Volume 2017, Issue 67 -

This paper discusses the interpretive complexity of ‘culture’, which is at the same time the central theoretical concept of ‘cultural linguistics’ ( kulturwissenschaftliche Linguistik ) as well as the object of its investigation, i.e., a conceptual term and a discursive phenomenon. This results in ambiguous conceptualizations: In culture-theoretical work, ‘culture’ is usually described as being ‘dynamic’, ‘fluid’, ‘procedural’ and ‘context-dependent’, but in discourse, culture is often, if not predominantly, perceived as something ‘static’, ‘fixed’, ‘essential’ and ‘general’. From this ambiguity, many methodological questions emerge: Is it advisable to rely on a concept that has such an enormous ideological load (and that, moreover, is increasingly used in recent neo-nationalist and even neo-racist propaganda)? Does culture analysis willy-nilly perpetuate problematic essentialist framings while relying on ‘culture’ as a descriptive concept? Is it methodologically sensible to use concepts for description and explanation of discourses that are actually products of the discourses that are supposed to be explained (cf. Foucault 2001 [1968])? In other words: is ‘cultural linguistics’ a circular venture if it explains cultural discourses on the background of the concept of culture? Is the discrepancy between dynamic and static, ‘descriptive’ and ‘prescriptive’ concepts of culture to be solved, and how? Should we try to de-ideologize ‘culture’, as some culturally oriented scholars have proposed? Or should we rather drop the concept, as other scholars (particularly from a post-colonial point of view) have suggested? The paper discusses these questions, argues for more sensitivity vis-à-vis the ideological contextualization of ‘culture’ and suggests differentiating ideological fixations of ‘culture’ from the discursive processes and negotiations that constitute ‘the cultural’.

The interactional negotiation of trust and distrust is something that can often be observed within doctor-patient-communication. Patients typically fear that the diagnosis might not be correct or that the proposed therapy might not be the best possible for them, while doctors can doubt the frankness and sincerity of their patients. The aim of this analysis is to focus on an interactional aspect which is important for both doctors and patients: The negotiation of trust and distrust regarding the proposed therapy in cancer pre-treatment discussions. For the patients, this negotiation is important because they wish the best possible treatment for themselves and therefore have to ensure that the proposed therapy is indeed the best one and that there are no better alternative options. For the doctors, reducing distrust and establishing trust is important, because trust in the proposed therapy leads to patients’ compliance, i.e. their active co-operation with the therapeutic measures, which may be decisive for the success or failure of the treatment. On the basis of a corpus of oncological therapy planning talks, a qualitative empirical analysis of the interactional processes of dealing with distrust in the context of the sensitive question of getting a ‘second opinion’ concerning the proposed therapy will be presented. The question of the ‘second opinion’ is a sensitive one because it can be interpreted as signaling a patient’s distrust in the competence of the doctor, thus leading to a face-threat. In order to answer the question of how distrust is negotiated interactionally, the paper proceeds as follows: First, the research project will be presented in whose context the data were collected. Then, a short overview of typical problems within doctor-patient-communication in general and of the negotiation of trust and distrust in particular will be given. Next, strategies will be discussed with which – on the one hand – patients introduce the topic of the ‘second opinion’ within a therapy planning talk and with which the doctors react to this topic. Finally, doctors’ ‘pre-emptive’ strategies with which they try to remove patients’ distrust and establish trust in their diagnosis and proposed therapy will be analyzed.

This paper deals with modality interdependencies in professional (interactional) settings. The analyses presented are based on a case example: in a company, industrial process modelers question employees about their workflow, then develop a preliminary process model of the production process and afterwards a computer-generated final process model. Within these situations, the participants combine complex resources such as speaking, writing, and visualizing (so-called modality interdependencies, MID). The contribution outlines two major outcomes: At first, the contribution presents a revised model for MID considering indicators for MID. It allows analyzing the combination of complex resources in professional interaction settings by providing a systematic description of MID forms. Secondly, we anticipate that modality interdependencies are accompanied by several indicators. As a consequence, we distinguish linguistic, communicative, and practical indicators for MID. An outlook is given on future work: as a next step, MID forms and MID indicators will be annotated and evaluated with the tool EXMARaLDA.

