Referential and Representational Language in Understanding Literary Work

As we move on with our literature lesson, we learned more about referential and representational language. The rule is simple, referential language is something that we refer to while representational language is words that represent things or issue emphasized by the author. In literature, the language used is mostly representational because each literature text is meant to discuss a theme/topic/issue. Teachers should encourage the students to not to only take the words literally because it may lead to misunderstandings. However, choice of words (diction) is not the only concern in literature, it is the way of presenting that matters. The title of the poem is also an aspect to look at. Based on the words used for the title, teacher can create questions of different levels for students to ponder on. This is because, referential language also does matter. Perhaps, what a teacher can do is to ask questions pertaining to the actual meaning of the words and then relate it to the text context.
In literary texts, some authors choose to repeat words several times; some chooses to use sentence structure differently. The language involved here is not only the word, but also the syntax, grammar and so on. To make the students see more clearly, teachers can compare two different poems discussing about the same thing in different ways. Certain highlighted features like animal imagery and verbs pattern should be focused on. For a complete understanding of the literary text, a stylistic analysis is needed. This is not only to ensure an interactive and interesting lesson, but also made a meaningful one.