The significance of poetry

Abstract

It will generally be accepted, wh atever one's pedagogic persuasion, that the business of language teaching is to develop in learners the ability to use language, to put linguistic forms to the service of meaning. My purpose in this paper is to argue that literature, and in particular poetry, has characteristics as a use of language which make it especially well qualified to assist in this enterprise. Its interpretation, I shall argue, Cas I have elsewhere, e.g. Widdowson 1979, 1984, 1986) naturally engages procedures for the realization of communicative significance immanent in linguistic forms. These realising procedures heing activities central to the process of language learning.