In 2004, the Swiss Conference of Cantonal Ministers of Education (EDK) issued a decision to begin foreign language education already at primary school; as a result, Switzerland’s cantons have successively adapted their foreign language education programmes, starting in the 2006/2007 school year. The new requirement has generated prolonged and multi-layered debate in which various sources are cited, including scientific studies, literature on early language instruction and other forms of expertise. Numerous aspects of foreign language education are discussed, including which language should be taught first, pupil age at the start of foreign language instruction and the results.
Drawing on texts from academia, politics and the media, the project examines how authorities, expertise and evidence are cited in the discourse on foreign language education in Switzerland. The following questions form the focus of the project:
- Authorities: Which actors from academia, politics or other areas are held to be authorities, and by whom?
- Expertise: What kinds of expertise (topics and subjects) can be identified? What is (not) considered to be expertise, and who decides?
- Evidence: What sources are used for which topics and in which contexts of the debate? What arguments are never (or rarely) supported by sources but are instead based on standards/values? What is accepted as empirical evidence, what not and by whom?
The project comprises four phases: 1) definition of the corpus and collection of documents; 2) creation of an analysis system and mapping of references; 3) analysis of content and topoi; 4) consolidation of findings, clarification of research questions and publication of the findings.
The project aim is to provide a summary of the debate on early foreign language education in German- and French-speaking Switzerland since the 2004 EDK decision. Analysis of arguments used in selected discursive events renders specific topological discourse formations of the debate and its sub-debates visible, thereby enabling the systematisation of the argumentative topoi referring to authorities, expertise and scientific evidence.
The project has both theoretical and practical relevance. To enable a critical exploration of the political and academic discourse, it is essential to show how this discourse arises, identify the means and objectives of the arguments, and understand the function of references made to scientific findings in general as well as to individual research results in particular. In addition, analyses are conducted into how certain arguments take shape and are put into practice, which scientific findings are significant in such processes, and how scientific and “pseudo-scientific” results are differentiated. A further project aim is to gain insights into the role of academia and other authorities in public discourse in Switzerland and to shed light on how research findings are instrumentalised for public opinion formation.