An Investigation of EFL Undergraduate Students' Performance in Cognitive Poetic Schema

Abstract

English cognitive poetics could help undergraduate students achieve a better understanding of what they do and why they are doing something. It also helps them find new ways of doing things and improving old ways that they have. Hence, this study intends to fill a gap of information about the way Iraqi college students process English poetry.

    This study aims at: 1. Pin-pointing the components of cognitive poetic schema (CPS) used by EFL undergraduate students for interpreting English poems. 2. Identifying students' level of performance in English CPS.  3. Finding whether there are any significant differences among students' performance in the various CPS components. 4. Finding whether there are any significant differences among the four levels of undergraduate students' performance in the various components of the CPS rubric.

    A sample of a hundred EFL university students and a sample of three poems of Liverpool poets are involved in the study. A diagnostic test that includes the various CPS components of Stockwell (2002) as well as a rubric that represents the scoring scheme of the test have been constructed and applied to the intended sample of students. The collected data are interpreted statistically in order to obtain the required data, answer the raised questions, and achieve the aims of the study. Finally, some conclusions and recommendations are stated in terms of the obtained results