English Literature - Details

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A sense of beauty or an appreciation of artistic expression. For example, some poems might be aesthetically pleasing because of their sound, rhyme and rhythm and those poems might or might not be intellectually pleasing as well, depending on the meaning readers take from them. If we appreciate the way a text has been put together, for example, its language, its style, its tone, its use or adaptation of generic conventions etc., then we are possibly focusing on the aesthetic qualities of the text. If we focus on the meaning or the theme or the ideology or our reading of the text, then we are possibly focusing on the intellectual rather than the aesthetic. Of course, many would argue that the aesthetic and the intellectual are inseparable.

Aesthetic

A stance regarding a situation, idea, character, event or issue. For example, an author or audience may be supportive of, disinterested in or antagonistic towards something or someone.

Attitude

The act of discerning the quality and value of literary texts.

Appreciation

The group of readers, listeners or viewers that it is presumed the writer, or speaker is addressing. Audience includes students in the classroom, an individual, the wider community, review writers, critics and the implied audience.

Audience

The composer or originator of a work

Author

The environment in which a text is produced or received. Context can include the general social, historical and cultural conditions in which a text is produced or received or the specific features of its immediate environment. The term is also used to refer to the wording surrounding an unfamiliar word that a reader or listener uses to understand its meaning.

Context

An accepted practice that has developed over time and is generally used and understood, for example, the use of specific structural aspects of texts to develop meaning. Conventions often come to be associated with particular genres.

Convention

Critical perspectives are formed by students when they make meaning from literature by engaging with aspects of the text(s) studied. In the Literature ATAR course, students discuss and debate aspects of texts establishing their views through logical argument. Students reflect on the aesthetic qualities of literary texts, appreciate the power of language and inquire into the relationship between texts, authors, readers, audiences and contexts, thereby forming their own critical perspectives. Critical perspectives can be informed by various reading practices and strategies.

Critical Perspectives

Dialogue refers to the conversation between two characters in a literary text. Dialogue also refers to the process by which readers engage with texts over time. In the construction of meaning, readers are in a dialogue or conversation with the text.

Dialogue

In general terms, the term, ‘discourse’ refers to the language or terminology used in the discussion of a subject or field of study. For example, the terms defined in this glossary belong to a literary discourse; laws about contracts belong to a legal discourse; a debate about the best ways to remove a skin cancer belongs to a medical discourse. Within literary theory, it is argued that meaning is constructed through discourse, that nothing has any meaning outside of discourse. Every idea belongs to at least one discourse. For example, it would be reasonable to conclude that some ‘nature’ poems and their themes belong to a discourse of ecological sustainability. Discourses are involved in the distribution of social power, favouring different people, institutions and ideologies. For example, a discourse condoning the expansion of an empire favours some people and institutions over others; it has a very different language and ideology from a post-colonial discourse.

Discourse

Word groups or phrases used in a way that differs from the expected or everyday usage. They are used in a non-literal way for particular effect (for example, simile – ‘white as a sheet’; metaphor – ‘all the world’s a stage’; personification – ‘the wind grabbed at my clothes’).

Figurative Language

The shape and structure of texts (for example, poetry, novels, short stories, plays).

Forms of texts

Question (Definition)

Answer (Term)

The categories into which texts are grouped. The term has a complex history within literary theory and is often used to distinguish texts on the basis of their subject matter (for example, detective fiction, romance, science fiction, fantasy fiction), form and structure (for example, poetry, novels, short stories and plays). This Literature course uses the term ‘genre’ to mean prose fiction, poetry and drama. Within those genres are other genres or ‘sub-genres’ for example, in prose fiction: crime fiction, romance, or the epistolary novel

Genre

A system of attitudes, values, beliefs and assumptions.

Ideology

The process by which a reader makes connections between texts,

Intertextuality

The arrangement of identifiable repeated or corresponding elements in a text. These include patterns of repetition or similarity (for example, the repeated use of verbs at the beginning of each step in a recipe, or the repetition of a chorus after each verse in a song). The patterns may alternate (for example, the call and response pattern of some games, or the to and fro of a dialogue). Other patterns may contrast (for example, opposing viewpoints in a discussion, or contrasting patterns of imagery in a poem). The language patterns of a text contribute to the distinctive nature of its overall organisation and shape its meaning.

Language patterns

The features of language that support meaning, for example, sentence structure, noun group/phrase, vocabulary, punctuation, figurative language. Choices in language features and text structures together define a type of text and shape its meaning. These choices vary according to the purpose of a text, its subject matter, audience and mode or medium of production.

Language features

A system of attitudes, values, beliefs and assumptions.

Ideology

A story of events or experiences, real or imagined. In literary theory, narrative includes the story (what is narrated) and the genre (how it is narrated).

