Katharina König

Sprachliche Kategorisierungsverfahren und subjektive Theorien über Sprache in narrativen Interviews

Abstract Various recent studies dealing with personal experiences of migration have addressed questions of identity by referring to the topos of “the third space” (Bhaba, The location of culture, Routledge, 2006): People who have migrated to Germany often classify themselves in narrative interviews as “sitting between two chairs” (Foroutan/Schäfer, Aus Politik und Zeitgeschichte 5: 11–18, 2009) or as being “bi-local” (Spohn, Zweiheimisch. Bikulturell leben in Deutschland, Bundeszentrale für politische Bildung, 2006). However, such categorizations are often treated outside the context in which they were articulated to an interviewer. This article analyses the interactive settings of categorization sequences in which identity is negotiated by (dis)aligning with social categories that the speakers themselves set as relevant. Based on a corpus of narrative interviews with people of Vietnamese origin living in West-Germany, it is argued that categorization is a highly context-dependent communicative strategy in which practices of self and other positioning are applied on different levels of interaction with the interviewer. Moreover, “categorical formulations” (Ayaß, „Form und Funktion Kategorischer Formulierungen“, Opladen, 1999a, „Vom Ursprung der Sprichwörter und ihrem Schicksal“, Opladen, b, Nazarkiewicz, Interkulturelles Lernen als Gesprächsarbeit, VS Verlag, 2010) contextualise these categorizations as moral communication.

Audioguidekommunikation als kommunikative Praktik

Abstract The paper discusses a practice-based approach to the linguistic analysis of audioguide communication. Based on a corpus of 20 audioguide aggregates of visual arts museum exhibitions, specific and recurrent patterns are outlined (opening routines, different patterns of speaker selection, positioning within the given museum space) which suggest that audioguide communication has to be conceptualised as a mediatised practice and as a located or “location-bound” practice. The authors argue that a practice-based approach enables more comprehensive studies which also take the actual in-situ use of audioguide aggregates into account.

auch so ne lustige Geschichte

Beim Forschungsinstrument des narrativ-sprachbiographischen Interviews werden die Interviewten in einem einleitenden Impuls aufgefordert, ihre „Lebensgeschichte“ mit einem thematischen Fokus auf sprachbezogene Erlebnisse erzahlend zu rekonstruieren und zu reflektieren. Im Verlauf von so gewonnenen sprachbiographischen Erzahlungen fallt auf, dass die interviewten Personen ihre Erzahlungen haufig metakommunikativ als amusante Episoden rahmen oder durch lachendes Sprechen als humorvoll-komisch modalisieren. Die rekonstruktive Auseinandersetzung mit Migration und Mehrsprachigkeit wird von den Interviewten in solchen Sequenzen also eng mit den Aspekten Komik, Humor und Unernst verbunden.

Communicative constructions of space in epistemic asymmetry: The case of German-Chinese university placement interviews

Abstract Placement interviews have become an important discourse genre at universities as they decide about access to social, monetary, or cultural resources. Despite their importance, hardly any linguistic studies deal with this particular discourse genre in academic communication. Using a conversation-analytic approach, we analyze a corpus of placement interviews in which representatives of a German university interview Chinese students applying for a study year at the German university. We examine how Chinese applicants present their second-hand knowledge about Germany and German universities in a conversation with university representatives who have first-hand knowledge about these spaces, i. e., we investigate how interviewers and interviewees deal with epistemic asymmetry when they construct and talk about academic spaces in China and Germany. While some aspects of German academia are situated in imagined spaces of which Chinese students cannot have direct knowledge, students are expected to know about other aspects of German academia that are situated in knowable spaces. Moreover, applicants and interviewers take varying evaluative and affective stances toward the different academic spaces and thus construct cultural difference. Interviewers treat German academia as a different or a foreign space. As part of a “hidden academic agenda” of university placement interviews, students construct German academia as a desired space with many opportunities and they present Chinese academia as an unsatisfying space they would like to leave behind. The paper contributes to recent studies of interactional sociolinguistics, intercultural communication, and epistemics in interaction by expanding their scope to the practices of affective and epistemic stance taking in intercultural communication.

Fragen in universitären Sprechstundengesprächen: Gesprächsanalyse und authentisches gesprochenes Deutsch im DaF-Unterricht

Zusammenfassung Der vorliegende Beitrag befasst sich mit Fragesätzen und Fragehandlungen in authentischen institutionellen Gesprächen. Im Anschluss an eine Diskussion der in Grammatiken und DaF-Lehrwerken vorgenommenen Fokussierung auf Ergänzungs- und Entscheidungsfragen wird exemplarisch anhand eines universitären Sprechstundengesprächs aus dem DAAD-Projekt »Gesprochenes Deutsch für die Auslandsgermanistik« aufgezeigt, dass in der institutionellen Kommunikation weitere, häufig elliptische oder ko-konstruierende Formate genutzt werden, mit denen die Interagierenden rollenspezifisch Wissensdefizite bearbeiten. Abschließend werden Vorschläge für die Didaktisierung einer DaF-Unterrichtseinheit zu Fragehandlungen in institutionellen Gesprächen präsentiert.