Department of German

 Linking Meaning and Form In Acquisition: Level II

 I. Language Focus

 Within a larger discourse frame of reference, students' attentional focus continues to be at the sentence level. However there is now deliberate expansion from the simplex to the complex sentence and, in the highly specified context of chronological narrative, from the sentence to the discourse level in order to enable students to create textual worlds. The continued sentence focus at Level II thus has an aspect of solidifying known syntactic and morphological features, which means an expectation of greater accuracy. It also has an aspect of expansion into more complex environments, first at the sentence level but gradually also at the discourse level. This expansion and reach can result in greater fragility of language use, particularly at the beginning of the year. However, with simple chronological narration that parallels the evolving events a considerable degree of accuracy and variation of expression should be possible by the end of the level.

The following foci are deemed to be appropriate:

• 1. At the discourse level

Using narrativity as the most basic discourse behavior, focus and topicalization, background and foreground, presumed known and unknown need to be incorporated in order to highlight relationships between meaning and form.

Note: in German writing topicalized adverbs and adverbial constructions are not set off by commas since they are part of the sentence (something that oral language marks through continuous intonation).

While simple narrativity is the central and also the comfort zone for practicing discursive behavior, various sentence connectors according to other major organizational patterns, (chronology, comparison, contrast, cause-and-effect, deductive, inductive, summative) should be introduced for recognition and some restricted use. Beyond the archetypal story telling in personal narratives, other intentions that should be included in instruction and writing are registering agreement or disagreement with a position, and some expression and weighing of opinion on the issues introduced by the themes of the unit. Initially this will be mostly at the personal level; gradually it can reach toward more formal expression. Incorporating greater specificity in descriptions of people, places, and events is appropriate and may need to be practiced separately.

Issues of coherence and cohesion. These can be looked at in organizational, grammatical, and lexicogrammatical terms, with continuous overlaps and movements between these levels. Organizationally and grammatically two major issues deserve attention:

Cohesive devices function at the level of episode/paragraph, most notably between sentences or within complex sentences (e.g., old and new information, lexical repetition and variation as cohesive devices, indefinite, definite and demonstrative articles as cohesive devices; various pro-form), and through forms of information management at the paragraph level (introducing, continuing, ending an episode);

Coherence functions primarily in order to structure information beyond the episode or paragraph. In narratives, the focus is on temporal relationships and maintaining or shifting relationships between people, places, things, and events. However, other major organizational patterns should also be introduced, primarily through their most characteristic discourse markers; 

Lexically, coherence and cohesion can be established through repetition and variation within semantic fields (see point # 3 below). These can be language based (e.g., derivational from verb to noun to adjective: fallen, der Fall, gefallen) and/or concept-based (e.g., associations irrespective of the actual language form: der Fall der Mauer; der Beginn einer neuen Ära). Writing tasks should try to incorporate these possibilities, and feedback should draw students' attention to these possibilities.

This level sets up a development that is crucial in subsequent levels, namely vocabulary expansion, and lexical accuracy. This is best done by pointing to the transparency of lexical classes and appropriate domains of use for certain vocabulary and the semantic/syntactic implications of certain categories (e.g., prefixing, suffixing, compounding, composition; see above under lexical coherence)

In discourse, these can be exemplified and used in their appropriate domains, e.g., prepositions/prepositional phrases, conjunctions, adverbials (e.g., trotz, obwohl, trotzdem)

• 2. At the sentence level

Continued verb centrality in terms of temporality, realis -- irrealis, action -- result/state, modality, but with more expansive complements, adverbial or sentential (e.g. time, place, manner, purpose, instrument) as students learn to create textual worlds;

Functionally, verb centrality is tied to the increasing use of various forms of past narration in different contexts (oral vs. written, formal vs. informal), the possibility of expressing one's stance in overtly evaluative or in less evaluative terms, in a more directly involved or in a more matter-of-fact fashion, as action or as result (e.g., use of passive constructions);

The narrative tenses and their relationships in different modes/genres of language use

Imperfekt -- Plusquamperfekt
Historical present (engagement, liveliness of narration) -- Perfekt in direct quotes
Perfekt -- Plusquamperfekt

Ways of expressing habitual performance ("we would go to the country") need to be included in instruction as they tend to occur in writing tasks.

