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Unmotivated and unprepared, an Austrian young man leaves his home town Vienna, only to dive into the unknown Romania. He already has images of this country in his mind. He is on his way towards the magical, dark, sparkling Transdanubien, about which he only knows clichés: that Romanians barely have anything to eat, that it is a country of gypsies, that the official language is Russian, that it is an anachronistic country par excellence. With this perspective, his relationship with local Ilina can only fail. This article follows along the lines of a complicated inter-cultural communication.
Looking back, my memories seem like distant, made-up stories. These words of the main character are to be found all over Jan Koneffkes novel. A foreigner on the run, Felix Kannmacher is forced to tell stories in order to survive. He is at the mercy of a teenager who is avid for constantly new and different bedtime stories. Felix gives in, as he has no other choice but to be a slaveto this child. The following article analyses the fine line between the stories Felix invents for Virginia and two narratological aspects: the actual plot of the novel on the one hand, and the actual course of history, on the other. The entire novel is built on stories-within-stories that twist and turn the course of Story and History alike. Because each one of us writes their own (hi)story.
For intercultural language teaching, coaching students on how to perceive the cultural “other” is of crucial importance in order to avoid culturally based misunderstandings. This paper explores how perceiving the other can offer conclusions for perceiving and becoming aware of the self. Through that, a process of giving and taking ensues in which perceptions of the self and of the other are constantly fluctuating depending on the context in which the communication is taking place. At the crossroads between members of two different cultures, a dialogue emerges in which the points of view of both parties are changed. The paper outlines how perception is a construct in which one’s own origin, education, and emotions are blended in. Intercultural learning is the way to deal with this constructs in a flexible manner so as to create new interpretation patterns. It teaches how to sympathize with the other and how to better understand oneself.
Film is a wonderful means of reflecting upon the identity of the self and the other. A movie like Didi Danquart’s Offset (2006), which deals with intercultural conflicts, even more so. The clash of the Romanian and German cultures depicted in this movie illustrates how the construction of identity – of the self and the other – works.
Using literature in culture and civilization classes enables the contact to foreign culture. Literature does not merely copy reality, but has its own rules of story telling, its own way of changing the perspective on reality, of correcting cliches, in omitting something, so as for the reader to become curious and fill in these „gaps”. In this paper, a fragment from a novel shows how a german businessman arriving in interbellic Romania finds that time is measured differently in those two countries.
Prämissen für die Vermittlung interkultureller Kompetenzen im studienbegleitenden DaF-Unterricht
(2014)
Language teaching alone is not sufficient in order to communicate successfully in the foreign language. Even with the acquisition of one’s native language, one does not learn just vocabulary, grammar, reading, writing, speaking and listening. Apart from all that one learns how to identify and to practice cultural patterns. Here, the learning and teaching process is accompanied by another component: intercultural communication and the acquisition of intercultural competences. These teach the lerner to understand first and foremost their own cultural background in order for them to be able to change perspective and look at and understand the cultural background of the target language. Teaching must be centered on the learner, and the foreign language is not taught „in general“, but with regard to the learners’ culture of origin.
Language teaching through the medium of film may prove very rewarding in that it moves the focus away from language and its general markers (grammar, vocabulary) alone and casts it onto culture, cultural boundaries and rules. Among them, space plays a very important role. It defines who we are, where we come from. Especially the fine line between what is considered public or private space is worth being analyzed. With examples from two movies, students of German as a Foreign Language are meant to discover this fine line, look beyond it and restore an equilibrium between the public and the private in order to be prepared for intercultural experiences.
Cosmin, a twelve-year-old Roma boy from Transylvania, only goes to school for a short while. For his mother, it is more important, that he, the only male of a household with many mouths to feed, help her with work. But Cosmin’s teacher does not give up and proposes a bargain: If Cosmin’s mother lets her children go to school, she will get electricity from the school to be able to watch TV. Due to this arrangement, Cosmin returns to school for a few days, becomes a little thief and embarks on a journey that can become an opportunity for him. A kind of a bildungsroman, a coming of age novel focused on the ups and downs between two worlds on Romanian soil, that could not be more different from one another: the Romanian majority and the Roma minority. This article sets out to document life at the brink of society, with all of its facets.
It is with the words „Denkst du, das Leben besteht aus Geschichten?“2 that Peterʼs grandfather answers to Peterʼs request to be told yet another story. They say that a collective memory is only imaginable and perceivable in its manifestations of individuals. This is the ace up Karin Gündischs sleeve that she uses in her novel Weit, hinter den Wäldern. A relatively unknown, yet valuable author, she manages to envision the post World War II world in a Saxonian village in a very authentic way. Filtered through the gaze of young Peter, 12, the author tells the stories of the deprivations and humiliations that Saxonians had to endure after World War II in Russian imprisonment. The novel also talks about guilt on both ends. At first, the stories are entertaining for the children, but they soon discover they are listening to stories about survival in dire times. Many storytellers get to tell their stories throughout the novel, as the book abounds in Scheherezade-like stories that soften the blow of the hard day to day life in Transylvania. This article aims at answering the question as to what roles storytelling plays in a context of atrocity. Roger Willemsen warns about the tough process of dealing with a difficult past, which Karin Gündisch, in her book for children and teenagers, but also for adults excels at: “There is no easy way to talk about the horrendous.“
