This study examines what support that exists in the Swedish upper secondary school curriculum and the English 7 syllabus for teaching postcolonial literature and the postcolonial literary concepts of binary pairs and Othering. This study also illustrates how Arvind Adiga’s The White Tiger (2008) could serve as an example of a postcolonial novel to exemplify said concepts in the EFL classroom. To answer these questions, a definition of the postcolonial genre as well as a definition of the concepts within postcolonial literary theory was formulated. With the theoretical framework in place, an analysis of the steering documents was conducted. The Swedish curriculum’s focus on the teaching of every human’s equal value and rights relate to the postcolonial genre, as the genre is dedicated to telling marginalised perspectives in the modern world. The syllabus states that teaching different genres of literature and the usage of different perspectives in the classroom should be a part of the English subject. This supports the teaching of postcolonial literature as it is a successor to Western classics as well as shift in perspective from the colonisers to the colonised. The teaching of the concepts of binary pairs and Othering were indicated to be potentially challenging to practically implement, as literary didactic literature stated the difficulties of adapting literary theory to an upper secondary school level. Teaching literary concepts was indicated to be achievable provided that teachers teach theory with clear guidance of what context to use it in and where not to use it. As for binary pairs and Othering within Adiga’s The White Tiger (2008), the examples focused on were the Indias of Light and Darkness, and how this binary pair Othered one another. As such, the results were found to indicate that there is support for teaching postcolonial literature as well as postcolonial concepts, and that Adiga’s novel would be an adequate text to use for exemplifying these in the classroom.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:UPSALLA1/oai:DiVA.org:hj-49912 |
| Date | January 2020 |
| Creators | Svensson, Martin |
| Publisher | Jönköping University, Högskolan för lärande och kommunikation |
| Source Sets | DiVA Archive at Upsalla University |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Student thesis, info:eu-repo/semantics/bachelorThesis, text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Rights | info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess |
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