Corpus analysis of phraseology in an A1 level textbook of German as a foreign language

Abstract

This paper aims to analyse the extent to which the textbook for German as a foreign language DaF kompakt A1 (Sander et al., 2011) complies with the recommendations of the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages (Council of Europe, 2001) (hereafter CEFR) in respect to lexical competence and sociolinguistic competence in receptive and productive activities, specifically with regard to phraseological units. In this respect, we have focused on sentential formulae and fixed frames present in a corpus containing the textbook materials, and we have checked whether those fixed expressions correspond to the phraseological and sociolinguistic compe-tences that are expected in the Framework for an A1 level student of German language. To this end, we have compiled a corpus of the textbook receptive and productive materials, made up by three subcorpora: one for the written texts, one for the oral texts, and a third subcorpus containing exercises. We have performed a quantitative analysis (by means of AntConc 3.4.4 [Anthony, 2016] and kfNgram [Fletcher, 2007]), and a qualitative one. Our results suggest that the textbook complies with the recommendations of the CEFR.