Volume 35, Issue 3 - Themenschwerpunkt Schrift - Text - Bild

Word division at ends of lines is a part of the official orthography of German. In the present text, it is identified as being codified in three different ways: First by a general rule that makes recourse to spoken syllables, second by a set of more specific rules that deal with several different patterns, some of them failing to follow the syllable rule, and third by explicit markings in each individual entry in dictionaries like Duden (2006). Some of these data are inconsistent with the aforesaid rule systems. Based on a theory that is formulated independently of the subject of this article, namely the recoding model of graphematics (Neef 2005a), the different sets of data of word division are reconstructed in a theoretical model. As a result it is argued that word division is guided by properties of letters in the first place, while in a secondary fashion the system is disturbed by a syllabic conception. A pure syllablebased explanation that is advocated for in several other theoretical analyses, however, fails to cover central aspects of the data

The writing skills of today's youth often make great waves when mentioned in the public media. The following article is based on 671 comments made about the writing skills of young people in selected newspapers and magazines from 1994 to 2005. The opinions and criteria presented will be analysed and patterns of reasoning which repeat themselves in their structure will also be identified. In addition to descriptions of discourse content, their structure will be presented and their connection with related discourses considered. This empirical study distinctly shows in which context and manner the subject of writing skills in young people is broached by the media. However, it also shows which image of writing skills in young people dominates in the public mind, as well as presenting to what degree this image is based on objective criteria or just a cliché

The fundamental distinction between the medial problem of 'phonic' vs. 'graphic' realisation of discourses, on the one hand, and the conceptional problem of their 'spoken = informal' vs. 'written = formal' character (denominated 'communicative immediacy' vs. 'distance' in the following) not only constitutes a sound theoretical basis for investigation into orality and literacy, but also leads to a better understanding of a wide range of synchronic and diachronic phenomena concerning language. The medial-conceptional distinction accounts, for example, for important problems on the level of discourse typology, comprising, for instance, 'elaborated' types of primary orality, communicative dynamics in medieval societies, modern types of electronic communication (e-mail, SMS message, chat), etc. Once it is to clearly tell the medial from the conceptional aspect of language, it is, of course, legitimate to observe the most interesting interactions between these two. The idea of a conceptional continuum between communicative 'immediacy' and 'distance' constitutes also an important contribution to variational linguistics and sociolinguistics. It can be shown that this continuum is not only one dimension of linguistic variation, but the central principle underlying the organisation of variational spaces (within one language) and of communicative spaces (involving more than one language). Moreover, the medial-conceptional distinction reveals to be of paramount importance to a modern conception of language history as observing the transformation of whole variational spaces. The questions that can be dealt with here comprise the way to literacy, processes of elaboration, Überdachung, standardization, codification, reorganization of variational spaces, etc. as well as several types of language change. Finally, a clear conceptualization of medial and conceptional problems is indispensable for a sound methodology in corpus linguistics.

The essay discusses a conceptual differentiation. It deals with the distinction of texts and scripts. Script is the generic term for manuscripts, typoscripts and compuscripts. What we have in our hands, if we take a book out of the shelf, is a copy of a script. What we are interested in and what we are trying to comprehend is the text represented in the script. Initially the distinction is exemplified. Thereafter the conception of the script is differentiated with regard to functions, graphic means and constituents (like letters, lines, non line-bounded representations, pages and the scripts as a whole). Next the effects upon each other, the influence of the script upon the composition as well as the impact of the texts on the organisation of scripts, are discussed. The essay concludes with a theoretical assignment.

This paper proposes to adapt the sociolinguistic concept of language crossing (Rampton 1995) to the analysis of graphic phenomena (on the level of graphematics, typography and the writing system), where multiple graphic systems are put in juxtaposition. It argues that, like in language crossing, distinctive indexical orders can be merged with the aim of constructing specific contexts that derive from the attitudes that are linked with the phenomena in question. The paper discusses the transferability of the concept of crossing and demonstrates its potential, using examples from all of the three aforementioned basic scriptural levels

Obviously, there are characteristic differences between words and pictures. In a pragmatic perspective, however, verbal and pictorial communication do function in much the same (or, to say the least, related) way. This is why Austin's and Searle's speech act theories can be applied to pictures as well. Taking a car advertising campaign as an example, this essay discusses identification, merging, direct and indirect use of pictorial speech acts