1 / 11

Orthography, Legitimation, and the Construction of Publics: The 1996 Reform of German

Orthography, Legitimation, and the Construction of Publics: The 1996 Reform of German. Sally Johnson Department of Linguistics and Phonetics School of Modern Languages and Cultures University of Leeds s.a.johnson@leeds.ac.uk. 1. INTRODUCTION. 1.1 The 1996 reform of German orthography.

cole
Download Presentation

Orthography, Legitimation, and the Construction of Publics: The 1996 Reform of German

An Image/Link below is provided (as is) to download presentation Download Policy: Content on the Website is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use and may not be sold / licensed / shared on other websites without getting consent from its author. Content is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use only. Download presentation by click this link. While downloading, if for some reason you are not able to download a presentation, the publisher may have deleted the file from their server. During download, if you can't get a presentation, the file might be deleted by the publisher.

E N D

Presentation Transcript

  1. Orthography, Legitimation, and the Construction of Publics: The 1996 Reform of German Sally Johnson Department of Linguistics and Phonetics School of Modern Languages and Cultures University of Leeds s.a.johnson@leeds.ac.uk

  2. 1. INTRODUCTION

  3. 1.1 The 1996 reform of German orthography • Aim of Reform • Implementation 1998-2005 • Disputes

  4. 1.2 Languages, publics and legitimation • Languages and Publics: The Making of Authority (Gal & Woolard, 2001) • Habermas and the public sphere

  5. 2. LEGITIMATION CRISIS (Habermas, 1976)

  6. 2.1 Legitimation crises: a brief overview • Changing nature of the public sphere • State intervention into private sphere • From rationality deficit… • …to legitimation crisis • Legitimation crises in educational domains

  7. Whereas school administrations formerly merely had to codify a canon that had taken shape in an unplanned, nature-like manner, present curriculum planning is based on the premise that traditional patterns could as well be otherwise. Administrative planning produces a universal pressure for legitimation in a sphere that was once distinguished precisely for its power of self-legitimation. (Habermas, 1976: 71-2)

  8. 2.2 Language standardisation and problems of legitimation • State involvement per se • Standardisation as encoding of socio-regional privilege • Positivistic rule-optimism • ‘Standard’ language as oxymoron • Standardisation as ‘mis-recognition’

  9. GERMAN ORTHOGRAPHIC REFORM AS LEGITIMATION CRISIS • German orthography pre-19th century • State-sanctioned codification and public pressure for legitimation • Orthographic standardisation and the ‘common good’ • Functional efficacy vs unificatory/disciplinary functions

  10. 3. Continued • No mechanism for re-standardisation in 1901 • State devolvement to Duden corporation in 1955 • Citizen’s rights in Basic Law of 1949 • ‘Juridification’ of social life in late 20th century

  11. CONCLUDING REMARKS

More Related