Introduction

The main concern of English language teaching is to develop EFL students’ communicative competence to use English language through its four skills: listening, speaking, reading and writing (Esther Uso´-Juan & AliciaMartı´nez-Flor, 2006a). In fact, communicative competence includes the mastery of not only linguistic forms but also the ability to interpret a contextualized discourse (Esther Uso´-Juan & AliciaMartı´nez-Flor, 2006a). For this reason, the content of EFL programs and curriculum has been subjected to different modifications for assuring the development of EFL students’ communicative competence.

Among the many components in EFLcurriculum content, literature is included and it has a basicrole. A huge number of researches have proved that literatureis a powerful pedagogical tool due to the different advantagesit offers to EFL students (Bredella, 2004; Carter & Long, 1991; Collie & Slater, 1987; Ghosn, 2002; Lazar, 1993; McKay, 1982; Moss2003; Povey, 1972; Pugh, 1989; Shanahan, 1997; Spack, 1985; Widdowson, 1975; Van, 2009). Literature is considered an authentic materialas it makes EFL students familiar with many different linguisticforms, communicative functions and meanings (Collie and Slater, 1987). Ascultural awareness is needed when communicating with people in thetarget country, literature can offer EFL students an opportunity topromote their cultural competence and helps them to understand howcommunication takes place in the country whose language is beingtaught(Lazer, 1993). Literary works can improve EFL learners’ linguisticcompetence (ibid) and enrich their vocabulary (Wang and Guthrie, 2004). According to Dornyei (2005, p. 112), using literature inthe classroom can help in“creating an overall positive motivationalclimate in the classroom.” It is also beneficial in thelearning process due to the fact that it fosters theirpersonal involvement (Dornyei, 2005). Moreover, it develops language skills mainlyreading, since literature isa rich and widely-appealing materialfor reading(Brumfit, 1986).

However, regardless of the variousbenefits that literature offers, many Algerian EFL teachers prefer todiscard literature from classroom for its being detrimental to thelearning process of learners who show a great reluctance toreading literature as they are unable to interpret literary text.  EFL students’ lack of enthusiasm towards learning literature is theorizedto be the result of the difficulties they encounter whendealing with literature and interpreting a literary text (Afzali &Tahririan, 2007; Grenfell & Erler, 2007; Bouazid. T & Cheryl le Roux, 2010; Zengier & Shepherd, 2003). What lacking, however, is a research exploringthe nature of the different difficulties encountering EFL students whendealing with literary text. 

Literary text has many characteristics; oneof them is the use of figurative language. Actually, thewriter uses figurative language to achieve an aesthetic value andconvey the intended meaning in more deeply way. In fact, figurative forms are divided into two parts: schemes and tropes. On the one hand, schemes are defined as any artfuldeviation from the typical arrangement of individual sounds and words. On the other hand, tropes are viewed as any artfuldeviation from the ordinary and principal meaning of a wordor an idea. One among many aims of literary textsis to say as much as possible using few wordsto achieve a maximum effectiveness. For this reason, writers implementtropes to say what they want to give their wordor sentence more implied figurative meanings.  As tropes dominate literarytexts, as it is supposed, there is a need forstudies to probe whether the use of tropes raises difficultiesamong EFL students when they come to interpret literary texts. Accordingly, the aim of this study is to investigate theextent to which tropes- based difficulties make it difficult forEFL students to understand and interpret a literary texts. Inother words, this study finds its central focus in analyzingthe problems, caused by the overuse of tropes, which EFLstudents experience in understanding literary text.

Research Questions

Toachievethis objective, the following research questions are raised:

Dotropes create difficulties among EFL students in interpreting a literarytext?

How can tropes-based difficulties affect EFL students’ understandingand interpretation of a literary text?

Research Hypotheses

In thelight of the aforementioned questions, the following hypotheses are drawn:

Tropes may create difficulties among EFL students in interpreting aliterary text. 

Tropes-based difficulties affect at highly level EFLstudents’ understanding and interpretation of a literary text.

Research methodologyand procedures

As mentioned previously, the present research serves to explore tropes-based difficulties encountering EFL students in interpreting literary texts. To achieve the study aim, a questionnaire was administered to 30 participants.The participants are EFL second- year students at Kasdi Merbah University of Ouargla. The selection of participants is based on random convenience sampling method which “includes participants who are readily available and agree to participate in a study” (Frey, Carl and Gary, 2000, p.131).  The questionnaire consists of three sections each of which is devoted to attain a certain sub-objective related to the general objective.

Data Analysis and Interpretation

The first section

The firstsection is about EFL students’ attitudes towards learning literature.

