The topic of the paper is introducing pre-service German as a foreign language teachers to the notion of discourse awareness by working with literary texts which thematize social injustice and power relations that manifest themselves in and through the language.
The concept of discourse has a rich theoretical foundation and an intense reception. Foreign language didactics of literature is most influenced by the socio-philosophical approach standing in the tradition of Foucault, who defines discourses as "sets of statements that belong to the same formative system" (Foucalt 1997: 156 in Hille / Schiedermair 2021: 133). Discourses not only affect how one can speak about something, but also whether one can speak at all. Through such an understanding of discourses shines the central category of discourse analysis according to Foucault, namely power. In his view, the history of discourse can be read as the history of power.
This understanding of discourse inspires one of the leading concepts of foreign-language didactics of literature, namely discursivity. Within its framework, "literary texts are viewed from the perspective of their productive participation in discourses" (Hille / Schiedermair 2021: 131). The analysis of literary texts helps to understand how discourses are formed and how they circulate, it helps to answer central questions of discourse analysis such as: "What can be the subject of a discourse?", "By means of what concepts are talked about what subjects?", "Who talks, or who is allowed to talk?" (Hille / Schiedrmair 2021: 132). The specific form of literary texts, their multifacetedness, the ability to provoke reflection can significantly support the development of one of the overarching competencies and the achievement of one of the goals of language learning and teaching, which is the ability to consciously and effectively participate in foreign language discourses (Hille / Schiedermair 2021: 141).
A similar goal guides the category of discursive awareness, proposed by Plikat (2017) as an alternative to intercultural competence. The latter is subjected to critical scrutiny by Plikat because of the often anachronistic understanding of culture that underlies it and the self-affirmation of the concept of culture leading to an unreflective approach to the dilemma of cultural relativism and universalism (Plikat 2017:295).
In the paper the model of introducing the notion of discourse awareness to pre-service German as a foreign language teachers should be presented. The central questions of the paper are:
- What literary texts can be used in order to foster the understanding of and reflection on the discourse awareness?
- Which possibilities of transferring the notion of discourse awareness into their future teaching practice do pre-service German as a foreign language teachers see, with which texts and methods?
Bibliography:
Hille, Almut / Schiedermair, Simone (2021). Literaturdidaktik Deutsch als Fremd- und Zweitsprache. Eine Einführung für Studium und Unterricht. Tübingen: Narr Francke Attempto.
Plikat, Jochen (2017). Fremdsprachliche Diskursbewusstheit als Zielkonstrukt des Fremdsprachenunterrichts. Eine kritische Auseinandersetzung mit der Interkulturellen Kompetenz. Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang.
