van, 2009), literature is rich of many
unlimited genres that can help in the development of the language four skills: writing,
speaking, listening and reading (Erkaya, 2005, Fitzgerald, 1993, Knight, 1993,
Latosi-Sawin, 1993, Nasr, 2001, Spack, 1985).
For writing purposes, literature provides a good floor for the practicing of writing.
For instance, us as Master students that literature is our field of study, having
complete a short story or a poem is very encouraging because we can make the end
of the story in our own words or even narrate it with a different point of view
according to our understanding and critical thinking, and this is a similar activity for
practicing writing fluently.
For speaking purposes, many events and occasions that take place in a poem, a book,
or a short story can be associated with our real life because many literary texts reveal
and depict social issues in their context. This helps the learners to practice warm
discussions about those raw topics in their foreign language classes. Let’s take the
example of our experience as 2nd Master students, we dealt with many Post Colonial
African novels that depict the issue of Colonialism and Imperialism of the Europeans
toward the native Africans, this helped us in creating debates, conversations, and even
intellectual discussions about the effect of colonization in the real life, thus it was
useful for growing our speaking abilities and for increasing our critical thinking
competence.
For listening purposes, students can be exposed to the audio extracts of stories and
poems or novels. Even the musical elements in poetry help the learners to hear and
focus on the rhythm and the intonation of native speakers that is provided within these
literary genres, and this will help them to develop their listening ability and make
them ready to indulge these new elements in their other skills.

19
Abb : Communicative Language Teaching
For reading purposes, as it is mentioned before, novel and poetry provide vital
opportunities for extensive and intensive reading, it help the students to practice their
skills of scanning, skimming, and digging in texts in order to find new ideas. In
general, reading in literature is a combination of reading for enjoyment and reading
for getting information.
All in all, literature fills the lacks in non-literary texts. In matter of fact, it is not only
helpful for language learning purposes in general, but it is useful also to accelerate
language learning in content-based instruction (Shang, 2006).

2.4 Aims & Importance of Teaching Culture in Literature

Language and culture are inextricably interrelated; the use of language is

meaningful only in a context, and culture is part of this context. One important
implication is that a language cannot be taught without its corresponding culture. The
relevance of culture to FL learning is highly put in evidence when it comes to teaching
literature. It has always been believed that literature offers an ideal means to teach
about people’s way of life. Literature can be studied for a better understanding of
culture as may culture be studied for a better understanding of literature. An effective
way to make foreign language literature accessible to learners is, thus, to introduce
them to the culture in which this literature was conceived.

Culture features in literary texts, also named culture specific elements or expressions,
have been an area of interest for many researchers. Gillian Lazar (1993) defined
culture features as “objects or products that exist in one society but not in another”
(p. 63).That is, culture features are specific to one culture and stands it out from
another one. She also identified the following as being the culture features that can
be found in
literary texts: proverbs ;idioms; formulaic expressions which embody culture values;
social structures; role and relationship; customs ; rituals; traditions ; festivals; beliefs;
values; superstitions; political, historic, and economic backgrounds; institutions;
taboos; metaphorical and connotative meanings; humour; representativeness to what
slice of culture or a society does a text refer and status of the written language in
different cultures (ibid, p. 66). This suggests that the load of culture specific elements
in literary texts unravels for foreign learners the hidden aspects of the target culture
such as cultural values and connotative meanings. These cultural aspects if well
invested by teachers can open a window to better insights on the target culture.
The study of culture features in literary texts promotes intercultural understanding.
Because classroom discussion about culture will be grounded in specific aspects
portrayed in particular literary contexts, using literary texts helps avoid culture
stereotyping that can occur when discussing cross–cultural differences (MacKay,
1986, p.193). Thinking critically about cross – cultural issues might increase learners’
intercultural awareness and open their perceptions to different worlds.
The particular importance of literary texts in promoting intercultural understanding
lies in the possibilities of reflective analysis of the culturally informative classroom
discussions. According to Alred, Byram and Fleming (2003) having an intercultural
experience through a direct encounter with native speakers is not enough to develop
a culture skill. Rather there must be reflection, analysis and action (p.7). Specified
elements for discussion involving literary texts are deemed more effective via the
study of literature because culture specific elements in literary texts are well
organized. That way they for drawing analogies and contrasts between different
cultures (MacKay, 1986, P.193). Hence, narrow and superficial understanding of the
target culture might be safely avoided via target discussions of culture features inside
EFL classrooms.
Furthermore, the study of culture features in literary texts endorses learners’
intercultural understanding. Analysis of culture features, other than opening a
window to others’ ways, makes learners reflect on their own. Colby and Lyon (2004)
argued that reflections on literary texts help learners identify with their own culture
(p. 24). It is getting learners to think about different cultures what actually pushes
them to think more critically about their own culture. Reflecting on culture features
in literary texts enhances learners’ critical thinking and acceptance of differences.
In general, teaching culture in literature considered as helpful to the learners
where its main aim is to provide them with aspects of life of certain societies in a
particular period of time, in the same vein it is beneficial for building their literary
skills and will make them eager to read more literary text due to the motivation that
provides for them.

