Fifth Saarbrücken Conference on Foreign Language Teaching
The Magic of Language -
Productivity in Linguistics and Language Teaching
29-31 October 2019
The theme of the Fifth Saarbrücken Conference on Foreign
Language Teaching is productivity in linguistics and language teaching, the
productive use of language often being marked by an undeniable magic. This
magic does not only consist in the fact that people are capable of
understanding each other, provided that they master the same code. It is also
true when people talk about things they have never talked about and when new
ideas occur to them or when they use notions and words that have not existed
before, i.e. when they employ language productively and construct their own
world. The relationship between the productivity and the magic of language
works on various levels.
Productivity works on the level of pragmatics. Whenever people
produce sentences and utterances, they are productive. The linguistic means
that they have at their disposal allow them to create language structures and
language patterns which aim at communicating information, arousing emotions
and, eventually, eliciting reactions in their interlocutors.
Productivity also works on the level of languages for specific
purposes. Any newly discovered phenomenon of the extralinguistic world will
need to be named and classified. Neologisms, which provide a linguistic form
for the corresponding notions, function at the word level and are often times
of a specific nature. These languages for specific purposes, then, are
productive sublanguages par excellence.
Whereas in the previous examples, the productivity of language
refers to linguistics, it is equally present in the realm of language
methodology. Whenever teachers instruct their pupils and students to
communicate orally or in writing, they boost the latter's productivity.
Teachers enable students to overcome boundaries in a language other than their
mother tongue and, thus, to enter a terra incognita, which may give them a
feeling for their own intellectual potential on the one hand, and a certain
awareness of their chances to enter in contact with other people, who they
would not have been able to communicate with if they did not master the target
language. This aspect also stands for the magic of language as we understand it
here.
The magic of language also refers to the interpersonal and
intercultural mechanisms which are characteristic of any communication
situation. In situations like critical incidents, for example, boundaries,
which generally exist between individuals and also between people of different
cultural imprints and socialisations, will be overcome. The processes involved
will then lead to a redefinition of such relationships and, thus, be
productive.
The processes going on in the brains of bilingual and
multilingual people are different from those going on in the brains of
monolingual people. Therefore, the brains of bilingual and multilingual people
develop into structures that are different from the ones of monolingual people.
It is clear, then, that productivity has a direct influence on the mental and
intellectual development of human beings and their personalities. However,
there also exist emotional factors that come into play.
We all may have found that we are “different” in situations when
we are speaking a foreign language as compared to those situations in which we
are using our mother tongue. Acting multilingually, we seem to have different
personalities – one for each language we speak. The fact that speaking or
writing in different languages makes us feel different may be exemplified by
the question of how easy or how difficult it is to make emotionally charged
utterances – e.g., a sentence like I love you – in our native language. When
giving it a thought, we will soon notice that it is much easier to make such
utterances in a foreign language than in our mother tongue, as in the foreign
language, our emotions are redefined and we feel freer in terms of behaviour
and use of language.
These
few reflections illustrate the fact that language in general and the teaching
and learning of foreign languages in particular generally provide us with new
insights. This is true for various areas of linguistics as well as for our
daily and professional lives and, last but not least, for language methodology.
The magic of language, which is closely intertwined with the productivity of
language, is the theme of the Fifth Saarbrücken Conference on Foreign Language
Teaching. This theme surely is less accessible, less "handy", than
other potential themes, but it surely is one that allows creativity to happen
and that may generate multiple stimuli for the professional practice of
teachers and researchers.
Aiming to provide a platform to bring scholars and researchers
together for mutual inspiration and idea exchange, we hope we will have the pleasure of your participation in our fifth conference in 2019.
Deadline of abstract submission in until 31
August 2019 by email
to
fremdsprachentagung@googlemail.com
The duration of the section talks will be 30 minutes plus 10 minutes for the Q&A session.
As the number of time slots available for talks is limited, it is highly recommended that abstracts be submitted in good time.
