From Contrastive Text Linguistics to Didactic Applications – and back again

Abstract: Results from contrastive text linguistics are used to show how systematic differences between an L1 and an L2 can be applied to foreign language didactics for teaching textual skills in a methodical and efficient way. The language pair studied consists of Danish and French, which, belonging to two different language families, Germanic and Romance languages respectively, show many systematic differences in their fundamental structure – within lexicalisation, morphology, and syntax – that turn out to have a predictable impact on text structure. Thus, differences are found between Danish and French texts at the levels of referential coherence in different types of anaphoric expressions, of temporal coherence in different means for fore- and back-grounding events, and of structural coherence in different effects of framing via pre-posed adverbials, etc. Two e-learning programs, TeXtRay and NaviLire, are presented, which exploit such systematic differences between given language pairs in offering different types of navigation and visualisation exercises aimed at teaching textual skills needed at higher university education, such as reading and writing complex academic or specialised texts in a foreign language.