Didactiques
Volume 6, Numéro 2, Pages 22-33
2017-12-30

Teaching Fiction In An Efl Classroom: A Semiotic Approach

Auteurs : Ait-saada Mekioussa .

Résumé

Abstract: “Difficult; inaccessible; boring; what is the interest;...” these are, however, the recurring views of the students, who undertake studies of English as a foreign language, about studying literature. What they expect, in reality, from their studies is mainly to learn an appropriate use and usage of language as a linguistic tool for communication. Besides, these negative feelings seem to be much bred by the current observations about the place given to literary studies. Indeed, a less privileged place is left to the latter since modern society gives greater importance to scientific and technological advances for what it expects from education is to provide jobs to its learners, namely to make them autonomous persons. Still, this is also the purpose of literary studies but at another level. In fact, since the complexity of the literary text lies mainly in its literariness- or defining features- among which the mode(s) of manipulating language by writers and the multiple interpretations the literary text may arouse in the reader(s), learners have the possibility to consider the different embedded ways by which meaning(s) is(are) imparted; such an activity gives them the opportunity to identify the features of language in other contexts, not necessarily academic, and therefore makes them autonomous. This is because studying literature, on the other hand, teaches learners a literary methodology, viz. to read, to think, to analyse, and to write critically about works of fiction. Indeed, a close reading, like semiotics or the science that studies signs, is an activity that presupposes a decoding of the linguistic units, and the complexities of the text as a whole, so as to reach what is conveyed beyond the surface message. As a matter of fact, a particular attention is paid to the choice of words. In this way, semiotics contributes to reading in general, and how to teach reading literary texts in particular, since it considers the signification or the relationship between the signifier and the signified of the linguistic units. The competence acquired by learners in the field of literature can be beneficial in other instances, as when listening to a political discourse where they would have to delve underneath the actual message to extract the hidden ideology. Thus, what we would like to attempt to evince in this paper, via a semiotic analysis of a short story, “The Sisters” from the collection Dubliners, written by James Joyce, is the merits of semiotics for the interpretation of literary discourse and for enhancing learners’ literary competence, specifically thanks to A.J.Greimas’sactantial model as well as R.Barthes’s mythical signification or denotation versus connotation. Through Greimas’sactantial model, which was proposed after V.Propp and Lévi-Strauss, characters become ‘actants’ since they are identified in terms of how they act or what they do, with the aim of extracting their relationships and thus their functions in the story. These ‘actants’, in any story or fictional world, have their experiences at some place and time. In “The Sisters”, the descriptions of space and time seem to correlate with the actants’ functions; and by an attempt to extract the connoted meaning, following Barthes’s mythical signification, we could infer the actants’ inner motives, and attain, as a result, the multiple concealed meanings of the story that underlie the author’s rejection of the predominant ideology. The goal of a semiotic approach is, then, to describe the conditions of literary signification along Saussure’s model of linguistic signification, namely the relationship between what is implied in contrast to what is apparent. As Silverman states: “literature is a prime example of a second order signifying system since it builds upon language” . Résumé : “Difficult, inaccessible; boring; what is the interest…” these, are, however, the recurring views of most students, who undertake studies of English as a foreign language, about studying literature.What they expect, in reality, from their studies is mainly to learn anappropriate use and usage of language as a linguistic tool forcommunication. Besides, these negative feelings seem to be muchbred by the current observations about the place given to literarystudies. Indeed, a less privileged place is left to the latter sincemodern society gives greater importance to scientific andtechnological advances for what it expects from education is toprovide jobs to its learners, namely to make them autonomouspersons. Still, this is also the purpose of literary studies but at anotherlevel. In fact, since the complexity of the literary text lies mainly in itsliterariness- or defining features as Jakobson says- among which themode(s) of manipulating language by writers and the multipleinterpretations the literary text may arouse in the reader(s), learnershave the possibility to consider the different embedded ways bywhich meaning(s) is(are) imparted; such an activity gives them theopportunity to identify the features of language in other contexts, notnecessarily academic, and therefore makes them autonomous. This isbecause studying literature, on the other hand, teaches learners aliterary methodology, viz. to read, to think, to analyses, and towrite critically about works of fiction. This is what we would like to attempt to evince in this paper,via a semiotic analysis of a short story, ‘The Sisters’ from thecollection Dubliners, written by James Joyce. To find the story’stheme, we propose R.Barthes’s mythical signification or denotationversus connotation. Thus, we would like to see the merits of semioticsin the teaching of literature and for enhancing learners’ literarycompetence. But before that, we should clarify, first, what theteaching of literature and literary competence imply.

Mots clés

Mots clés: Texte littéraire, Lecture, Apprenant, EFL, Sémiotique. Key words: Literary text, Reading, Learner, EFL, Semiotics.