3. Applied Literature
Bahram Behin
Abstract
Applied literature is a term that is the outcome of a need to put literature to tangible uses in the “real” world. A medical practitioner looking for a definition of life, for instance, finds literature a useful source for the answer. With paradigm shifts in scientific studies, interdisciplinarity ...
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Applied literature is a term that is the outcome of a need to put literature to tangible uses in the “real” world. A medical practitioner looking for a definition of life, for instance, finds literature a useful source for the answer. With paradigm shifts in scientific studies, interdisciplinarity has been a method to overcome the alienations that resulted from the isolation of disciplines from one another. Some would go even further to problematize the concept of being solely confined to the limits of disciplines or the textuality of literature because they are still hindrances to coming into direct contact with the “real” world. Arguing that tangible real world should lie at the core of applied literary studies, this paper is an attempt to show how a path may be opened up towards the diverse nature of reality in literary studies through a critical review of relevant aspects of literary theory and by drawing upon studies of cultures.
Bahram Behin
Abstract
Our Journal's tendency towards the real world in applied linguistics and literary studies should have significant epistemological and methodological consequences in researching the fields. The interest in the real world makes the problems we may have in our everyday lives our 'points of departure' in ...
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Our Journal's tendency towards the real world in applied linguistics and literary studies should have significant epistemological and methodological consequences in researching the fields. The interest in the real world makes the problems we may have in our everyday lives our 'points of departure' in research. According to my experience of research in our universities throughout their history, researchers in both applied linguistics and literary studies have attributed great significance to ‘learning’ theories giant scholars have formulated and their main job has been to put the theories to use in the Iranian context for the purpose of teaching English language and literature. The assumption that researchers should confine themselves to theories, frameworks, methodologies and the use of instruments that are of positivistic nature is a dominant characteristic in the Iran context. The paradigm shift, as I understand it, is required firstly as a turning away from linguistics as a science and the unlearning of linguistic theories because no linguistic theory is comprehensive enough to provide us with a real world description of language; new ways of analyzing and understanding language are needed. According to this view, applied linguistics should not be confined to ‘language teaching.’ Its function should be ‘language teaching in the context of the real world,’ although, according to Rajagopalan (2004, p. 415), “There is still a long way to go and many stubborn resistances … to be overcome.”
