Abstract: | The aim of this dissertation is to analyse the influence of creative writing on linguistic competence in English through case studies of two related projects. The first case study involved a group of undergraduate students of International Relations. A number of their classes of English were chosen to carry out creative writing tasks. The primary interest was to compare creative texts that were not inspired by art stimulus (AS-) and those that were
inspired by visual art stimulus, a picture (AS+). The second case study involved a group of undergraduate students of English Philology who had chosen the culture specialization.
We devoted a part of their writing classes to creative writing tasks. Our main goal was to compare the influence of art stimuli of three types: verbal stimuli (works of literature, mainly poetry), visual stimuli (pictures) and sound stimuli (music). In the first chapter of the dissertation the variety of creative writing definitions is discussed. The chapter also specifies the aspects of creative writing and its fundamental elements: mystery and suspense. The most important facts from the history of creative writing teaching are presented and interpreted.
The second chapter addresses the problem of creativity as a popular but at the same time vague concept. A number of definitions of creativity are introduced and analysed. The problem of the two translation possibilities of the word creativity into Polish is dealt with. The difference between the two Polish terms (twórczość i kreatywność) is discussed. The aim of the next chapter is to present a number of possible methods of applying
art to foreign language acquisition. Not only the contemporary ideas are displayed here but also
the history of using art in foreign language teaching and learning is traced.
Research methods of the related projects are described at length in the forth chapter. The quality research was chosen as the dominant one. The decision is justified by the essence of research problem. The key ideas are enumerated and explained. The next two chapters belong to the empirical part of the dissertation. The aim of the fifth chapter is to present the purposes, hypotheses, tasks and activities of the first project as well as its results. The main goal is to compare the texts written without any art stimuli and preparation stage, marked as AS- (minus Art Stimulus) with texts written with visual stimuli and multi-tasked preparation stage (AS+). The results of the projects are many-sided and they are mainly connected with elements of fiction, verbs and adjectives in students’ texts, their lexical frequency profile as well as aphoristic style. The goal of the second case study is to compare the texts composed under the influence of various art stimuli: verbal, visual and sound stimuli. The results of the second project embrace many aspects, including: elements of fiction, verbs and adjectives
in students’ texts, their lexical profile. The texts are also interpreted and analyzed from the aesthetic point of view. The influence of the possibility of free choice between stimuli on learners’ motivation is explored.
The dissertation ends with chapter seven in which the results of the two projects are summarized and reviewed. The conclusions are drawn and the areas for future research connected with the two projects are outlined. |