Intertextuality between Literature and Readers’ Life in Aesthetic Reading (Third Revision)

Intertextuality between Literature and Readers’ Life in Aesthetic Reading

Denny Nugraha

Literary Work Analysis

English Language Teaching (ELT) Department 7^Th semester

Syekh Nurjati State Islamic Intitute Cirebon

A.        Introduction

Nowadays the necessity of learning a language is seen as well as the need of communication, not only in oral communication, but also in written form. It has been considered that through listening, we can naturally speak. Then, through reading activity we are considerably expected to be able to write. However, the relationship among the four skills of language is not in terms of a one-way connection. For instance, reading activities may vary between personal/private reading (silence reading) and spoken reading (loud reading). In addition, reading activity can provide readers with the sense of imagination and enjoyment. It can particularly happen in a very different way that reading is not only to explore the containing information about the world, but it is merely used to reveal the realm of a connection between readers’ experience (background knowledge) and something that is offered in every single word by the author of the text.

In case of reading, the connection that comes from the meeting between what has been already known and something new, is considered as intertextuality. Additionally, it has been supported by Wimmers (2012), she quoted Riffaterre’s definition that intertextuality is namely “the reader’s perception of relationships between one work and others, which either preceded or followed it”. Accordingly, in this respect, reading a text is viewed as a life experience of certain sense of imagination and enjoyment. Furthermore, the text that can provide the sense of imagination and enjoyment is namely called as literary work or literature. Then, the reading event itself has been defined as the aesthetic reading. Therefore, intertextuality in aesthetic reading plays its role when there is an occurence of connection between one literary work that has been already experienced and the other work that is currently being read by the learners as readers.

There are so many examples of literature such as short stories, novels, poems, and even song lyrics are included. In the practice of language teaching, based on the genre-based approach, it is necessary for the teacher to promote reading with the feature of intertextuality between literature and learners’ life. It is reasonable that through the intertextuality in aesthetic reading, learning process can be meaningful and joyful. However, it is not an easy task for language teacher in order to do so. The problems come out in the implementation of connecting literature (texts) with learners’ life through intertextuality in aesthetic reading. There were several questions on my mind about it namely: what are the stages/steps to implement intertextuality in aesthetic reading? How can intertextuality provide connections between literature and learners’ life? Those questions depict the importances of intertextuality in teaching reading through literary works or literatures.

B.        The implementation of intertextuality in aesthetic reading

Aesthetic reading, in practice, is not reading for information like in reading a newspaper or magazine. It truly needs a serious planning of the implementation before the language teachers brings this kind of reading activity into their class. It is considered that aesthetic reading presupposes non-aesthetic reading and consists of reading with attention to what readers are experiencing, thinking, and feeling (Alwasilah, 2014). Moreover, this means that learners should be firstly aware of the informational aspects of the text (efferent reading). Literature provides aesthetic values in which learners can get beyond the logical realm of common sense. Therefore, the implementation of the aesthetic reading for learners starts from the competency level of reading for information. Then, after that, they are ready to feel the enjoyment and imagination of reading literature.

For language teachers, there are several things to be concerned before introducing the aesthetic reading into the classroom. These things are considerably related with the competencies that should be mastered by every language teacher. It is supported by the statement from the late Alwasilah (2014) that literature should be taught by professional teachers equipped with competency in literature attitude (a kind of evident among learners in the number of literary works read, written, and discussed in literature circles in the classroom and beyond), literary reading skills (skills that comprise reading for aesthetic purposes and enjoyment), and literary teaching skills (skills of creating literary engagements for aesthetic appreciation which is emotionally pervasive through readers’ experiencing, thinking, and feeling). Those skills are compulsory for every language teacher in the implementation of intertextuality in the classroom’s aesthetic reading event. So that, intertextuality can work well in connecting learners’ life experience and the literary work in aesthetic reading.

