Competenze linguistiche e discipline specialistiche: possibili interazioni nell'ambito delle scienze politiche

The contribution reports on two language courses, German and English, at the faculty of Political Science, University of Naples Federico II. Despite the different entry level of the participants (German A1; English B1), they both exploit authentic materials dealing with sociopolitical topics and seek to raise awareness of linguistic and discursive features in the texts analysed. Through a series of activities students are sensitized to surface and deep meanings associated with words and also encouraged to view language in use as an essential element in a communicative act. The paper concludes that exploitation of authentic texts sourced from sociopolitical domains highly motivates students and links up with the content disciplines taught in a political science degree course.