Table N°1: EFL Students’ Attitudes towards Learning

                   Literature

Table 1 presents EFL students’ attitudes towards learning literature.  For the first question, 55, 66% of the participants don’t like reading English literature. The second question shows that53, 33% of the participants have a negative ideas aboutEnglish literature which does not help them to develop theirproficiency in English language. The results obtained from question threeindicate that 53, 33% of the respondents say that theydon’t enjoy reading a literary text in the classroom. For question four, the table reports that 66, 66% ofthe participants hold negative attitudes towards reading literary work asan activity at home. For question five, 73, 33% ofthe respondents disagree with the view that reading a literarytext is a motivating activity. The sixth question shows that63, 33% of the participants answer that they don’tlike to participate in English literature- based activities in theclassroom. The results obtained from the question seven indicate that73, 33% of the respondents dislike implementing literature in Englishlanguage classroom. Question eight reports that 60% of the participantsview learning literature is not important and it has nocontribution to their future professional career.  For the lastquestion, 96, 66% of the participants believe that learning literatureis a demanding task. Based on the results obtained fromthe first section we can conclude that the majority ofparticipants have negative attitudes towards learning literature as they considerit a demanding task. Additionally, they view reading literature adetrimental activity to the learning process of English language, andit does not contribute their future professional life.

The second section   

The second section is about difficulties encountering EFLstudents when coming to interpret a literary text.

TableN°2: Difficulties Encountering EFL Students

                    when Interpreting Literary Text

For the first question, 76, 66% of the participantsresponded that they always find difficulties when dealing with Englishliterary works. For the second question, it is reported that70% of the respondents always find difficulties to understand aliterary text due to their low proficiency in English language. The results obtained about the third question show that 66, 66% of the participants fail to understand a literary textby reason of lucking of English vocabulary. For the fourthquestion, 83, 33 % of the respondents answer that they alwaysfail to interpret appropriately a literary text their underdeveloped culturalcompetence. The fifth question shows that 90% of the participantsrespond that they find difficulties to appropriately interpret literary textas they are unable to decode the figurative language. Comparingthe results obtained from all questions, we report that thereare several difficulties encountering the participants when interpreting literary text, but their failure to appropriately interpret a literary text iscaused by inability to decode figurative language, as it takesthe highest percentage in the table.

The third Section

The third section is about the affect of tropes-baseddifficulties on EFL students’ exam and classroom performance.   

TableN° 3:  Tropes-Based Difficulties’ Affect on EFL

                       Students’ Performance

For the first question, 80% of the participants replythat they stop reading if they find it difficult toidentify figurative forms implemented in a literary text. The secondquestion shows that 90% of the respondents stop reading justas they fail to decode the figurative meaning of anexpression or a word. The third question reports that 90%of the participants stop reading if they fail to identifythe type of figurative forms employed in a literary text. In the question number four, the majority of the participants93, 33% are unable to make a difference between metaphorand simile. The results obtained from the fifth question indicatethat 93, 33% of the respondents are not able toidentify the figurative meaning of a word oran expressionwhether metaphor or symbol. For the sixth question, the majorityof the participants 86, 66%can not understand other figurative meaningsthat an expression or a word in a literary texthas. The results obtained from the question number seven showthat 83, 33% of the respondents get bad marks inthe exam by the reason their inability to decode figurativelanguage. For the eighth question, 83, 33% of the participantsget bad marks in the exam due to their inabilityto identify the figurative forms employed in the literary text.  The question nine shows that 83, 33% of the respondentsspend a long time during the exam to identify thefigurative forms. For the question ten, 83, 33 % of theparticipants spend a long time during the exam to interpretthe figurative meaning of a word or an expression. Theeleventh question indicates that 86, 66% of the respondents donot participate in the activities based on the identification oftropes employed in a literary text. For the question numbertwelve, 83, 33% of the participants keep silent if theyare asked to identify or interpret the meaning of figurativeforms in a literary text. The results obtained from thethird section demonstrate that the participants are not able toidentify the figurative forms and to interpret the figurative meaningof a word or an expression. Additionally, they fail tomake a difference between the closer figurative forms such asmetaphor and symbol. Moreover, tropes-based difficulties encountering the participantsaffect their performance in the exam as well as inthe classroom.

Conclusion 

To develop EFL students’ communicative competence, literature is proposed as powerful pedagogic tool. However, EFL studentslack enthusiasm towards learning literature due the difficulties they encounter. As a literary text is based on figurative language inwhich meaning of words and expressions is transferred due totropes as we suppose in this study. Accordingly, this studyhas reached some significant conclusions. First, this study proves thatEFL students show negative attitudes towards literature which they considerdetrimental to English language learning. Second, it also demonstrates thatthe inability to decode figurative meaning of words and expressionsin a literary text makes is difficult for them togive a literary text an appropriate interpretation. Third, consequently, trope- based difficulties affect EFL students’ exam and classroom performance.

Recommendations  

The results of this study showed that EFL studentshave negative exam outcomes and attitudes towards literary texts becauseof their inability to decode meanings of sentences and words. Further research is recommended to conduct experimental studies to determinethe maximum achievable enhancement in appreciating and reading literary textsthrough teaching EFL students explicitly tropes.