Reconsideration on the Communicative Method of Literary Texts

Speaking, listening, reading and writing are four skills for the improvement of the ability to use language. If the literary works in the text-books are used only for the improvement of the ability, however, they do not have the value beyond the elementary materials for the simple reading activities. The value and significance of the literary works in the text-books should be studied on the different level from the communicative skills based on the real situations. In this respect, the study on the communicative method and the significance of the literary texts is an important educational task. And they are the main subjects from which we can survey the existential pattern and the process of transmission of literary works. This paper is mainly concerned with that point. The discussions so far is summarized as follows. The literature education is one aspect of the communicative method of the literary works. The understanding is carried out through the writers' invention and the readers appreciation. Unlike the usual understanding of the literary texts, however, the understanding of the literary texts in the literature education includes the literature teacher' selection, reception and mediation of the texts. The literature education prior to the establishment of the modem educational institution had usually been done outside the formal system. The broad meaning of the literature education includes the enjoyment and transmission of the traditional texts in the daily life. And these traditional texts is the main subject of the uninstitutional literature education. Generally speaking, the enjoyment and transmission of the traditional texts are characterized by the variation of the appreciated texts, the undifferentiation of sender and receiver, and the change of the media of texts during the communicative process. These characteristics are not found in the usual commnicative process. Considering the fact that the literary texts are changed and accommodated in the form of film, the study on the process is of great significance. There remain, however, some problems yet to be solved. Future study should try to answer the questions of how texts, if they changed during the understanding process, have affected the receiver, in what direction the receiver have directed the texts, and what happened to the nature of the texts when the media of texts changed