This article proposes a typology for forms of presentations for external science communication. It incorporates theoretical concepts but remains applicable for science communication in practice. Empirical basis is a systematic screening and study of established forms as part of the research project “Science In Presentations”. The following differentiation criteria are used: the degree of multimodality, the degree of interactivity, the degree of event and entertainment orientation and the degree of performance. The typology is exemplified by four real case studies, for which respectively one criterion is especially pronounced: Science Vision (multimodality), Science Café (interactivity), Science Slam (event and entertainment orientation) and Christmas Lecture (performance).

Tourism is one of the most important sectors of the Tyrolean economy, one based on intensive contact between tourists and hosts. In the SPIRIT Tirol research project (Sprachen und Varietäten in Regionen mit intensivem Tourismus am Beispiel Tirols) [Languages and varieties in regions with intensive tourism using the example of Tyrol], we deal with situations involving language contact in tourism. By analysing interviews with individuals from different age groups, both service providers and hosts renting different types of accommodation in different Tyrolean locations, we try to identify the linguistic strategies and attitudes toward language that these tourism professionals adopt. In this article, we concentrate on one group: hosts who rent private accommodations. Starting in the 1950s and 1960s, the rental market for private accommodations expanded enormously, bringing with it an intrusion of tourists into private living space that quickly exerted a noticeable influence on the personal language use of tourism professionals. While interaction with renters requires multilingual competence, varieties of German are especially important: by far the largest percentage of tourists are from Germany. Our research questions concern the handling of the following situation: How do hosts who rent private accommodations deal with the complex relationships between standard and regional varieties of German? How do they manage lexical differences? Which parameters influence the way hosts accommodate (or not) to their guests? How do hosts appraise their multilingual competence? Have there been considerable changes over the course of three generations? First, we establish a theoretical framework by discussing tourism as an object of linguistic research, the general conditions of tourism in Tyrol, the context and the design of the study presented in this article, and the sociolinguistic situation with respect to multilingualism and the many varieties of German, an aspect in which accommodation theory plays a prominent role. The answers to our research questions are grouped into three thematic blocks: 1) clarity and mutual understanding as the central goal of communication with tourists, 2) the management of identities, and 3) the establishment of proximity and distance by language. Our results show a professional, but nonetheless natural handling of situations of language contact, a high awareness of regional varieties, and a hands-on approach to multiple languages. Several strategies for managing lexical differences are employed, such as explanation, paraphrasing, and a borrowing of lexical variants from tourists that not only facilitate understanding but also mark linguistic identity. One’s linguistic identity is not protected by joking about tourists and out-grouping them. Attitudes towards local dialects and their self-defining function are strongly positive. However, the awareness that language is a marketing tool coupled with a desire to protect one’s linguistic identity have become more important for the middle and younger generations.

This paper investigates the effect of the mode of reception (listening vs. reading) on the comprehension of literary texts of different degrees of linguistic complexity in German, testing schoolchildren in Grade 8. To this end, two texts were used: the grammatically and lexically comparatively more complex novella Das Erdbeben in Chili by Heinrich von Kleist, and the comparatively less complex novella Kleider machen Leute by Gottfried Keller. Thus, in contrast to previous studies on schoolchildren’s reading and listening comprehension, which often use very short texts composed specifically for the purpose of the study, a major aim of the current study is to test authentic literary material, which German students are regularly confronted with at school. Students read or listened to excerpts of these novellas and subsequently filled in a questionnaire containing questions on the correct comprehension of the respective texts, thereby addressing both local and global aspects of comprehension. The results are twofold: First, listening comprehension is better than reading comprehension, regardless of the complexity of the text (i.e. for both the Kleist and the Keller text). Second, the first effect is even stronger for global text comprehension than for comprehension of local details.