In recent years there have been an increasing demand among scholars and in politics to relate institutionalized forms of language learning to learners' everyday activities (BMBF 2021, Bührig 2021 and – earlier – Schlickau 2009). In our presentation, we would like to focus on "(digital) influencing", a genre that is rapidly becoming more popular across age groups and which can be assumed to increasingly penetrate everyday life. For example, influencer advertising in Germany is expected to almost double in volume between 2020 and 2024 (Statista 2021). Also, we observe numerous students currently opting for theses examining this topic. Since "influencing" takes place using so-called "pull media", users actively engage with the content. From a linguistic point of view, it is thus an interesting and complex form of language use that aims to induce recipients to take a certain action or change their attitude(s). In this respect, the text function, which is in principle directive, is realized through different linguistic actions or linguistic action patterns such as asserting, justifying, arguing, etc.
We moreover hold that it is highly advisable to examine "influencing" and its learning potentials against the background of multilingualism. In our presentation, communicative structures will be analyzed and compared using examples from different languages. On the basis of our empirical findings, we will evaluate the suitability of "influencing" as a "Querstrebe" ("crossbar", Bührig 2021) for institutional language support.
We expect our results to be highly beneficial for the promotion of multilingualism. In everyday life, multilingual pupils or students may often watch, listen to, or read digital influencers' products in their heritage language, but probably make them the subject of a conscious examination of their multilingualism to a limited extent at best. Such a conscious examination can be promoted by introducing parts of this material into the context of a language lesson. As experts of their heritage languages (using 'multilingualism as a resource'), multilingual students might explain the structure of "their" materials so that the entire group can understand that purposes of action are sometimes realized through different linguistic forms in different languages. In that manner, such an approach will also promote intercultural competence.
BMBF (2021) Richtlinie zur Förderung von Projekten zum Thema „Sprachliche Bildung in der Einwanderungsgesellschaft: Individuelle Potenziale entwickeln und Übergänge gestalten" im Rahmenprogramm empirische Bildungsforschung. Online: https://www.bmbf.de/bmbf/shareddocs/bekanntmachungen/de/2021/07/Bekanntmachung20_empirische-Bildungsforschung.html
Bührig, Kristin (2021) Praxen des Kritisierens: Befunde und Perspektiven aus sprachwissenschaftlicher Sicht. In: Job, Ulrike (Hg.) (2021) Kritisches Denken. Verantwortung der Geisteswissenschaften. Tübingen: Narr, Francke, Attempto (71-91).
Schlickau, Stephan (2009) Neue Medien in der Sprach- und Kulturvermittlung: Pragmatik – Didaktik – Interkulturelle Kommunikation (=Hildesheimer Schriften zur Interkulturellen Kommunikation, Band 1). Frankfurt/Main etc.: Lang.
Statista (2021) Markt für Influencer-Werbung wächst kräftig. Online: https://de.statista.com/infografik/26448/werbeausgaben-im-segment-influencer-werbung-in-deutschland/
