Full Title: DGfS 2024, AG 13 "Semantische Phänomene und Grundlagen lehren und lernen"

Date: 28-Feb-2024 - 29-Feb-2024
Location: Bochum, Germany
Contact Person: Sebastian Bücking
Meeting Email: [email protected]
Web Site: https://www.dgfs2024.ruhr-uni-bochum.de/programm/arbeitsgruppen

Linguistic Field(s): Applied Linguistics; General Linguistics; Pragmatics; Semantics

Call Deadline: 20-Aug-2023

Meeting Description:

In didactic contexts, grammar is usually identified with (morpho)syntax, while semantics plays a rather subordinate role. This neglect of semantic topics is reflected in educational curricula and teaching materials as well as in didactic publications, in which semantic approaches are understood only in terms of problematic ontology-based approaches to parts of speech and clauses and are therefore – rightly – criticized (see, e.g., contributions in Mesch & Rothstein 2015). At the same time, however, there is a broad consensus in didactics that grammar instruction should address not only linguistic forms, but form-function relationships. The working group would like to discuss to what extent this functional orientation could benefit from a strengthening of semantic topics. We invite contributions that reflect on semantic phenomena for grammar teaching from a theoretical-conceptual, empirical, or classroom perspective. The following topics, among others, are suitable for this purpose:
- Modality and deagentivation: Traditionally, mode and passive are not discussed until higher grades, modal sentence adverbs and modal particles are usually not discussed at all. Yet, even elementary school students are confronted with modality and passive voice in tasks and texts.
- Causality: Causal connectors are crucial for the depth dimension of texts. However, in school teaching, the focus is usually only on syntactic restrictions, which results in connectors being recognized only as signal words for punctuation. Teaching semantic aspects, by contrast, could contribute to the development and expansion of semantic-categorical awareness (Kellermann 2023).
- Temporality: Learners often find it difficult to choose the “correct” tense in their texts. Instead of giving students rigid “rules of thumb” for tense selection, semantically oriented didactics of tense can provide linguistically sound decision criteria for the choice of tense (Braun, Gese & Ihle 2023).
- Semantic foundations: Formal foundations of semantics have so far been left out in schools. However, there are obvious potential links, e.g.: composition principles and their relevance for basic concepts of clause theory (predication, modification, etc.); building core digital competencies through exposure to formal languages.

Invited Talk:

Prof. Dr. Michael Rödel (LMU München) and Prof. Dr. Björn Rothstein (Ruhr Universität Bochum): Semantik in der Lehrer:innenbildung. Möglichkeiten und Herausforderungen

This workshop will be part of the 2024 conference of the Annual Meeting of the German Linguistic Society (DGfS). The workshop will be organized by Sebastian Bücking (University of Oldenburg), Helga Gese (University of Tübingen) and Katharina Kellermann (Technical University of Kaiserslautern-Landau).

Call for Papers:

We invite abstracts for presentations (20min. + 10 min. discussion) that should be submitted in PDF format via e-mail to [email protected] by August 20, 2023. Abstracts should be anonymous and no more than one page in length, including references (A4 or letter size, 2,54cm or 1 inch margins on all sides, font Times New Roman with font size 12). Please supplement your abstract with a separate document that provides information about the author(s). Notification of acceptance will be sent to you no later than September 1, 2023. The main language for the discussion in the working group will be German. However, presentations and contributions in English are most welcome as well.