Narrative

A literary text is open to interpretation, can be read in a number of ways, depending on the reading strategies that readers are employing. In that sense, because different reading strategies are being used by different readers, then multiple readings of the text are possible. For example, if the reader focuses on the representation of gender in a text then that might lead the reader to certain conclusions, for example, the text is ‘politically incorrect (or correct)’, ‘feminist’ or ‘chauvinist’. Another reader might focus on class, for example, the class to which the writer belonged and the effects that had on the construction of the text

Multiple readings

A text that combines two or more communication modes (for example, print, image and spoken text, as in computer presentations). A multimodal literary text is a multimodal text that is predominantly literary, for example, in its use of literary conventions, its tone or its style. A multimodal literary text could also be referred to as a literary text that is multimodal, as per the definition of ‘multimodal’.

Multimodal text

Language patterns

Alienate the views of, or underplay the significance of groups or individuals.

Marginalise

The resources used in the production of texts, including the tools and materials used (for example, digital text and the computer

Medium

The various processes of communication: listening, speaking, reading/viewing and writing/creating. Modes are also used to refer to the semiotic (meaning-making) resources associated with these communicative processes, such as sound, print, image and gesture.

Mode

The resources used in the production of texts, including the tools and materials used (for example, digital text and the computer

Medium

Multiple readings

A story of events or experiences, real or imagined. In literary theory, narrative includes the story (what is narrated) and the genre (how it is narrated).

Narrative

The position or vantage-point from which the events of a story seem to be observed and narrated to the reader. For example, the narrator might take the role of first or third person

Narrative point of view

If writers or texts frequently represent an idea or group of people in a certain stereotypical way, then readers might assume that that’s the way things are. Readers might jump to the conclusion that it is ‘natural’ to think of that idea in that way or for that group of people to behave that way. For example, if Australians are always represented as uneducated and loudmouthed, then readers might come to expect those characteristics of Australians or Australian characters in texts. The characteristics have become ’naturalised’. When we assume that a particular representation of a group of people is ‘natural’ or that their behaviour is ‘natural’, we are probably forgetting that their behaviour is ‘cultural’, as in belonging to a particular culture or sub-culture and that there is nothing ‘natural’ about it at all. See Moon’s chapter on the culture/nature binary.

Naturalise

The way a reader/viewer is positioned by the author through the text, or how a particular ideology is embedded in a text, for example, a feminist perspective. The term ‘perspective’ may also refer to the ideological perspective, the values and attitudes that the reader brings to the text

Perspective

An opinion or viewpoint.

Point of view

Reading strategies (reading practices, ways of reading) are ways readers make meaning of texts. Often a reading strategy will involve paying attention to the context of the writer, the language of the text, its generic conventions and/or the context of the reader. When a reader focuses on the representation of gender, class, race/ethnicity, cultural identity or other representations or combinations of these representations, then the reader is employing a reading strategy.

Reading strategies/reading practices

In literary texts, words, phrases or sentences that re-present (as opposed to ‘reflect’) reality. For example, we can refer to the representation of ‘women’ in a text

Representation

Aspects of texts that resound or echo for readers.

Resonances

Language techniques used in argument to persuade audiences

Rhetorical devices

The variety of spoken and written English language in Australia used in more formal settings, such as for official or public purposes, and recorded in dictionaries, style guides and grammars. While it is always dynamic and evolving, it is recognised as the ‘common language’ of Australians.

Standard Australian English

The selection of stylistic features to achieve a particular effect.

Stylistic choices

The ways in which aspects of texts (such as words, sentences, images) are arranged and how they affect meaning. Style can distinguish the work of individual authors (for example, Jennings’ stories, Lawson’s poems), as well as the work of a particular period (for example, Elizabethan drama, nineteenth-century novels), or of a particular genre or type of text (for example, recipes, scientific articles,

Stylistic features

The ways in which information is organised in different types of texts

Text structure

Changing the form or shape of a text, for example, by appropriation, adaptation, subversion or parody.

Transformation

Classifications of texts according to the particular purposes they are designed to achieve. These distinctions are neither static nor discrete and particular texts can belong to more than one category.

Types of texts

In the literary sense, voice can be used to refer to the nature of the voice projected in a text, for example, ‘authorial voice’ in a work of prose fiction, the voice of a persona in a poem or the voice of a character in a monologue.

Voice

Texts whose primary purpose is to put forward a point of view and persuade a reader, viewer or listener. They form a significant part of modern communication in both print and digital environments. They include advertising, debates, arguments, discussions, polemics and essays and articles.

Persuasive Text

Texts whose primary purpose is to entertain or provoke thought through their imaginative use of literary elements. They are recognised for their form, style and artistic or aesthetic value. These texts include novels, traditional tales, poetry, stories, plays, fiction for young adults and children, including picture books, and multimodal texts such as film.

Imaginative Texts

Texts whose primary purpose is to engage the reader in a non-fictional or expository manner but which may digress from one subject to another and which are not as formal or methodical as analytical texts. Such texts could include feature articles and journals.

Discursive Texts

Texts whose primary purpose is to identify, examine and draw conclusions about the elements or components that make up other texts. Analytical texts develop an argument or consider or advance an interpretation. Examples of these texts include commentaries, essays in criticism, reflective or discursive responses and reviews.

Analytical Texts

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