Laments about the decline of the German language can be heard everywhere. Yet according to philologist Peter Eisenberg, there is no reason for such despondency. We talked to him about the state of the German language.More ...
How does one motivate a target group that already speaks a foreign language fluently to acquire another one? Which possibilities are offered by "e-learning" and "blended learning"? These and other questions were answered by Prof. Dr. Britta Hufeisen (TU Darmstadt) during our fourth Live-Chat on June 6, 2007. Read the protocol!More ...
Not only at the Faculty of Philosophy in Jena is the Master DaF course a shining example. In 2006, it was voted one of the ten best international master's degree courses in Germany by the Donors' Association for the Promotion of Sciences and Humanities.More ...
German public bodies often cultivate a language that is hard to understand. Thus, it is not only Germans who have problems understanding what is being asked of them in official letters. Helmut Ebert, Professor of Linguistics in Bonn, explains what effects such jargon has, why some public bodies would like to use a different kind of language to speak to people and how they manage to do so.More ...
Is the German language under threat? What language policy do we want? These questions were addressed at a panel discussion to conclude the symposium on German in Multilingual Europe, organised by the Gesellschaft für Deutsche Sprache.More ...
How much influence do political speech-writers exert? We talked to Dr. Thilo von Trotha, a former speech-writer for Helmut Schmidt, to find the answer.More ...
Dear reader, after almost thirty years of habituation, a gender-sensitive language has become a matter-of-course today. Yet the consistent realisation of a gender-appropriate language is more difficult than is often assumed. Especially in administrative texts, laws and official forms, equal linguistic treatment is frequently awkward and complicated.More ...
Prof. Dr. Nagavajara from Thailand "On the power, impotence and omnipotence of language: From the oral tradition to the written word to media dominance". How does this transition affect a “Power of language”? Which peculiar linguistic phenomena are created?More ...
Secret languages have a thousand-years old history. Today encoding is a firmly fixed element of our everyday life: without encrypting, modern data communication would be unthinkable.More ...
Prof. Dr. Clemens Knobloch, professor of linguistic psychology and the history of German linguistics at the university of Giessen, on the historical context of the “language wars” in Europe following the First World War and the emergence of linguistic power relations in mass and media democracies.More ...
For nearly five decades, German pop song struggled for words. The contemporary music scene has developed a playful and relaxed relation to German as a “pop language”.More ...
“Well, not really.” The Brazilian cabaret artist and author Ze Dó Rock takes time to explain. And in so doing encounters a whole host of unresolved questions.More ...
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Prof. Dr. Nagavajara from Thailand "On the power, impotence and omnipotence of language: From the oral tradition to the written word to media dominance". How does this transition affect a “Power of language”? Which peculiar linguistic phenomena are created?
