JĘZYKI I PAMIĘĆ KULTUROWA. O GLOTTODYDAKTYCZNYM POTENCJALE MIEJSC PAMIĘCI

Abstrakt

Looking for motivating concepts to stimulate integrated language and
culture-related teaching and learning processes in the foreign language
classroom, the vibrant concept of Cultural Memory is certainly an issue
to pay attention to. It offers a variety of occasions for language and culture
awareness training tightly connected with language learning, reaching
far beyond traditional regional studies. Realms of memory, acting as
products and markers of a complex cultural memory, can reveal to what
extent (by whom, by which means, to what aims) cultural patterns and
meanings are constructed, how they change or under which circumstances
they survive long periods of time. Up-to-date foreign language
didactics can make use of this in aiming at symbolic competence (Claire
Kramsch). Understanding culture as an ongoing process of (de-and re-
)construction, learners might be enabled to notice and (partly) participate
in authentic discourses, going on in different languages. Realms of
memory, manifesting themselves per definition e.g. as texts, pictures,
sounds, buildings, historic or mythic persons, objects, terms or whole cultural
concepts, own a considerable linguistic and cultural potential. This
clearly points at content and process oriented learning processes involving
the foreign language as a natural means of exploration.
The article discusses criteria which might help to choose realms of
memory suitable for the foreign language classroom and takes a look at
two genuinely “German-speaking” examples in the field of sport (Córdoba
1978) and everyday objects (Schweizermesser). They can illustrate
the wide range of didactic possibilities and stimulating methods which
arise from authentic and vivid parts of a widely understood culture.