2.5 Ways and Techniques of Teaching Culture in Literature

Culture is roughly defined as a set of values, beliefs, traditions and the lifestyle of
any society in the world. Hence, its relation to literature is very important as it is
mentioned before, where the teaching of literature would not be considered as
complete without the cultural aspect.

So, culture need to be taught in literature, and for this both teachers and learners are
invited to follow certain techniques, methods and approaches to teach it fluently and
effectively, each with his own style depending on the environmental structures that
surround him and his learners, some ones will base on some specific materials, others
will depend on their ability of making culture rightly reached by students, and some
others may base on the motivations that the students find in the literary texts…etc

2.5.1 Teaching, Learning, and Assessment Process

Showing literature and culture in a remote dialect connection relies on upon the status
of dialects and societies in a given society (e.g. in people in general instructive
framework). There is a wide assortment of status relating to remote dialects,
extending from less generally utilized and lesser taught dialects up to all the more
customarily taught dialects, for example, French, German and Spanish which will
affect the formal instructing of literature as a major aspect of a dialect learning
program.

2.5.2 The Right Use of Knowledge and Skills

Teachers should find a way to use their cultural language and their literary skills to
plant the cultural aspects in the students’ minds, where they need to have language
about the historical, social, political and cultural factors that led to the writing of the
specific piece of literature that they are dealing with, also they need to understand the
principal concepts of the literary theory that is embedded in the literary text itself
without forgetting their ability of identifying, describing, and discussing the others
and their works and the main tendencies in a certain period of foreign language
literature and its culture. Moreover, identifying and distinguishing the different
functions of literature throughout the ages application of theoretical tools for literary
analysis and use of theoretical terminology for the analysis of literary text are all
essential for teachers to have in order to facilitate culture understanding to learners
from all ages.

2.5.3 Teachers’ Educating and Training

Teachers of foreign language should be skillful and talented to teach culture in
literature. However, some are not, especially in the 3rd World countries where
teachers lack the adequate training to teach such highly important genres and they
don’t have the needed information about the target culture that is to be given to
learners. So, it is very vital and crucial for their educational systems to contact foreign
and developed educational systems in Europe and America to enhance the level of
their teachers’ competence through attending seminars, organizing and creating inter-
cultural debates, and contacting other universities and exchanging experience with
them.

2.5.4 Use of Genuine Materials

Teachers are invited to use a set of genuine materials such as audio, visual, and even
audio visual ones to give more authenticity to the teaching of culture in literature.
That may help both learners to better receive cultural aspects and understand the
cultural factors of any given literature, and help the teachers to transfer the cultural
context to learners in a good work condition.

2.5.5 Proverbs

Discussions of common and famous proverbs in a foreign literary text could make
the learners focus on how the proverbs are different from or similar to proverbs in
students’ local literature and how their historical and cultural background are
different from those they are dealing with.
 2.5.6 Using behavioral and disciplinary methods
Teaching culture is not an easy activity to perform, it requires for concentration and
a high level of professionalism from teachers, where they should urge the students to
act good in order to create the suitable atmosphere for the right process of learning;
through obligatory attendance of students, enhancement of students’ behavioral
activities, and fixing their wrong disciplinary habits…etc

2.6 Role of Culture in Literature20

Greenblatt in his article managed the thought of "culture" itself. All things
considered, the article is named "culture" and in the event that it will be the
fundamental center, the initial step is characterizing what "culture" really is. He calls
attention to that culture has not generally been a piece of abstract support and truth
be told, the very "idea" of "society" is moderately new. He cites the anthropologist
Edward B. Taylor as characterizing society as, "that mind boggling entire which
incorporates learning, conviction, craftsmanship, ethics, law, custom, and some other
abilities and propensities obtained by man as an individual from society" (437).
Greenblatt, instantly in the wake of giving us this definition, giving so as to
characterize culture ‘a not insignificant rundown of different ideas’ (some of which's
own definitions are doubted) barely abandons us with anything valuable by any
stretch of the imagination.

