Christiane Dalton-Puffer

Research on language teaching and learning in Austria (2004–2009)

This overview of six years of research on language learning and teaching in Austria covers a period of dynamic development in the field. While all the studies reviewed here illustrate research driven by a combination of local and global concerns and theoretical frameworks, some specific clusters of research interest emerge. The first of these focuses on issues connected with multilingualism in present-day society in terms of language policy, theory development and, importantly, the critical scrutiny of dominant discursive practices in connection with minority and migrant languages. In combination with this focus, there is a concern with German as a second or foreign language in a number of contexts. A second cluster concerns the area of language testing and assessment, which has gained political import due to changes in national education policy and the introduction of standardized tests. Finally, a third cluster of research concerns the diverse types of specialized language instruction, including the introduction of foreign language instruction from age six onwards, the rise of academic writing instruction, English-medium education and, as a final more general issue, the role of English as a dominant language in the canon of all foreign and second languages in Austria.

Sexist German- non-sexist English or non-sexist German-sexist English? Historical observations on a pragmatic question

Abstract The paper investigates tendencies with regard to gender-specific or gender-non-specific designations in English and German by means of nouns in present-day usage as well as the historical development of these tendencies. German favours “feminisation”, i.e. the overt marking of gender affiliation by the appropriate morphological form and the corresponding splitting, e.g. Professor/Professorin, because it has a productive suffix for this purpose. English, on the other hand, prefers neutralised forms and also treats the agent suffix -er as basically neutral, relegating the gender-specificity to pronominal coreference. The reason for this difference is the loss of the original Germanic feminising suffixes in English, where the Romance loan suffixes -ess and -ette never really became productive (usually they have a pejorative connotation), whereas in German the -in-suffix preserved its productivity and now has become a major instrument in the struggle for political correctness.