Verb-dependent prepositional complements which are often fixed collocations (and not always and necessarily best analyzed by rules) are gradually transferred from passive to active use. Modeling in texts and various scaffolding devices are likely to be critical;

Some aspects of the verbal paradigm that were previously learned as formulae and fixed collocations should now be analyzed and put into the larger context of similar and contrasting language use. Among these are past vs. subjunctive use (e.g., "wurde" vs. "würde" , "hatte" vs. "hätte") and the use of the passive (see below);

Alongside strengthening and expanding the verbal paradigm, various possibilities for modification within the nominal paradigm are now built up, a feature that is increasingly important for the kinds of detailed descriptions that occur at Level III and for more abstract language use in Level IV. Prenominal modification is likely to dominate (e.g., adjectives, including present and past participles), with the most frequent occurrences of relative clauses exemplifying postnominal modifications;

Strong emphasis on the semantics of case: directionality, location, time (duration/point in time);

Particular attention to plural formation;

Some limited incorporation of the passive in appropriate environments in accordance with its functional load (actor not known, actor irrelevant, actor concealed, prominence of end result, public and abstract vs. private and concrete language). This inherently brings up another wurde/würde differentiation whose acquisition will require repeated opportunities for use in appropriate contexts.

• 3. At the lexicogrammatical level

Vocabulary is acquired primarily through the diverse units' content focus. Because the texts offer considerably more vocabulary than students can reasonably be expected to acquire instruction should enable them to identify and acquire a central core of expressions that they can use actively and creatively. This is best done through semantic fields that are collaboratively developed from the texts (e.g., a field surrounding the topic Heimat);

These can be language based (e.g., derivational across word classes: der Freund, die Freundin, befreundet sein, freundlich, unfreundlich) and/or associative and concept-based (e.g., associations irrespective of the actual language form: die Heimat, sich wohl fühlen, glücklich und geborgen sein; die Fremde, fremd sein). Writing tasks should incorporate these possibilities, and feedback should further draw students' attention to them.

This level sets up a development that is crucial in subsequent levels, namely vocabulary expansion and nuanced use, and lexical accuracy. This is best done by pointing to the transparency of lexical classes and appropriate domains of use for certain vocabulary and the semantic/syntactic implications of certain categories (e.g., prefixing, suffixing, compounding, composition; see the point above).

II. Emphasis and Weighting of Features

• + Focused treatment by way of explicit teaching of the feature

Narrative tenses and their relationship in different modes/genres of language use
Semantics of case and prepositions: directionality, location, tense, aspect
Function of subjunctive and modals (politeness marker, expression of wishes, hypotheticals, hedging, softening/reducing)
Relative clause constructions, primarily in the nominative and the accusative, incidentally as the object of prepositions
Use of the passive in appropriate environments
Cohesive devices between sentences, e.g., introducing of new information, continuation of old information (actors, places, events), and other information management features at the paragraph level, such as marking beginnings and endings, summation, comparison and contrast. 

• ++ Focused treatment in order to assure accuracy of previously taught material

Case and tense markers
Prepositions and their case requirements, or linkages to fixed expressions, particularly verbs
Verb position in major sentence patterns (statement, question, compound tenses, subordinate clauses)
Directionality vs. location (stellen/stehen; legen/liegen)
Expression of time (duration, point in time, iterativeness)
Use of modals
Plural formation

• <>Carried along

Modification of noun phrase (with adjectives including present- and past participles as adjectives)

Simplex discourse markers beyond simple chronology (e.g., da-compounds; addition/contrast/cause-effect: aber, trotzdem, allerdings, deshalb

Various features of coherence that organize texts beyond chronology, through phrasal/syntactic possibilities (e.g., cause and effect, comparison and contrast, exemplification, summarizing: obwohl, wenn man .... vergleicht; ein Beispiel dafür ist, zusammenfassend kann man sagen, dass)

Various pro-forms, e.g., da-/wo-compounds

Dec. 7, 2002