Teaching Language Through Literature: Introducing Aspects of Literary Nonsense.

Nonsense Literature first came into existence after the publishers of nursery rhymes started using the term to describe the works of children's literature. It evolved into a genre of children's literature that is widely accepted for being covertly intellectually stimulating. It uses puns, riddles, trick questions, contrasts in language, paradoxes and oxymorons to raise philosophically challenging questions that break our ideas of conventional patterns of understanding grammar, logic and reason. Nonsense literature is known for defying the rules of conventional linguistics. It plays with the boundaries of what is linguistically acceptable with its wordplay. However, nonsense literature understands and explores the structures of grammar, logic and reason better than any other literary genre. It is the best source of instruction for the ways in which the fundamental structures of grammar can be manipulated to create more structures of meaning which are transformational in nature. It uses the basic knowledge of grammar to create new ideas and rules using devices such as portmanteau and neologisms. Most course syllabi either focus on language or literature, never both simultaneously. Since literary nonsense plays with both linguistic structures in its writing and logic and reason in its story, it becomes the perfect material for teaching language as well as literature in the classroom. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]