Thoughts on Reading

[Harry Flashman]

The Benefits of Developing Cultural Contexts when Learning English

One of the most effective ways of communicating is a rhetorical device called allusion. In literature or art, allusion is the act of making an indirect reference to another usually famous work. Famous examples of allusion in literature include Ulysses by James Joyce, the retelling of the Homeric epic set in Dublin, and East of Eden by John Steinbeck, the retelling of the story of Genesis set in Northern California.

One of the most lucid examples in the field of philosophy is Machiavelli’s allusion to Plato’s Republic in his 16th century treatise on government, The Prince. Machiavelli composes a clear-cut evolution, mirroring Plato’s themes in true renaissant manner. I.e. using an ancient classical text as a means of creating something more modern and appropriate for the times in which it was written. To the reader of both, they become all the more enjoyable because you are already familiar with the references and thus both works benefit. Take for example the Star Wars saga; one would not truly appreciate the full power of the movies by watching one of the films on its own, out of context to the rest, whereas watching the full series in its entirety benefits the viewers’ experience immensely. It creates a synergy for the viewer, and this synergy is a form of intertextuality - a new or improved meaning derived from two or more related works.

Allusion can of course be much simpler than whole works of classic literature. Princess Diana was once referred to as “the face that launched a thousand tabloids”, an allusion to the beauty of Helen of Troy from the line in Marlowe’s Faust: “Is this the face that launched a thousand ships?” This nugget of wisdom by Warren Buffett, the Sage of Omaha, is another good example: “I violated the Noah rule: predicting rain doesn’t count; building arks does.” For allusions to work, the reader must have some shared cultural knowledge with the writer. Readers unfamiliar with these two famous references would be completely in the dark as to the true weight of the expression as an allusion.

That’s why allusion is such a useful device – it allows the writer to save a lot of effort by making a shortcut, appealing to our emotions and drawing on our ready stock of ideas and cultural knowledge. For the reader, intertextuality is the covert meaning that is construed through common connotations and cultural references. This concept was expounded by the philosopher and semiotician Roland Barthes who, in his famous essay on structuralist linguistics The Death of the Author, argued that the meaning of an artistic work does not reside in that work, but in the viewers.

This background of cultural literacy serves to enhance the enjoyment for the reader, which is why it’s good for students to read industriously and immerse themselves in diverse aspects of western culture so that previously odd references in writing or other media like TV, films and the internet, eventually link-up like a jigsaw into a much clearer cultural ‘landscape’. The dividend of this strategy is again synergetic; the more you learn, the easier it gets. Increased knowledge, especially in the form of increased cultural exposure, creates exponentially beneficial returns to language learners. In other words, it’s a learning curve which is surmounted by students developing a technique for predicting what formerly obscure words and references mean by their context and roots.

Through the pursuit of knowledge, the interdependency of all things cultural and linguistic becomes all the more obvious. Thus by developing cultural literacy students learn all the more quickly, inherently and relevantly and the complexities and ambiguities of meaning become clearer for the student through intertextuality.

Intertextuality gives things relevance - here and now relevance, and if graded correctly to the students’ level, it facilitates our teaching through a modernist context. The student draws his / her own conclusions without having to be explicitly taught things, meaning the teacher’s job is made a lot easier – they already know where you’re coming from. Students infer things for themselves. Students learn to enjoy a behaviour that makes them more independent learners. They can learn to stand on their own two feet didactically which means if they ever go to live and work in a foreign country, adjustment will be a lot easier for them.

Reading is the best but most time-consuming way for anyone to acquire his / her own English language bank of references. I always recommend that students should start by reading things that they themselves are interested in, not something that they have heard is supposed to be of quality. From time to time, students imbued with a kind of campy anglophilia tell me they want to read things like Jane Austen. Now, although I’m impressed with their enthusiasm and I believe that students should have a high degree of freedom to read whatever they want, I'm tempted to tell them - don't bother, it’s outdated and irrelevant and you would really struggle with it. Why not read a biography of someone famous instead, like Princess Diana or George Washington?

I’m not saying that the classics should be ignored. On the contrary, it can be highly beneficial to read them. I just believe that you cannot run before you can walk and the extrinsic value of so called ‘great works’ of literature can be overstated. If we use the earlier analogy of culture being a landscape, let’s say an 18th century watercolour depicting an Austenian English countryside, then we could extend this metaphor by adding the great works of literature as monuments – perhaps even ozymandian obelisks, dotted across the landscape. My point is that it can be extremely counterproductive for a student of English to get bogged down in Charles *beep* when they could be reading something more relevant and fun like Wikipedia - which allows readers to explore intertextuality to the maximum.

This is the beauty of the internet. We are living in a new renaissance where the internet has created a proliferation of knowledge on a scale not seen since Da Vinci’s days. The impact is akin to the effect of Gutenberg’s printing press on 15th century Europe, bringing about the end of the Middle Ages. It is now possible for a huge proportion of the world’s population to access the western cannon of literature and a bottomless pit of scientific, historical and cultural information. As a human race we are moving out of the era of specialisation into a new dawn; the era of the amateur, the dilettante, Nietzsche’s Überman.

The benefits of the internet for learning are obvious. In his excellent essay On Education, Bertrand Russell states the importance of students directing their own learning with a high degree of freedom. According to Russell, in this way “they learn twice as quickly with only half the effort.” If students lead themselves in learning, they build up their own cultural universe perceived from their own point of view which means they are true to themselves and being true to oneself, according to Plato, is an essential quality if one is to lead a fulfilling life. Through extensive reading, students build up a network of principles and experiences with which to make inferences, conclusions and judgements just as a child perceives and learns to reason; i.e. primarily alone, via experience and analogy. This is the true essence of learning.

