Open Access

Die Arbeit beschreibt und definiert in einem ersten Schritt barrierefreies Content-Marketing. Anschließend wird dargelegt, wie und inwieweit multimodale Content-Marketing-Kommunikate, vornehmlich DIY-Videos, barrierefrei aufbereitet werden können, welche Möglichkeiten und Instrumente dafür vorliegen und welche Probleme und Grenzen dabei auftreten können. Dies wird anhand der Analyse eines DIY-Videos, welches im Rahmen der Content-Marketing-Strategie von toom Baumarkt produziert und auf der Plattform YouTube veröffentlicht wurde, veranschaulicht. Es wird gezeigt, wie das Video für eine mögliche Zielgruppe (Gehörlose) mittels einer audiovisuellen Übersetzung, Untertitelung für Hörgeschädigte sowie einer Übersetzung in Leichte Sprache aufbereitet werden kann und welche Herausforderungen dabei emergieren können.

This doctoral dissertation investigates the linguistic performance of German elementary school English teachers and how their second language (L2) English performance relates to their students' acquisition of English as a foreign language. The studies reflect the teachers' L2 language performance, give insights into the interrelationships of the complexity, accuracy, and fluency (CAF) dimensions of L2 language production, and finally address how linguistic performance relates to the students' L2 development. Following a mixed-methods approach, the first study analyzed the language performance elicited in semi-structured qualitative interviews with eleven German elementary school English teachers based on CAF measures. The second study focuses on the students' language development of a sub-set of four of the interviewed teachers. The students (N = 132) were given picture pointing tasks of either receptive grammar, receptive vocabulary or both at two times during the fourth year of elementary school. The key finding was that the whole group’s mean grammar score significantly improved from time one to time two. The increase of the mean vocabulary score was not statistically significant. When the students were grouped with their respective teachers, comparisons exposed significant differences between some of the groups. The third study synthesizes the teachers’ CAF performance and the students’ development in receptive English grammar and vocabulary. A principal components analysis (PCA) first calculated the variability of the range of the measures for complexity, accuracy, and fluency and their contributions to each CAF dimension. Correlation analyses between the dimensions revealed several robust significant correlations for complexity, accuracy, and fluency as captured in breakdown fluency and speed fluency. Repair fluency and lexical diversity correlated with breakdown and speed fluency, but not with accuracy and complexity. Based on the teachers’ composite CAF scores calculated in the PCA and the students’ test scores, the relationships between the teachers’ language performances and their students’ L2 development were analyzed. Multiple regression analyses retained breakdown fluency, measured in the number and length of pauses as part of the fluency dimension, as the only dimension significantly predicting the students’ receptive grammar development. The results point to several conclusions: First, the significant correlations between complexity, accuracy, and fluency in terms of breakdown and speed fluency indicate that the dimensions did not come at the expense of one another in the L2 performance on the cross-sectional interview task used in this study. Second, the students’ significant improvement in receptive English grammar implies some positive development of elementary school L2 English as a whole. However, the high variability among the students’ scores indicates other factors being at play in the children’s L2 development in addition to the teachers’ performance investigated in this study. Third, breakdown fluency as a specific feature of the teachers’ spoken language performance may have a beneficial effect on the children’s receptive English grammar acquisition. This finding is in line with observations of pausing as an element of L2 teacher talk as well as a prosodic feature in child-directed speech in first language acquisition that potentially aids language learners in segmenting linguistic input. The findings propose that future research take into consideration specific features in the L2 input and examine them as possible factors in children’s L2 language acquisition. Der Anhang dieser Veröffentlichung steht ebenfalls als elektronische Publikation im Internet kostenfrei (Open Access) zur Verfügung unter: http://dx.doi.org/10.18442/084

Die Arbeit geht anhand einer qualitativen Studie der Frage nach, welche sprachlichen Phänomene in einem fach(sprach)lichen Text der Unternehmenskommunikation Adressat(inn)en mit Beeinträchtigung Probleme bei der Wahrnehmung und beim Verstehen bereiten. Es werden Aspekte verschiedener Disziplinen wie der Experten-Laien-Kommunikation, der Fachkommunikation, der Kognitionswissenschaft sowie der Sprachrezeptionsforschung hinsichtlich der Frage nach der Zugänglichkeit von Kommunikaten für Adressat(inn)en mit besonderem Anforderungsprofil dargestellt. In der Analyse wird eine Gruppe von Rezipient(inn)en mit geistiger Behinderung und unterschiedlichen weiteren Einschränkungen bei der Textbesprechung des Fahrgastrechteformulars der Deutschen Bahn AG in Bezug auf die Perzeptions- und Verstehensprobleme bei der Rezeption untersucht, um noch ausstehende Lösungswege und Forschungsdesiderate bezüglich der Textoptimierung für Adressat(inn)en mit besonderen Kommunikationsanforderungen aufzuzeigen.

Accessible communication is easy to find, easy to perceive, easy to understand and is related to the previous knowledge of the recipients. Target groups may have special communication needs necessitated by sensory, cognitive or psychological impairment, low education or critical life events such as illness, loss of reference persons or forced migration. When texts fail to address the needs of these target groups, they become barriers to successful interaction: sensory and cognitive barriers, media and culture barriers, language or specialized language barriers or even motoric barriers. Accessible communication comprises all measures to prevent texts (oral or written) from becoming a barrier for the intended target groups. This is a broad field of action that comprises, but goes way beyond Easy and Plain Language: A text could be written in Easy Language but the intended users have no access to it; a text may not be well perceived and therefore not understood; a text may be accessible online, but directed to users with different media preferences; a text may be easy to perceive and understand but not acceptable with respect to the politeness requirements of the users. What good are such texts to the target audience? This paper, that was held as Plenary Speech on the 2019 Klaara Network conference, focuses on Easy Language and Accessible Communication in Germany and discusses communication barriers and the conditions of communicative accessibility for people with diverse needs in the light of the following questions: What road have we travelled thus far? Where are we right now? Have we really covered all necessary aspects of accessibility? Where do we go from here?

Der Artikel modelliert ein System der Klassifikation von Kommunikationsbarrieren, die von Texten ausgehen können. Die Barrieretypen werden mit Anforderungsprofilen von Adressat/innen mit und ohne Kommunikationsbehinderungen verschränkt. Das beschriebene Modell eröffnet die Möglichkeit, die Barrierefreiheit von Kommunikationsangeboten anhand eines Barriereindex zu evaluieren.