English language teaching has tended, perhaps especially since the 1950s and 1960s, to focus on more practical levels of language use. Language has been seen as functional, marketable worldwide: the teaching and learning of English as a Second or Foreign Language has in some ways threatened to reinforce the potential divide between Language and Literature Studies.

But the last few years have brought a shift towards more integrated teaching approaches, drawing on widely different types of ‘texts’ and cultural forms for study, analysis and research, as a means of understanding how language works in diverse contexts and cultures.

With this has come an awareness of ‘how’ meaning is achieved within a language, rather than simply looking at ‘what’ it means. In this way, literature – with both a large and a small ‘l’ – has found its way into language teaching. Similarly within literature teaching, language awareness on a wider scale has become part of the process of interpreting literary systems. Literature teaching practice now takes a more holistic approach in understanding how texts work through time, in different cultural contexts and upon different readers. This approach allows students and readers to explore and develop a critical apparatus for reading, interpreting and evaluating texts, rather than merely 'appreciating' them.

There has thus been a move away from an insistence on any ‘great tradition’ of established canonical texts, and a move towards a broadening of the range of texts, voices, and forms studied under the heading of English.

Creative writing courses have also brought a new dimension to bear on the whole field: more and more the study of English is no longer a one-sided passive reading of more or less canonical texts. Textual intervention in the reading of all kinds of texts has opened the field to a wider approach to creativity, a widening of the bounds of authorship, to allow readers to become experimenters with language, form and style, becoming writers themselves, producers rather than merely consumers of literature.

Language awareness, text awareness and cultural awareness are now seen as empowering the learner. The authority of the text is now more open to discussion, rewriting, creative reading and interpretation, and indeed all aspects of creativity and re-creation, than it has ever been.

The interface of language, literature, and the creative nature of all language, are at the forefront of present-day literature and language teaching. What used to be called English Language and Literature is now more likely to be called English Studies in a British university. Such eclecticism has led to a proliferation of literary and cultural forms, many drawing on work from other disciplines including translation studies, performance, film, media and cultural studies. There is every sign that this dynamic interface – the meeting of peoples and cultures through creative approaches to language and literature – will continue to burgeon. Such interchange is both healthy and rich, and necessary for global understanding.

John McRae is Special Professor of Language in Literature Studies at the University of Nottingham, and co-author of The Routledge Guide to Modern English Writing. He is Project Advisor to the British Council Literature Department.