The Image of a Teacher in the German and Russian Employment Discourses (Based on Job Advertisements)

Abstract

This article is devoted to a comparative analysis of the representation of the image of a foreign language teacher in the employment discourse in two linguistic cultures. The relevance of the research topic is due to transformations in the educational sphere, the trend towards increasing the importance and prestige of the teaching profession in the Russian society, as well as the need for competent training in intercultural communication skills in the modern world. The purpose of this article is to identify the content components of the teacher’s image and the features of their representation in job advertisement texts. The research material was Russian and German job advertisements for foreign language teachers in the amount of 300 texts. The methodological basis of the study is the cognitive and discursive paradigm. In accordance with the goal, the comparative analysis method was used in the work. The authors believe that in the Russian linguistic culture one can distinguish the image of a secondary school teacher and a teacher or tutor in private schools. Consequently, the content components of the image, which include professional competencies, personal qualities, and working conditions, will differ: a private school teacher is presented as a creative, motivated teacher who is provided with both methodological support and various digital tools. A secondary school teacher is a person who performs not only pedagogical tasks, but also organization and management work. A comparative analysis showed that in the German employment discourse, a teacher is, first of all, a “team player.” The main difference between the images of a teacher represented in German job advertisements is the so-called “gender neutrality”. In the Russian employment discourse, a trend has been noted towards the transition of foreign language teaching to an online format. In the pragmalinguistic aspect, in both linguistic cultures, age restrictions are revealed through an informal address to a potential employee, while in German job advertisements, emotional and evaluative vocabulary explicates the employer’s interest.

Keywords

• employment discourse
• job advertisements
• teacher image
• image components
• linguistic culture
• cognitive and discursive paradigm
• gender neutrality