Colloquium: New Philologies (E-Journal)
Not a member yet
167 research outputs found
Sort by
„Worin noch niemand war“ – Heimat als Erinnerung und Konstrukt
Full text linkHome is an ambiguous idea, in terms of spatial and temporal location as well as in terms of reality and valuation. Home(land) can be near or far, encompass small or large spaces, be anchored in an urban area or in the open landscape. It can belong to the oldest past, be irretrievably lost, destroyed, or lie in an unknown future as a utopian place of longing. Homeland can be the real place of origin or where we live at the moment -- or the construct of a place where no one has ever been. The deepest ambivalence that emerges in critical debates about old and new literatures on homelands concerns the oscillation between the anthropological necessity, the human need for home -- and its contingency and the will to relinquish it in favor of a free, unbound way of life
Fritz Mauthners Heimatbegriff: Zwischen Deutschnationalismus, jüdischem Selbsthass und Sprachkritik
Full text linkThis paper investigates the concept of Heimat in the work of philosopher, writer, and journalist Fritz Mauthner (1849–1923). It points out a conflict between Mauthner’s language philosophy and his political views. In his philosophical work, he argues that language is an insufficient tool for the acquisition of knowledge. When he writes about his heritage and uses notions such as Heimat, Volk, or Vaterland, Mauthner makes claims about the formation of social communities based on a shared language and neglects a critical analysis. It appears as if he ignores the philosophical critique of language when it comes to political concepts. Thus, his political position is usually described without regard to his language philosophy, and Mauthner is conceived as a devoted German nationalist and a typical example of Jewish self-hatred. That reading can be contrasted with parts of his work – especially the late book Muttersprache und Vaterland (1920) – in which he criticizes political concepts from a language-philosophical point of view. I argue that Mauthner, read as a philosopher, cannot be typecast as a naïve nationalist as he is too contradictory. I show that his writings offer both a historical example of German nationalism and a deconstruction of nationalism
Topologie der Heimat zwischen Imaginärem, Mythos und begrifflicher Sprache: Paratopos, Utopie-Dystopie-Heterotopie und Transtopisches
Full text linkIn Erinnerung an Gerda E. Moser
The article examines Heimat as a multilayered signification and affectively invested phenomenon in the context of the related social imaginary. A topologic perspective elucidating the role of topos in the Heimat imaginary is central to this examination deployed around the idea that Heimat is a paratopos, a place nearby, protecting against the Other/s. Although “Heimat” is a German term which cannot be translated easily, something of the phenomenon seems to exist in cultures other than the Germanophone. It is part of philosophical culture, as will be shown with the help of relevant philosophers. Political imaginaries are also often founded by the “Heimat” phenomenon by way of an origin myth narrating the beginnings of a society or community as homeland or home country, patris, sometimes metropolis, patrie, Heimat etc. After a brief look back into the Ancient Greek imaginary of the patris, the article discusses the gender asymmetry in the topology of “Heimat” and what the author calls the screen imaginary of femininity. This section is followed by a group-psychoanalytic consideration of affective ambivalence and the defense mechanism of splitting at work in the collective imaginary of Heimat and nationalism. Last but not least, the article tries to sketch some “transtopic” ways out of these xenophobic and martial aspects of Heimat as constructed “against” the foreigner as the enemy
Conceptualisation of Sustainability: A Theoretical and Methodological Framework for Understanding Metaphors and Narratives of Sustainability
Full text linkMetaphors are language phenomena commonly used as tools of persuasion, as evident in different kinds of public discourses, most notably in political addresses. They are particularly potent in this respect because they function on the principle of connecting the logical with the emotional. This persuasive role has also been attested in media reports, usually employed for the purposes of framing and the creation of a specific narrative. The purpose of this paper is to outline a theoretical and methodological account of metaphor choices related to sustainability and restoration, as issues related to climate change, made by the contemporary media and the perceptions formed by repetition and reinforcements of certain kinds of imagery present in their choice. An additional purpose is to understand which information sources, and possible instances of influence and leverage, could be of importance in terms of the media reporting on sustainability-related issues. Therefore, the paper offers novel conceptual and analytical guidelines for future research in the field of sustainability communication
Was it merely contentious or were there casualties? Metaphorical Framing in Local and International News Reporting
Full text linkThis study investigates the role of metaphor in news reporting by focusing on one US event, the historic 2012 Chicago Teachers Union (CTU) strike and compares its coverage in local and international English-language news. We are particularly interested in finding out how a news story, like the CTU strike, with strong localised metaphorical discourses, can be presented to readers outside the local and national cultural speech communities. In this sense, the research also contributes to understanding how the media can affect the portrayal and reception of important social events by using metaphorical language in newspaper coverage. Employing a qualitative research approach of Discourse Analysis and drawing on Critical Metaphor Analysis (Charteris-Black 2004), a particular focus is put on salient metaphor use across contexts (Goatly 2002) and on the role of reporters and news wire services in the presentation of facts. The findings indicate that both local and international news chiefly rely on two types of metaphor, journey and conflict. Notable differences were found in how the conflict metaphors were expressed in the two contexts
The Influence of Politeness Strategies on Visibility in I, Daniel Blake
Full text linkIn I, Daniel Blake (2016), British filmmaker Ken Loach points to topics of social injustice and inequality in contemporary British society. Loach explores the inadequacies of the British welfare system and the problems of those who are being left behind and blamed for their situation, following what researchers have termed \textit{the ‘underclass’ approach} (Madanipour et al. 2015). The film highlights the welfare system’s dysfunctionalities through the main characters Daniel (Dave Johns), a 59-year old carpenter, having suffered a heart attack, and Katie (Hayley Squires), a single mother of two, who both fall victim to a social system that should support them but instead blames them for their situation.
