Authorizing the Foreign Language Student Hiram H Maxim The University of Texas at Austin ABSTRACT This paper begins by reviewing the current practices in foreign language teach- ing in light of Bourdieu’s theories of language and power to show how failing to assess dis- cursive intent prevents students from understanding the strategic use of language. Bourdieu ’s model is then proposed as the basis for a pedagogy that authorizes students to use their exist- ing cognitive skills in order to assess a text’s discourse and uncover its verbal and nonverbal strategies. To illustrate this alternative pedagogy, pedagogical techniques used to teach a short video segment from German television in a third-semesterBusiness German course will be dis- cussed. Each of the techniques encourages students to look for the significance of the video’s visual as well as verbal discourse. To help exemplify both the authorizing process and the ped- agogical effectiveness of this new approach, these techniques will also be compared with input exercises that ask students to register information without assessing discursive intent. As a final point, this paper will discuss oral and written exercises that build on students’ insights from their analysis of the video’s visual and acoustic features. ~~ - Introduction Modern language departments in the United States have traditionally been marked by a strong division between language teaching at the lower level and cultural and literary study at the upper level.’ One of the many conse quences of this split is that critical theory, which plays such a central role in upperdivi- sion and especially graduatelevel courses, has not been applied to lower-division language teaching. Only recently have scholars started to address this situation and suggest ways to in- tegrate critical theory into the teaching of for- eign languages (Berman 1994, 1996; Hopper 1988; Kramsch 1993; Kramsch and Nolden 1994; Peck 1992; Swaffar et al. 1991; von Hoene 1995). Despite these notable and im- portant steps, the initial emphasis in foreign language instruction remains on developing linguistic fluency and accuracy rather than comprehending and analyzing the discourse of an authentic text. Such an emphasis not only disadvantages the foreign language learner by privileging the native speaker, but it Hiram H. Mawirn (M.A., Middlebury College) is a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of Germanic Languages at the University of Texas at Austin. also ignores the interrelationship between foreign language proficiency and the learner‘s grasp of foreign language discourse. Discourse or language use, defined as the speaker or writer’s verbal and nonverbal strategies, ren- ders messages significant in their social and political contexts. Unless actively aware of the discursive systems that motivate language use, foreign language learners will miss out on learning how and to what end language is ac- tually used. This paper begins by reviewing the current practices in foreign language teaching in light of Bourdieu’s theories of language and power. Bourdieu’s insights reveal that registering lan- guage use without assessing discursive intent relegates students to a subaltern position from which they may learn to identify foreign lan- guage usage but not the significanceof foreign language as discourse. To illustrate an alterna- tive practice that would encourage students to look for the significance of the visual as well as verbal discourse, pedagogical techniques and accompanying exercises used to teach a short video segment from German television in a thirdsemester Business German class at the University of Texas at Austin will be discussed. Included in this discussion will be the peda- Foreign Language Annals, 31, No. 3, 1998