Foreign language teaching in conflict

searching for conciliatory critical attitudes

Abstract

Learning a foreign language includes not only mastering its systemic and functional dimensions, but also developing a critical attitude, considering aspects such as awareness of the numerous conflicts that underlie its study, along with numerous solutions already attempted, either through confrontation or conciliation. The main objective of this study is to investigate the possibility of a conciliatory solution to these conflicts, proposing a methodology based on Elective Affinities. The theoretical underpinnings come from Critical Discourse Analysis, inducing conflict emergence, and attaching to it the concept of Peace Cultures, with the idea that conflict can be resolved through dialogue. The data are collected from what was published by the world press on September 12, 2001, about the attacks on the Twin Towers in New York the day before. The conclusion is that conflict resolution through conciliatory attitudes challenges the speaker to enact a provisional rupture with its immediate context to build more lasting bonds with interlocutors of other cultures.