This paper, then, examines how face work and politeness strategies influence the conversations taking place in the film and how these lead to the characters’ enhanced (in)voluntary (in)visibility. I argue that visibility (Brighenti 2007 and 2010) and face work (Brown and Levinson 1999) interact and produce heightened (in)voluntary visibilities. This is particularly relevant, as visibility has become a major discourse within surveillance and digitisation both thriving on exposure and allegedly omnipresent visibility. In the film, as I argue, this is contrasted against the invisibility and impermeability of the social welfare system and the state.
Ultimately, this paper suggests that bald on-record strategies (Brown and Levinson 1999) are used to expose claimants and keeping face is used as a strategy that strongly characterises scenes that highlight the importance of empathy
Das Alpen-Adria Manifest / Il Manifesto dell’Alpe-Adria / Manifest Alpe-Jadran. 1918–2018. War is over! Se vuoi. Če hočeš. Wenn du es willst
No full textDieses Manifest ist ein Plädoyer, Erinnerungsarbeit als „Zukunftsarbeit“ zu betreiben, und aus der Rückschau auf das letzte Jahrhundert Lehren zu ziehen und Kräfte zu sammeln für eine weltbürgerliche Politik der Gerechtigkeit und der Freiheit. Eine Politik, die sich nicht scheut, große Veränderungen in Angriff zu nehmen, und die globales mit regionalem Denken und Handeln in der Alpen-Adria Region verbindet.
Questo Manifesto è un appello a lavorare per il futuro, partendo dalla lezione della storia del secolo scorso. È lì che vanno raccolte le forze necessarie per promuovere una politica di giustizia e libertà in un’ottica cosmopolitica. Una politica che non abbia timore di avviare grandi cambiamenti e che, all’interno dell’Alpe Adria, sia in grado di unire nel pensiero e nell’azione la dimensione globale con quella regionale.
Ta Manifest zagovarja spominsko delo kot »delo za bodočnost«, da iz pogleda nazaj na preteklo stoletje zbiramo moči za svetovljansko politiko pravičnosti in svobode. Za politiko, ki se ne boji lotiti se velikih sprememb in ki povezuje globalno mišljenje in ravnanje z regionalnim mišljenjem in ravnanjem v regiji Alpe-Jadran.
Redaktion / Redazione / Redakcija: Werner Wintersteiner.Wir danken allen UnterstützerInnen, vor allem aber folgenden Personen, die sich besonders intensiv an der Debatte um das Manifest beteiligt haben / Ringraziamo tutti/e coloro che hanno contribuito, e soprattutto le seguenti persone, che si sono particolarmente impegnate nel dibattito sul Manifesto / Zahvaljujemo se vsem podpornicam in podpornikom, še posebej intenzivno so v razpravi o Manifestu sodelovale sledeče osebe: Elio Baracetti, Cristina Beretta, Sergio Cosolo, Nadja Danglmaier, Rudolf Dörflinger, Lena Freimüller, Wilfried Graf, Bettina Gruber, Hans Haider, Mira Miladinović Zalaznik, Jutta Steininger, Marjan Sturm
Ukrainisch-russisches und russisch-ukrainisches Code-Mixing. Untersuchungen in drei Regionen im Süden der Ukraine: Ein dreijähriges Forschungsprojekt im Rahmen des D-A-CH-Programms von FWF und DFG
Full text linkThe Ukraine is a multilingual state, with a predominantly bilingual constellation: Ukrainian and Russian. Both languages function as donor languages for a mixed code called Surzhyk. This code may exist in two variants, reflecting the history of the Ukraine.
“Prototype Surzhyk” stems from the times of Russian political dominance: Over almost two centuries people adapted themselves to a Russian-speaking environment. This “old” Surzhyk has developed in a way resembling so called ‘dialect levelling’ on the basis of Ukrainian. Though still quite variable, a certain stabilisation of Old Surzhyk is observed, since adults have used it among themselves and with their children in informal communication over several generations. The second variant, here called “Neo-Surzhyk”, is of younger origin. It evolved with people who used to practise mainly Russian, but -- due to the language politics of the Ukraine after 1990 -- had at least partially to turn to Ukrainian. Neo-Surzhyk thus has either a Russian base or at least a higher Russian share.
The central research question is whether there is a clear differentiation between two mixed codes based on the same two closely related donor languages? Or is there a gradual transition between groups of speakers with different sociodemographic backgrounds?
The methodological approach consists in corpus linguistic description, combined with analytical methods of quantitative variationist sociolinguistics, correlated with sociodemographic data. In addition, in-depth interviews on individual linguistic biographies will be analysed qualitatively, in order to correlate quantitative findings with qualitative dat