The speech styles of young German speakers in entertainment and social media employ slang, English, and jargon for current social issues including LGBTQIA+ sexuality: "geil," "krass," "Alter" or "queer," "Yaas Queen," "coming-out" or "gendern," "pansexuell,"…

In the United States, numerous world language programs face criticism by being labeled as useless and inferior, resulting in curriculum and funding cuts. Despite defending their practicality, showing how vital skills are acquired through participation in these courses, many programs' efforts often fall short in conveying the essential role of…

The lack of consensus about gender-inclusive language (GIL) in German poses growing challenges for English-speaking German as a foreign language (L2 German) students and instructors. Whereas students often struggle to convey the same gender sensitivity that is generally available in English into their second language (L2), instructors are equally…

Language should be inclusive. This implies that it should be accessible for as many people as possible. The concept of easy-to-read language ("Leichte Sprache," LS) developed for this purpose and primarily for people with learning difficulties is beneficial for L2 learners of German as well. Inclusive language also entails the aspect of…

Second language acquisition (SLA) research emphasizes the role of imagination in language learning, with learners often envisioning themselves engaging with native speakers. However, learners' language preferences may differ from those of native-speaker communities. For example, while regional language is used in native-speaker communities to…

This study analyzes the inclusion of binary and non-binary gender-just language in US first-year college German textbooks. The analysis covers eight textbooks, evaluating their use of gender-just forms such as the gender star and neopronouns, which explicitly represent non-binary positionalities, as well as "neutral" or binary…

There is a need for a continued focus on language learning in advanced language classes beyond the foundations that are formed in the beginning and intermediate levels. Despite this need, little work exists on how to implement language-focused instruction in upper-level courses. As one possible solution, this paper outlines a functional,…

Although considerable attempts have been made to decolonize German Studies curricula in UK universities through an inclusion of German-language cultural artifacts of authors and artists from ethno-racially marginalized backgrounds, this kind of expansionist method--the endeavor to merely expand the canon of German Studies--does not suffice. While…

Because of their presumably familiar plot lines and character tropes, the Grimm Brothers' fairy tales are often included as one of the earliest literary selections in German language and culture curricula. However, for learners to engage more critically and interpretively with fairy-tale genres, it is exactly their assumed familiarity with the…

This paper takes a closer look at diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility (DEIA) in the context of German Studies and the language classroom in the United States. The first part of the article examines the terminology, provides a general history of DEI/DEIA in higher education in the United States, and traces the development of DEI…

This article analyzes the open educational resource "Grenzenlos Deutsch" (GD) in the context of political resistance against diversity, equity, and inclusivity initiatives (DEI). Attacks on DEI are not merely attempts to curtail ideas and practices but to police and erase particular bodies. Recent legislation targeting DEI at North…

In this paper the author outlines a sample lesson that has been developed for second- or third-year German students using the short satirical vignette "Hurra, ich lebe in Deutschland" from the Turkish-German author Sinasi Dikmen's book of the same name. The lesson draws heavily from literary pragmatics, an area of applied linguistics which studies…

The correct use of German "bringen" and "nehmen" can pose problems for native speakers of English learning German. Students often use "nehmen" to express meanings rendered by English "take," which can result in sentences that are ungrammatical. This paper investigates the basic verbs of conveyance in German and English--"bringen," "nehmen,"…

Describes how German proverbs and idioms can be purposefully and efficiently incorporated into the German foreign-language classroom. Presents a holistic model with exercises on lexical approximations, semantic understanding, and pragmatic usage. Eighteen "vehicles" (chain reactions, association games) are introduced. (Author/VWL)

This paper makes a usage-based contribution to the learning and teaching of German via the tools of contrastive learner corpus analysis (Granger, 1998; Granger, Hung, and Petch-Tyson, 2002; Nesselhauf, 2004). On the basis of an integrated learner and native speaker corpus of "telecollaborative" discourse (Belz, 2005), an empirically rich…