Language Awareness in the Foreign Language Classroom: The Perspective of the Sociology of Knowledge

Abstract

Since the 1980s, the concept of language awareness has widely become an integral part of didactic competence development in foreign languages. It draws on foundations in applied linguistics and language teaching and learning research, as well as on the extended or holistic model by James and Garrett. On a basic theoretical level, the question arises as to what extent individual language awareness also draws on socially shared knowledge and, going further, whether language awareness can be regarded as a level of knowledge and sense from the perspective of the sociology of knowledge. To do this, it is necessary to look not only at the sociology of knowledge in the narrower sense, but also at the constructivist foundations or theories of learning as well as theories of the sociology of the body. In order to build this bridge, the field to be considered is narrowed down to the foreign language classroom and then recourse is made to some established concepts of applied linguistics (learner languages, language acquisition and learning, body language) to give them a new perspective.