Blending Spaces

1 Introduction: The interplay of languages, cultures, and minds

Can one learn this knowledge? Yes; some can. Not, however, by making a course in it, but through “experience”. – Can someone else be a man’s teacher in this? – Certainly. From time to time he gives him the right tip. – This is what “learning” and “teaching” are like here. (Wittgenstein 1953: 227e; emphasis in the original)

Teaching and learning a second or foreign language¹ means first of all mediating and learning the words, grammar, pronunciation and morpho-syntax which are part of the linguistic system. These linguistic elements are didactically reducible and thus learnable, following a clearly definable grammatical progression (cf. Harden, Köhler, and Witte 2006). However, ...