According to him, the first thing that we should consider is that “the concept
gestures toward what appear to be opposite things” (437) that is to say that we should
consider the effect of post structuralism on the new historicism in a way that we
expect opposites to appear somewhere. These opposite things are “constraint and
mobility”.

He manages “constraint” first. He clarifies that the ensemble of beliefs and

practices that form a given culture function as a pervasive technology of control, a

20
For more information on Greenblatt's article. Visit the link
(http://blogs.setonhill.edu/GretaCarroll/2009/04/defining_culture_and _its_role.html/
 set of limits within which social behavior must be contained, a repertoire of models
to which individuals must conform (437). He clarifies that these boundaries may be
substantial and are upheld in three ways: great ways like outcast, detainment in an
asylum shelter, reformatory bondage, or execution , more guiltless ways like a
deigning grin, giggling balanced between the pleasant and the wry, a little
measurement of liberal compassion bound with scorn, cool quiet, and ultimately there
is encouraging feedback through prizes for "good conduct" including "terrific" prizes
like fabulous respects, sparkling prizes and "the evidently humble" like a look of
appreciation, a deferential gesture, a couple expressions of appreciation.

Next, instead of moving to “mobility” aspect, Greenblatt continues dealing

with constraint but in relation to literature. He describes that literature has been a very
powerful entity in constraining and urging people to respect cultural boundaries. He
tells us that,

“Works in these genres often seem immensely important when they first appear,
but their power begins quickly to fade when the individuals to whom the works refer
begin to fade, and the evaporation of literary power continues when the models and
limits that the works articulate and enforced have themselves substantially
changed. The footnotes in modern editions of these works can give us the names and
dates that have been lost, but they cannot in themselves enable us to recover a sense
of the stakes that once gave readers pleasure and pain” (Greenblatt,437).

This is when culture comes in. Granted, we can never make ourselves completely
apart from our own position and even we cannot understand the position of someone
else, but the understanding of culture helps us to understand to some extent the
boundaries that existed before.

Greenblatt then provides us with a helpful arrangement of six questions which

he clarifies are the beginning stage for us to consider the culture behind a work. The
inquiries are the accompanying:

1. What sorts of behavior, what models of practice, does this work appear to uphold?
2. Why may readers at a specific time and place discover this work is convincing?
3. Are there any differences between the own values and the values implicit in the work
that you are reading?
4. On what social understanding does the work depend?
5. Whose freedom of thought or development may be obliged certainly or expressly by
this work?
6. What are the larger social structures with which these particular acts of praise
or blame might be connected?
However, Greenblatt likewise gives us a notice in the wake of giving us these starter
questions are very important and critical. In new historicism, we need to develop past
the work we are reading into the social connection and the cultural context, “but these
links cannot be a substitute for close reading” (438). So on the grounds that we have
to consider the above inquiries, does not mean we can disregard the content or the
suggestions that are embedded in the text.

Then he added that not just because culture influences literature means that
literature has no power, or that literature cannot influence culture back. He says that
cultural analysis then is not by definition an extrinsic analysis, as opposed to an
internal formal analysis of works of art. At the same time, cultural analysis must be
opposed on principle to the rigid distinction between that which is within a text and
that which lies outside. It is necessary to use whatever is available to construct a
vision of the ‘complex whole’ to which Tylor referred. And if an exploration of a
particular culture will lead to a heightened understanding of a work of literature
produced within that culture, so too a careful reading of a work of literature will lead
to a heightened understanding of the culture within which it was produced. The
organization of this volume makes it appear that the analysis of culture is the servant
of literary study, but in a liberal education broadly conceived it is literary study that
is the servant of cultural understanding (Greenblatt, 438).

