The Role of Literature in EFL Classroom from an EIL Perspective
Quite recently, there has been an accumulated body of beliefs and claims advocating the beneficial role of literature as a legitimate vehicle through which a foreign language can be taught. Though this argument seems to be alluring, it can be problematic and target of much criticism if an English as an International Language (EIL) perspective is adopted. This paper first elaborates on the advantages of employing literature in EFL classroom. Then it furthers to argue that from an EIL perspective the fact that literature is highly culturally loaded, can potentially pose a threat to the cultural integrity of the learners. The final argumentation is that if literature is aimed to be employed for teaching a foreign language, it should not be monocultural literature, but it should be in the form of multicultural and multinational literature, otherwise, becoming too preoccupied with monocultural literature, in this sense, will culminate into more linguistic imperialism, self-marginalization, self-alienation, cultural colonialization and hegemony.
Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak
Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak offers an overtly political challenge to the way we think about literature and culture. As she highlights the many legacies of colonialism, she re-defines the ethical horizons of contemporary critical thought. This volume focuses on her key theoretical concepts, intellectual context and critical reception, providing an accessible introduction to one of the most important thinkers of our time.
Stephen Morton introduces Spivak's crucial work through an analysis of such issues as: (1) methodology and Spivak's 'difficult' style; (2) Spivak's engagement with deconstruction; (3) Spivak's reflections on the representation of third world women, the concept of the 'subaltern' and the critique of western feminism; (4) Spivak's re-reading of Marx for the global capitalist era; and (5) Spivak's contribution to colonial discourse studies and postcolonial theory. Having examined the ways in which Spivak has transformed contemporary cultural theory, and in particular feminist and postcolonial thought, Morton concludes with a guide to reading Spivak's work and that of her critics. Essential for academics and students of literature or cultural studies, this volume is the ideal companion for a first encounter with Spivak's remarkable texts.
Early Missionaries and the Ethnolinguistic Factor During the ‘Invention of Tribalism’ in Zimbabwe
There is evidence from across the disciplines that at least some of the contemporary regional names of African tribes, dialects and languages are fairly recent inventions in historical terms. This article offers some evidence from Zimbabwe to show that missionary linguistic politics were an important factor in this process. The South African linguist Clement Doke was brought in to resolve conflicts about the orthography of Shona. His Report on the Unification of the Shona Dialects (1931) shows how the language politics of the Christian denominations, which were also the factions within the umbrella organization the Southern Rhodesia Missionary Conference, contributed quite significantly to the creation and promotion of Zezuru, Karanga and Manyika as the main groupings of dialects in the central area which Doke later accommodated in a unified orthography of a unified language that was given the name Shona. While vocabulary from Ndau was to be incorporated, words from the Korekore group in the north were to be discouraged, and Kalanga in the West was allowed to be subsumed under Ndebele. Writing about sixty years later, Ranger focusses more closely on the Manyika and takes his discussion to the 1940s, but he also mentions that the Rhodesian Front government of the 1960s and 1970s deliberately incited tribalism between the Shona and the Ndebele, while at the same time magnifying the differences between the regional divisions of the Shona, which were, in turn, played against one another as constituent clans. It would appear then that, for the indigenous Africans, the price of Christianity, Western education and a new perception of language unity was the creation of regional ethnic identities that were at least potentially antagonistic and open to political manipulation. Through many decades of rather unnecessary intellectual justification, and as a result of the collective colonial experience through the churches, the schools and the workplaces, these imposed identities, and the myths and sentiments that are associated with them, have become fixed in the collective mind of Africa, and the modern nation states of the continent now seem to be stuck with them. Missionaries played a very significant role in creating this scenario because they were mainly responsible for fixing the ethnolinguistic maps of the African colonies during the early phase of European occupation. To a significant degree, these maps have remained intact and have continued to influence African research scholarship.