Development of the discourse competence through literary texts

Abstract

The aim of the article is to present a study of the literary text from a discursive perspective focusing on the development of the discourse competence in the English language. It is a new approach in the EFL methodology which highlights the relation between the holistic understanding of the comunication, social phenomena and the study of language structures in their use. The European educational policies favour the literary text as a key factor in boosting the students' communicative skills. Thus, the paper presents a theoretical framework of the researches in the field and shares our vision on the discourse competence which places the discourse component on the central position in the process of developing the communicative competence. The text interpretation through a discursive approach constitutes an effective tool for examining the language correlation with the intent and sociocultural context. In this regard, in the second part of the article, we offer some concrete didactic activities related to the necessary conditions (such as the context and communicative situations) and discourse-oriented practices (activities simulating real needs outside the classroom) used for an optimal development of students' discourse competence.