LITERATURE (DRAMA)

Definitions:

Drama is a literary composition involving conflict, action crisis and atmosphere designed to be acted by players on a stage. Drama also can be definition as a display of emotions, a representation of relationships and the portrayal of the different phases of human life. It sketches different personalities and represents a wide variety of emotions through the different characters it portrays.

Aristotle, a philosopher who wrote on a variety of subjects like poetry, theater, music, rhetoric and handled subjects like biology, physics, logic and politics, writes that there are six elements of drama, namely the theme, plot, character, dialog, music, and the visual element.

Theme: The theme of a drama refers to the central idea of the play. It can either be clearly stated through dialog or action or can be inferred after watching the entire performance.

Plot: The order of events occurring in a play is referred to as the plot of the drama. It is the basic storyline that is narrated through a play. The entertainment one derives from a play depends largely on the sequence of events that occur in the story. The logical connection between the events and the characters, which enact the story form an integral part of the plot of drama.

Characters: The characters that form a part of the story are interwoven with the plot of the drama. Each character in a play has a personality of its own and has a distinct set of principles and beliefs. Actors who play various roles in a drama have the very important responsibility of bringing the characters to life.

Dialog: The story of any play is taken forward by means of the dialog. The story is narrated to the audiences through the dialog written by the playwright. The success of a drama depends hugely on the contents of the dialog and the quality of dialog delivery by the actors of the play.

Music: This element of drama comprises the melody in the use of sounds and rhythm in dialogs as well as melodious compositions, which form a part of many plays. The background score, the songs and the sound effects that are used in a play make up the musical element of drama. Music composers and lyricists sit together to create music that can go well with the theme of the play. If the scenes of a play are accompanied by well-suited pieces of music, they become more effective on the audiences. Hence, music forms a very important element of drama.

Visual Element: While the dialog and music constitute the audible aspect of drama, the visual element deals with the scenes, costumes and special effects used in it. The visual element of drama, also known as the spectacle, renders a visual appeal to it. The costumes worn by the artists must suit the characters they are playing. Besides, it is important for the scenes to be dramatic enough to hold the audiences to their seats. The special effects used in a play add to the visual appeal. Thus, the spectacle forms an essential component of drama.

Some of The Types of Drama:

1.        Tragedy -- In general, tragedy involves the ruin of the leading characters. To the Greeks, it meant the destruction of some noble person through fate, To the Elizabethans; it meant in the first place death and in the second places the destruction of some noble person through a flaw in his character. Today it may not involve death so much as a dismal life; Modern tragedy often shows the tragedy not of the strong and noble but of the weak.

2.        Comedy -- is lighter drama in which the leading characters overcome the difficulties which temporarily beset them.

3.        Problem Play -- Drama of social criticism discusses social, economic, or political problems by means of a play.

WASHBACK

DEFINITION :

Hughes (1989:1) “The effect of testing on teaching and learning” is known as backwash.

Spolky (1994:2) The concept of backwash deals with the unforeseen side-effects of testing and not to the intended effects when the primary goal of the examination is the control of curricula.

Biggs (1995:3) backwash refers to the fact that testing controls not only the curriculum but also teaching methods and students’ learning strategies.

Alderson & Wall (1993:1) Washback compels “teachers and learners to do things they would not necessarily otherwise do because of the test”.

Messick (1996:4) Washback is described as the extent to which the introduction and the use of a test influence language and teachers to do things they would not otherwise do that promote or inhibit language learning”.

Shohamy, et al. (1996: 6) Washback is delineated as “the connections between testing and learning”.

Bachman & Palmer (1996 [12]), Washback, at a macro level, refers to the extent to which a test influences within the society, ranging from government policy-making, school administration, publishing, and general opportunities, to parents’ expectations of their children.

At micro level, Washback refers to the extent to which a test influences within the classroom, mainly in the change or innovation of curricula and teachers’ methodologies and the influence of students’ learning.

  

 TYPES :

Classroom settings

 Positive :

1.   Tests induce teachers to cover their subjects more thoroughly, making them complete their syllabi within the prescribed time limits.

2.   Tests motivate students to work harder to have a sense of accomplishment and thus enhance learning.

3.      Good tests can be utilized and designed as beneficial teaching-learning activities so as to encourage positive teaching-learning processes.

 Negative :

1.  Tests encourage teachers to narrow the curriculum and lose instructional time, leading to "teaching to the test."

2.      Tests bring anxiety both to teachers and students and distort their performance.

3.   Students may not be able to learn real-life knowledge, but instead learn discrete points of knowledge that are tested.

4.      Cramming will lead students to have a negative positive toward tests and accordingly alter their learning motivation.

Educational / Societal system

Positive:

Decision makers use the authority power of high-stakes testing to achieve the goals of teaching and learning, such as the introduction of new textbooks and new curricula.

Negative:

Decision makers overwhelmingly use tests to promote their political agendas and to seize influence and control of educational systems.

AFFIXES

                       Definition

Affixes are our “workhorse” morphemes – the tools we use again and again to assemble new words.

            The Kinds of Affixes

There are several kinds of affixes:

a)      Prefix

Prefix is an element placed at the beginning of a word to adjust or qualify its meaning.

For examples:        re – in redo

                              un – in unhappy

b)      Suffix

Suffix is an element placed at the end of a word to form a derivative, frequently one that coverts the stem into another part of speech.

For examples:        - ion in motion

- ness in happiness

- ate in investigate

Suffix is written with an initial hyphen, as above.

c)      Infix

Infix is an element placed within a word; these are rare in English, though cupful can be made plural as cupsful by inserting the plural “s” as an infix. Infixes sometimes occur in facetious creations like absobloodylutely (which some grammarians would rather describe as tmesis).

Infixes often appear as linking vowels between prefixes and stems. For example the final letters of narco- and calci-.

They are also found between a stem ending in a consonant and a suffix beginning with one, as with –ferous, which frequently appears as –iferous, or –logy, which is commonly seen as –ology.

d)     Circumfix

Circumfix is affix that “surround” the word, attaching to the beginning and end of the word. Although English has few examples of this type of affix, other language use it. The circumfix is probably most widely know from the German past participle (ge- - t for regular verbs). Probably the only circumfixes in English are:

En - - en in enlighten

Em - - en in embolden

Inn older usage, however, the present participle could be formed using the circumfix a- -ing:

a- -ing in a-flying

a- -ing in a-caroling

e)      Simulfix

Simulfix is replace one or more phonemes in the root or stem.

For example:         man + plural > men

f)       Suprafix

Suprafix is superimpose on one or more syllables in the root or stem as a suprasegmental.

For example:         stress in the words ‘produce, n. and pro’duce, v.