As may be seen in a brief examination of several characters and scenes in Mario Puzo's "The Godfather," analysis of ethnic literature must focus on both the cultural and the linguistic aspects of literature. Often the syntactic structure reflects the structure of the native language of the writer, while word choice frequently depends…

Suggests that ethnic American literature might help promote FL study through themes also recurrent in the target group literature and through English usages reminiscent of target language features. Sees these shared characteristics as a potential aid to learning, usually obscured by the emphasis placed on contrastive aspects. (MES)