Towards a representation of German as a “Glocal Language” – Redesigning the curriculum of two beginner’s language courses at Durham University

Parks, Elinor

Abstract

Foreign Language (FL) education, particularly the teaching of ‘language’ from beginner to intermediate levels, is overwhelmingly driven by a Communicative Language Teaching (CLT) approach. To maximise exposure to the Target Language (TL), teaching approaches and materials often leave little opportunity for a ‘decolonial intercultural approach to a critical pedagogy of language and culture’ (Guilherme & Souza, 2019, p.7). Kramsch et al. (2007) emphasized the importance of framing Foreign Language Education at all levels of the curriculum as ‘an education in reflexivity on the indexical, subjective and historical dimensions of discourse’ (p. 151).
The notion of Glocal Languages (GL) encompasses this complexity emphasising that languages have been ‘contextualized, recontextualized and entextualised, in social, cultural and political sites, both at home and abroad, in different spaces and times. They have been ‘territorialised’, ‘reterritorialised’ and ‘deterritorialised’, both at home and abroad, in play with different social, political and cultural events. (Guilherme, 2019, pp. 47-48). The concept of Glocal Languages theorised in Guilherme (2019) is also informed by the work of Blommaert (2005), who emphasized the importance of the relationship between text and context and argued that context and contextualisation are dialogical phenomena (p. 43). According to Bloomaert (2005) discourse is contextualised but also entextualised through a successive or simultaneous decontextualization and metadiscursive recontextualization (p.47). Guilherme’s concept of Glocal Languages, however, differs significantly from Blommeart’s work, particularly because it adopts a decolonial epistemological framework, which interrogates how power dynamics have influenced, for example, the status of certain languages over others and have resulted in an “unequal distribution of knowledge” (Mignolo, 2005).
In this chapter, I explore the concept of German as a Glocal Language, drawing on Guilherme (2019), and I distinguish between the linguistic and social semiotic dimensions. From a social-semiotic perspective, aside from being an ‘official’ language in the German-speaking world, German remains an important minority language worldwide, and is also used as a ‘common language’ among immigrants within Germany. German has also been situated both in dominant and dominated roles, both historically and at present.
From a linguistic perspective, the concept of German as a Glocal Language looks at how the language was transformed, for example, into the Hoch Deutsch (High German) that is taught today, the differences between regional dialects and how words have been contextualised, recontextualised and entextualised through different spaces and times.
Drawing on my own research and teaching practice in German as a Foreign Language in American and British universities, the chapter seeks to illustrate the challenges behind the application of the concept of ‘Glocal Languages’ (Guilherme, 2019) in beginners’ language courses and reports on a targeted teaching intervention implemented in two beginner’s courses at Durham University. The intervention includes examples of language use that reflect the diverse ways in which language is employed both ‘at home’ and ‘abroad’ as well as examples of how the German language has been transformed and ‘reimagined’ throughout history, with the aim of increasing opportunities for a critical discussion on language and its speakers.

Citation

Parks, E. (2024, June). Towards a representation of German as a “Glocal Language” – Redesigning the curriculum of two beginner’s language courses at Durham University. Presented at GLOCADEMIA IG - CULTNET Special Interest Group, Online - hosted jointly by Manuela Guilherme (Lisbon, Portugal) and Manuela Wagner (Connecticut, USA)

• Presentation Conference Type: Presentation / Talk
• Conference Name: GLOCADEMIA IG - CULTNET Special Interest Group
• Start Date: Jun 17, 2024
• End Date: Jun 17, 2024
• Acceptance Date: Jun 17, 2024
• Deposit Date: Sep 28, 2024
• Publicly Available Date: Oct 2, 2024
• Peer Reviewed: Not Peer Reviewed
• Public URL: https://durham-repository.worktribe.com/output/2898688
• Additional Information: The presentation for the special interest group was linked to a proposal for a book chapter in an edited book to be published in 2025. The project proposal was accepted by the editors and has been proposed to the publisher.