“Employ your time in improving yourself by other men's writings, so that you shall gain easily what others have laboured hard for.” Socrates

[Harry Flashman]

Charles 'D*ckens' is censored by the software - f*cking ridiculous

[Macavity]

Yawn....

Have you thought of posting this tosh on the literature forum? They'll love you over there!

[woodcutter]

We all know that students who read a lot on their own are good students. How can we make them do it though? A bit of high-falutin' talk about allusion is not enough.

[Harry Flashman]

I don't think you should "make them" read anything but reading has to be presented in an intriguing way so students want to do it. That means moving them away from the notion that they should read fiction.

For example, the other week a Chinese friend of mine told me she hated reading and that she had tried but could never concentrate long enough to finish a book, even Chinese books. She just felt that it's boring and as a businessperson had better things to do with her time.

I guessed she was picking up the wrong kind of books so I gave a copy of Richard Branson's Screw it Let's Do it which is a mini autobiography written for kids and she loved it. She read it in a day and now she wants more stuff like that.

Half the time, the texts students are going to are beyond their level and away from their area of interest, which can be really counter productive.

[woodcutter]

Yes, provide some interesting new material, that's about the best you can do. If this post had kicked off with a list of great new things to introduce to Chinese students, I would have given it an A+. Got any more? (no more Mr.Branson though please)

[Harry Flashman]

Well everyone's different so it would be wrong to prescribe a reading list. The blanket approach doesn't work here.

Not sure what you have against Branson though - if students want inspiration they need look no further.

[Eric18]

Perhaps literature is considered passe by many of today's youth and young ESL teachers, but dismissing the value of quality literature is a terrible mistake.

I often settle for introducing short excerpts of great writers or using vivid quotations to gently encourage reading literature. I also use a conversation exercise to gauge student reading habits - and urge them to see themselves as consumers of print material from email and blogs to magazines and books. Focusing on popular culture, linking back to personal experiences, and asking for suggestions sometimes unlocks surprising student responses. I also ask, on the first day of mandatory writing courses, about their favorite authors or books on the attendance sheet. Later I will ask what they dislike about reading, the worst book they were forced to read, and how the world would be different without literature.

These small steps sometimes work. Reading remains a solitary pleasure, but can also create close, even passionate relationships.

"Read the best books first, or you may not have a chance to read them at all." Henry David Thoreau

So be good to yourself, find your reading pleasure, and indulge it today!

[woodcutter]

Chinese kids are being brainwashed into thinking their future is really really bright, and Mr.Branson will be the same kind of thing. Most of them have a hard shock a-coming.

We need a bit of a blanket approach I guess, since we won't exactly be able to judge what will be perfect for each and every individual. A list of good websites, books that often go over well, unusual resources available in China would be great.

[Eric18]

Websites devoted to literature are almost endless.
So your request is very reasonable, but it's also complicated by China's electronic wall. If they block Charles *beep* and my little website, how can people outside of China make sensible suggestions? Can they access the Library of Congress? The Voice of America? The Shakespeare Portal?

We can, however, as English teachers continue to promote cultural literacy and the habit of deep reading.

As for the future, it remains uncertain and open. Engineers and scientists provide new ways of living, sharing, thinking, and being every day. As someone who can't accurately predict what I'll be thinking about on Saturday afternoon, I've always found absolute predication about the future a bit peculiar. Young people should have high expectations; realism seems like a difficult concept in a time of rapid, evolutionary change.

Or so it seems to me.

[Harry Flashman]

Eric, I like your methods – I’m going to follow your lead on that.

Internet censorship is a fairly minor issue because ultimately nothing is blocked – it’s the Internet. You can use tunnels, mirror sites and proxy servers to access banned sites, etc.

The websites you mentioned are all available in China. The ‘blocked’ content here is mainly smut and foreign websites discussing internal political issues. Wikipedia and the BBC have recently been unblocked so things are definitely changing for the better.

Chinese kids are being brainwashed into thinking their future is really really bright, and Mr.Branson will be the same kind of thing. Most of them have a hard shock a-coming.

Not sure what you are alluding to here Woodcutter. Is this a prophecy of doom?

[Eric18]

Harry - Thanks for the compliment and the information.

The unblocking of Wikipedia and the BBC counts as real progress. More voice, more perspectives, and more information help people make more rational, evidence-based decisions.

A useful primer for English language students in China might be the New York Public Library's "Books of the Century" which provides a concise 1-page summary of 200 or so classic 20th century books (fiction and non-fiction). Like any such secondary source, it does more to encourage curiosity and highlight the author and/or book's impact. Every student should be able to find a book that they would like to read - in China or elsewhere in the future.

[woodcutter]

I wouldn't rule out doom, but I am speaking of the more prosaic fact that what awaits a Chinese graduate is generally a tough fight for a not very nice job, and I don't know that they are very mentally prepared for it. The students I used to teach lived in an absolute bubble. Of course we fill western kids heads full of dreams too, too much so to my mind, but there is a little more chance of having a pleasant life in the west at least.

Anyway, never mind that, the website suggestion is OK. However, I think to make an impact you'd need to suggest a nice range of adolescent friendly stuff, rather than classics online.

[Harry Flashman]

I don’t believe that the narrow context of a prescribed reading list would adequately serve the interests of the thousands of students Chinese students I come into contact with. Typically I have students from all walks of life; designers, ad execs, scientists, engineers, army officers, civil servants, journalists, salespeople, TV presenters, CEOs, the unemployed - all sorts of urbanites really. Therefore I think recommendations should be tailored to each individual, depending on their occupation / aspirations and biographies should constitute the core of their reading.