ABSTRACT
Although academic interest in linguistic pluricentricity is more recent, there is currently a broad consensus in Romance linguistic research about the pluricentric character of most Romance languages, even if many aspects are still being discussed in detail in a more or less controversial way. In foreign-language research, language education, and teaching, however, the findings of linguistic research have so far not fully been taken into account. The overall aim of this paper is to establish stronger links between these areas. In the first part, I will briefly examine the state of research with regard to pluricentricity in Romance linguistics on the one hand and in foreign language research, education, and teaching on the other. The focus will be on French and Spanish, two languages with a quite different normative architecture. In the second part, the challenges, perspectives, and some examples of ‘pluricentricity-sensitive’ teaching of Spanish and French are discussed.
