Language

In his “Sprachverführer”, Thomas Steinfeld takes his readers on a journey through the German language in 33 essays on subjects ranging from the emergence of German as a civilized language to the language of the generation of 1968, and from proper use of the passive voice to the use of brackets.

Have you ever wondered we write every German noun with a capital letter? Or where words like “Zartgefühl” (sensitivity) or “Hirngespinst” (chimaera) come from? Why Kafka’s works are difficult to translate into other languages? Or what yardstick can be used to measure good language use? – Thomas Steinfeld answers questions like these in his book Der Sprachverführer

According to Thomas Steinfeld, good language is stimulating enough “to make readers want to read on quickly, yet at the same time its powerful beauty invites them to savour each sentence”. In his new book about the German language, the author, a specialist in German studies and editor at the Süddeutsche Zeitung, does not always live up to this ideal himself. However, the book is still worth reading as it not only provides lots of information but also gets across Steinfeld’s enthusiasm for the German language. The Sprachverführer is ambitious mixture of history of the language and linguistic criticism, stylistics and grammar. The book cites and interprets many examples of language use from literature and public life - by Martin Luther and Franz Kafka, Josef Ackermann and Angela Merkel. The Sprachverführer is roughly divided into seven chapters: Writing, Living, Practising, Naming, Inflecting, Building and Concluding. Two excursive sections are devoted to the subjects of Truth and Language and Literature and Convention.

Precise observations, unconventional comparisons

Rather than repeating received wisdom, Steinfeld surprises us again and again with his precise observations and unconventional contrasts. Having given an enthusiastic interpretation of the first sentence of Kafka’s Metamorphosis, he vigourously criticises Josef Ackermann‘s rhetoric. He finds significant common features between such different phenomena as adjectives and climbing plants or participles and German forests. And he names such diverse characters as Martin Luther, Thomas Mann and Robert Gernhardt in one breath as being writers who use “exemplary wording”, while rejecting Günter Grass in no uncertain terms for his use of language “because he tends to use bureaucratic language (...). He is a writer who often relativises a statement’s level of certainty in his literary work like a politician, who, when asked to respond to an event or a conflict concerning which a parliamentary group decision has not yet been taken and the Chancellor has not yet issued instructions, begins with the words: 'I assume that …'. Such introductory phrases (…) are (…) an expression of a bureaucratic relationship with the world.”

Linguistic criticism of a different kind

Steinfeld demands “familiarity in using the German language, and a knowledge of its present state, history and possibilities that is marked by recognition and respect.” He takes up a clear position in favour of linguistic standardisation. Yet he evidently believes that linguistic criticism need not be dogmatic or conservative. He regards the linguistic criticism expressed by Lessing and Gottsched as important but pedantic. In spite of his love of the German language, he thinks English and French are better in some respects. He does not criticise anglicisms or youth or immigrant language use, but he does criticise tired phrases and “outworn metaphors” often used by leading personalities in business, academia and politics.

What is “good language”?

“Public criticism of language (…)”,Steinfeld notes “tends to see society in terms of pupils - good and poor students, mediocre, incorrigible and ineducable ones, ones who are praised and awarded prizes, and others one would clearly like to expel from the institution.” Instead of rigid rules and regulations, he calls for language to be used consciously. “What is expressed linguistically does not even have to be logically structured. It can dazzle, deviate, or even rave. It can mumble, chomp or bellow (…). It can be sharp, abrupt, mean or pushy and it can get under your skin. But it does not need to do so.” For Steinfeld it does not matter whether the active or passive voice, a verb or a noun, or long or short sentences are used. What does matter is that “people have a command of linguistic means, that they have something to say and that they do so with the means at their disposal”.