Volume 42, Issue 4

Zusammenfassung Mit dem Blick auf die über die Germanistik hinausreichende Bedeutung der dynamischen Funktionsweise der deutschen Sprache in Staaten mit unterschiedlicher Gesellschaftsordnung wird dein Konzept der ‘nationalen Varietäten’, das von dem Konzept der ‘nationalen Varianten’ abgehoben wird, unter Betonung der Einheit des Diasystems der Gesamtsprache der Vorzug gegeben. Die ‘plurizentrische’ Entfaltung des Deutschen wird insbesondere im Hinblick auf die Anpassung an die Bedürfnisse der sozialistischen Gesellschaft als Bereicherung betrachtet. In bezug auf die sprachlichen Beziehungen zwischen den deutschsprachigen Staaten wird eine Wechselwirkung von Innovations- und Beharrungstendenzen, von Differenzierungs- und Ausgleichsprozessen, von Ausstrahlung und Übernahme konstatiert.

Research on political vocabulary has a long tradition in GDR linguistics. Early works, however, could not provide a convincing explanation, due mainly to the stage of development of lexicon theory. From a textual and discursive perspective two topical questions are dismissed: (i) the question of „ideological naming polarities“ in the present time, and (ii) the role of intertextuality for understanding the specific use of a word. Consequences for describing political word meanings are presented. They are taken as temporary semantic consolidations. Text word-token, text word-type and lexicon-word are distinguished as three types of meaning, i.e. as differently enriched representations of knowledge which are closely interrelated.

This paper deals with the politics of German states towards the Sorbs and their language. While before 1945, especially during the Nazi regime, German authorities would oppress and germanize ethnic and linguistic minorities, in the GDR the Sorbs are enjoying equal rights with the German citizens. The Sorbian language is not only language or object of instruction in schools of Lusatia, but also object of exploration in linguistic institutes, above all, at the Academy of Sciences of the GDR.

Résumé L’article se propose de tracer les lignes principales poursuivies dans la recherche sémantique en R. D. A., vue dans le contexte international et sous la perspective de la sémantique lexicale, de préférence lexicaliste. On n’y signale pas seulement les publications les plus importantes parues pendant les quarante ans passés dés la fondation do la R. D. A., mais l’on essaie aussi d’y faire un bilan des résultats obtenus et des approches favorisées tout en accentuant ce qu’il y a de spécifique, de réussi et de moins réussi dans cette recherche.

Thomas Müntzer’s language work, particularly effective from 1523 to 1525, is dealt with from two aspects. On the one hand, it is integrated into tendencies of language development of his time; it can be shown that Müntzer-whether consciously or not - contributed to the process of levelling and selection of the various literary languages of that time - the prerequisite to the development of a national literary language. On the other hand, it is described how Müntzer-like other personalities powerful of expression in the time of the Reformation and the Peasants’ War-used specific language means to make himself understood by the broad masses of the people in his revolutionary ideas based on the Bible. Trained in ancient rhetoric, he fell back upon means of spoken language and thus gave his language a “popular” character in the true sense of the word.

The following paper deals with the interdependencies between the views of language propagated by German authors in the era of Napoleon wars and the contemporary language situation. It is argued that at that time wore discussed similar problems as involved also in the principles of the language policy of the French Revolution, especially the regional extension and the social validity of the national literary language. Therefore the scientific situation in Germany at that time was not only characterized by the historical and comparative researches which came up simultaneously and were prefaced by traditional historiography of linguistics.