Le Pouvoir du Théâtre: Foreign Languages, Higher Education, and Capturing the Notion of Symbolic Competence

Abstract

The study of foreign languages has historically been a cornerstone in higher education for a variety of very good reasons, one being that it will help students develop a sensitivity to diversity. This rationale is compelling in theory, but requires a practical approach for instruction that actually guides students towards such a learning outcome. Current research (e.g., Byrnes, 2006; Kramsch, 2006; Swaffar, 2006) has argued that the traditional focus on the development of communicative competence often promotes a functional understanding of the target language and dominant cultural values, thereby obscuring examples of linguistic ambiguity, power dynamics, and even cultural diversity. According to Kramsch (2009) these concepts can be highlighted by prioritizing symbolic competence, which is the "...ability to draw on the semiotic diversity afforded by multiple languages to reframe ways of seeing familiar events, create alternative realities, and find an appropriate subject position 'between languages,' so to speak" (pp. 200-201). This article discusses why the notion of symbolic competence is so important when teaching foreign language courses at the university level, and explains why theater offers a salient opportunity to engage with semiotic diversity. Specifically, theater allows students to interpret and play with meaning, and in the context of semiotics, students are able to observe, enact, and even dismantle meaning-making devices such as symbolic representation, symbolic action, and symbolic power. This article illustrates classroom activities and examples of student work from an intermediate (200-level) French course, and concludes by discussing the larger implications for foreign language teaching and learning.

Lessons from a distanced stage: embedding a Zoom-mediated drama workshop in a language classroom

“…Recent work (Bellezza, 2020;Étienne & Vanbaelen, 2017;Keneman, 2017), has also demonstrated how the integration of theatre in the language classroom fosters the development of learners' symbolic competence through reflexive, interpretive, and politically engaged pedagogies (Vinall & Heidenfeldt, 2017). When performing, learners manipulate language as symbolic system (Kramsch, 2006), an organic set of symbols that hold different meanings and provide different affordances depending on the context (Back & Wagner, 2019;Byram et al, 2002).…”

“…In theatrical performance, learners engage in negotiating and reframing discourse through the recreation of "personae, or styles of being'" (Eckert, 2002, p. 3); they apply creativity, imagination and criticality to the reading and acting of text and situation, grasping and questioning discursive power dynamics, using language strategically and incorporating their own understandings and experiences to the construction of their characters (Kramsch, 2006). This is especially true where performative tasks allow learners to reimagine and rewrite the meanings and actions proposed (Keneman, 2017), that is, when spaces are generated to play with meaning.…”

Afterword: Where Do We Go from Here?

“…As Keneman (2017) has highlighted, previous research on symbolic competence has focused on the "everyday hegemony that disenfranchises certain individuals and where symbolic competence is especially valuable, both socially and economically speaking" (this issue, p. 86). Yet, these musings on Eddie's racial incident point to the need for discussions around broader considerations of ambiguity in relationship to the operations of power and L2 Journal Vol.…”

“…This activity facilitates the learners' exploration of their connections to their own past cultural and symbolic representations and experiences as well as their awareness of their own positionalities and perspectives. Keneman (2017) provides an opportunity for learners to "discover and make meaning in a foreign language" (this issue, p. 90) through exploring multiple interpretations and representations of Sartre's play Huis Clos arguing that, according to Kearney (2015), "the development of symbolic competence is observable as students engage in the interpretations of signs and meaning over time" (as cited in Keneman, 2017, p. 16). These understandings of meaning making recognize that meaning is pluralistic and at times contradictory as it does not reside in one truth; meaning is constructed in the interaction between text and context; and, meaning is dependent on subject positions as "the way in which the subject presents and represents itself discursively, psychologically, socially, and culturally through the use of symbolic systems" (Kramsch, 2009, p. 20).…”