Role of English Literature and Local Literature in English for Learning English as L2: A Comparative Study

Abstract

This study critically investigates the role that a text of English literature plays, in comparison with the local literary text in English, in the learning of English as a second language. To provide data for this research, two literary texts are selected and targeted: 'Araby' by James Joyce and 'The New Constitution' by Sadat Hassan Manto, a Pakistani short story writer. This analysis is based upon the perceptions and prescriptions of Piaget's world known schema theory which reads that to comprehend and understand a social product fully, the langue ( mental lexicon of a speech community) and socialization in the relevant culture are necessary. The analysis is conducted on the lexical, idiomatic, phrasal, clausal and the discourse levels.