In the other perspective, Short (1991) presented the term of ‘Text Sets’ at the Annual Meeting of the National Council of Teachers of English 81^St in Seattle. In this event, she noted that text sets is a kind of strategy that gets along with the present of intertextuality, that is a certain process of discovering for relations among reading texts and individual life experiences. This strategy encourages learners through small groups to identify related books or works in a discussion of how the books interrelate. In addition, intertextuality in this respect is seen as the result of the strategy that involves learners in groups reading activity. The groups of learners then discussed the interrelations to some particular kinds of characters, story plot, and themes of the books or works. For instance, a certain group of learner discuss mainly about the characters of ‘ The Mousedeer and The Crocodile’ short story, then the other group can discuss about its plot elements, characters, etc.

Moreover, Short (1991) added that while groups talked about literary subtances such as characters and theme, learners considered these in terms of the impact offered by the author. For example, a group of learners spent their time talking about what they think about the author of the story wrote the theme of honesty and how the concept of honesty related to their lives as readers. They also talked about the author’s decision to write information about the books they read and the reasons why they found some of book genres more difficult or easier to write than the other genres. Then, by the end of their reading and discussion about the story, they can make or write a conclusion as their reflection individually or in group’s perspective.

C.        Intertextuality between literature and learners’ life

The term of intertextuality, as it is explained above, has an important unconscious role to the reading activities in the classroom context. It is realized or not, learners always tend to connect something new in the text that is being read by them with another texts or their life experiences in the past. They can learn things that are new for them to enrich their knowledge or insight about the texts and their life’s experiences. It is a meaningful learning when learners can get something that is worthful for them and so they can apply it in their life as like a culture.

Furthermore, literatures or literary works offer many things not only the text, but also the values of cultural education and wisdoms. Alwasilah (2012) noted that literature is a monumental element of people’s culture. Therefore, it stands to reason that wherever there is education, there is the study of literature. So that, intertextuality can provide somewhat meaningful reading experience when learners find any literary work that has a monumental impact to their life.

Based on the discussion above, both Alwasilah and Short found that literary circle among learners is simply useful as it is able to trigger the literary attitude. It can be viewed from the result of their research (Alwasilah, 2014; Short, 1991) that learners can easily learn language through the meaningful and joyful learning where they are actively involved in the process of gaining worthful knowledge for their life. So that, learning language is no longer perceived as a complicated and problematic or even boring activity that has no benefit for them. However, it will not happen if learning process can not provide them somehow connection between what is being learnt and their life experiences.

Conlusion

The writer concludes that learning language through the meaningfulness of literature in aesthetic reading activity can give learners something useful for their life. The implementation of intertextuality between literary work and life make language teaching and learning becomes meaningful and brings the sense of enjoyment process stated in some studies (Alwasilah, 2014; Short, 1991). They implicitly discovered the useful strategy of classroom reading event and also the criteria behind the implementation of aesthetic reading both the teacher and the learners.

Learning language through the aesthetic reading activity, in order to be meaningful and joyful process, could be applied with the present of intertextuality which gives a bridge the learning material with learners’ life experience. However, intertextuality can play its role well in connecting learners’ life experience and the literary work in aesthetic reading if there is not only the material of learning, but also various and innovative methods and procedures which support learners in learning process that is neither boring nor complicated.

References

Alwasilah, Chaedar. 2012. Pokoknya Rekayasa Literasi. Bandung: PT Kiblat Buku Utama.

2014. Islam, Culture, and Education: Essays on Contemporary Indonesia. Bandung: PT Remaja Rosdakarya.

Short, Kathy G. 1991. Intertextuality: Making Connections across Literature and Life. Paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the National Council of Teachers of English (81st,Seattle, WA, November 22-27, 1991).

Wimmers, Inge C. 2012. Proust and Eliot: An Intertextual Reading. Studies in 20th & 21st Century Literature: Vol. 36: Iss. 1, Article 3.

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