About English Language and Literature
Posted: Sat Feb 27, 2016 10:30 am
Excerpt from a text I find so true
What does English Language and Literature offer?
Firstly, straddling the arts and sciences, language study truly has something for everyone, and is therefore a most attractive academic subject because language impinges on all subject areas. And (yes we can coordinate sentences with a conjunction), when language description and analysis is combined with the creativity and expressiveness of a rich literary heritage, the allure will surely speak to all but the most unimaginative.
As well as a source of pleasure, creativity and imagination, literature helps develop descriptive and rhetorical skills as arguments are justified with evidence, and conclusions based on logic and reason. More than this, our rich literary tradition charts the evolution of English from its origins to the present day. The shifts in word meanings, pronunciation and grammar are evident in the texts of each generation and ‘archaisms’ were once every bit as innovative and creative then as neologisms are for us today.
Further, any discussion of politics, power, beliefs and values need only look at history see how they were expressed through words, whose meanings and uses change over time, space and context, to this day. Literature provides the documentary evidence for the ways English has evolved and surely serves to humble any strident champions of ‘correctness’.
What does English Language and Literature offer?
Firstly, straddling the arts and sciences, language study truly has something for everyone, and is therefore a most attractive academic subject because language impinges on all subject areas. And (yes we can coordinate sentences with a conjunction), when language description and analysis is combined with the creativity and expressiveness of a rich literary heritage, the allure will surely speak to all but the most unimaginative.
As well as a source of pleasure, creativity and imagination, literature helps develop descriptive and rhetorical skills as arguments are justified with evidence, and conclusions based on logic and reason. More than this, our rich literary tradition charts the evolution of English from its origins to the present day. The shifts in word meanings, pronunciation and grammar are evident in the texts of each generation and ‘archaisms’ were once every bit as innovative and creative then as neologisms are for us today.
Further, any discussion of politics, power, beliefs and values need only look at history see how they were expressed through words, whose meanings and uses change over time, space and context, to this day. Literature provides the documentary evidence for the ways English has evolved and surely serves to humble any strident champions of ‘correctness’.