The Library
Encouraging deep learning through an interactive, intercultural approach to Shakespeare
Tools
Lees, Duncan (2023) Encouraging deep learning through an interactive, intercultural approach to Shakespeare. In: Shaules, Joseph and McConachy, Troy, (eds.) Transformation, Embodiment, and Wellbeing in Foreign Language Pedagogy: Enacting Deep Learning. Bloomsbury Publishing, pp. 129-152. ISBN 9781350254480
Research output not available from this repository.
Request-a-Copy directly from author or use local Library Get it For Me service.
Official URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.5040/9781350254510.ch-6
Abstract
For the Spanish-born Queen Katherine, wife of England’s King Henry VIII, language matters. Visited by two cardinals, who press her on her refusal to accede to the king’s wish that their marriage be annulled, Shakespeare presents Katherine as acutely aware of her vulnerability as a foreign woman in the English court. When one cardinal addresses her in Latin, she asks him to speak in English instead. Life in England, she says, has made her perfectly able to use its common tongue: “I am not such a truant since my coming, / As not to know the language I have lived in” (Henry VIII, 3.1.46–7). More importantly, she fears that using a “[s]trange tongue” positions her as an outsider, making her situation “more strange,” and even “suspicious” (48). Here, “strange” suggests not only unfamiliarity, but also another of the word’s senses in Early Modern 130English: the idea of something being “foreign, alien, from abroad” (Crystal & Crystal 2002: 425). While today “strange” does not have quite the same connotations, Shakespeare’s language itself has come to be associated with a certain foreignness. Despite the relative closeness of the English of Shakespeare’s time and that of today, even those who speak English as a first language often perceive Shakespeare as archaic and alien—technically the same language, but experientially foreign (Blank 2014). This perception, coupled with Shakespeare’s high cultural status, can make his language a source of anxiety and bafflement for students in Anglophone countries—especially those whose cultural and linguistic backgrounds mean they already have a complex relationship with English (Espinosa 2016). For learners of English as a Foreign Language (EFL) the challenge can seem even greater, and the rewards even less clear. With dominant modes of foreign language education emphasizing instrumental goals related to communicative efficiency and employability (Ros-i-Solé 2016), studying centuries-old dramatic literature might seem impractical and counterproductive. If Shakespeare’s English is strange for those who supposedly live in that language, why inflict it on students for whom English is already foreign?
Item Type: | Book Item | ||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Alternative Title: | |||||||
Divisions: | Faculty of Social Sciences > Centre for Applied Linguistics | ||||||
Publisher: | Bloomsbury Publishing | ||||||
ISBN: | 9781350254480 | ||||||
Book Title: | Transformation, Embodiment, and Wellbeing in Foreign Language Pedagogy: Enacting Deep Learning | ||||||
Editor: | Shaules, Joseph and McConachy, Troy | ||||||
Official Date: | 12 January 2023 | ||||||
Dates: |
|
||||||
Page Range: | pp. 129-152 | ||||||
DOI: | 10.5040/9781350254510.ch-6 | ||||||
Status: | Peer Reviewed | ||||||
Publication Status: | Published | ||||||
Access rights to Published version: | Restricted or Subscription Access | ||||||
Related URLs: |
Request changes or add full text files to a record
Repository staff actions (login required)
View Item |