Greenblatt now proceeds onward and utilizes Edmund Spenser's The Faerie
Queen as a segue in the middle of constraint and mobility. He takes note of the
imperatives present in it, as Spenser himself has said that the reason for his
incomprehensible sentiment epic… is to form a courteous fellow or honorable
individual in prudent and delicate control (439). Yet, in the meantime as Spenser says
this, his characters continually are "meandering a nonexistent scene" which signs to
mobility. Greenblatt clarifies this inconsistency in the middle of constraint and
mobility with the accompanying, and he argues that if society capacities as a structure
of points of confinement, it additionally works as the controller and underwriter of
development. For sure the breaking points are for all intents and purposes
unimportant without development; it is just through spontaneous creation, analyze,
and trade that social limits can be set up. Clearly, among distinctive societies there
will be incredible differing qualities in the proportion in the middle of versatility and
constraint. A few societies long for forcing a flat out request, an immaculate stasis,
yet even these, on the off chance that they are to duplicate themselves starting with
one era then onto the next, will need to submit themselves, however likely or
unwillingly, to some insignificant measure of development; alternately, a few
societies long for an outright mobility, a flawless flexibility, yet these too have
dependably been constrained, in light of a legitimate concern for survival, to
acknowledge a few cutoff points (439). This is likely one of Greenblatt's most
essential ideas. He clarifies the connection in the middle of constraint and mobility,
literature and culture. No matter how free people want to be, there will still have to
be some limits or general boundaries will ensue. Just as no matter how many
constraints some people may want, there will always have to be some mobility, for it
is impossible to completely eliminate it.

In another word, our cultures must find a ‘pleasant connection’ between constraint
and mobility, so that most people can be satisfactory committed. However, in spite
of the way that a kind of agreement has been made where the vast majority can deal
with their measure of freedom, works of art (in a particular literature) are still
composed about how the one deals with this compromise. Every individual may wish
for pretty much freedom, how does one deal with these cultural boundaries? That is
the thing that art investigates. At the end, he stated that the students need to study the
 relationship between constraint and mobility and between history and literature, and
not to try to separate them21.

2.7 Teaching and Developing Cultural Awareness and Culture Skills through
Literature

Culture features in literature have been an area of interest for many scholars and
researchers. Gillian Lazar defined culture features as “objects or products that exist in
one society but not in another” (1993. P. 63). It implies that culture features are
particular to one culture and stands it out from another. She likewise recognized the
accompanying similar to culture features that can be found in literary texts: proverbs
;idioms are stereotyped expressions which embody the values of culture, and social
structures; role and relationship; customs ; rituals; traditions ; festivals; beliefs; values;
superstitions are political, historic, and economic backgrounds, while institutions;
taboos; metaphorical and connotative meanings; humor are representativeness to what
piece of culture or a community does a text refer and status of the composed language
in various cultures (ibid, p. 66). This suggests that the charge of culture features explores
for foreign learners the hidden aspects of the target culture like cultural values and

21
For more information about this idea. Visit the following link
http://blogs.setonhill.edu/EricaGearhart/2009/04/some_suprise.html
suggestive implications. These cultural aspects if they are well transformed and invested
by teachers can pave the way to better insights on the target culture.
The investigation of culture features in literary texts advances intercultural
understanding. Since classroom examination about culture will be grounded in
particular angles depicted specifically in literary texts, utilizing literature maintains a
strategic distance from cultural stereotyping that can happen while talking about cross–
cultural contrasts (MacKay, 1986, p.193). A critical thinking and contemplating cross –
cultural matters may build learners' intercultural awareness and open their discernments
to various areas and worlds.
The specific significance of literary texts in advancing intercultural understanding
lies in the potential outcomes of intelligent investigation of the culturally informative
classroom talks. By, Byram and Fleming (2003) having an intercultural experience
through an immediate experience with local speakers is insufficient to build up a culture
skill. Maybe there must be reflection, analyses and action (p.7). Specified components
for exchange including literature are considered more powerful by means of the
investigation of literature since culture particular components in literary texts are very
much well-organized. That path they for drawing analogies and contrasts between
various cultures (MacKay, 1986, P.193). Thus, narrow and shallow comprehension of
the target culture may be securely avoided through target dialogs of culture features
inside EFL classrooms.
Examination of culture aspects makes learners consider their own. Colby and
Lyon (2004) contended that reflections on literary texts make learners identify and
recognize their own culture (p. 24). It is motivating learners to consider different cultures
what really pushes them to think critically about their own particular culture.
All in all, reflecting on culture features and aspects in literature improves learners'
critical thinking and acknowledgment of the differences.