HISTORY OF THE GERMAN LANGUAGE

The course will diachronically follow the transformation process from ancient German to modern and contemporary German. It will particularly focus on the difference between oral languages and written languages by critically analyzing the long lasting process of standardization occurred to the German language (section A).

Part of the course will be dedicated to the analysis of texts from different historical periods. The analysis will take different research perspectives into account trying to unfold different layers of the text investigating the origins of these ancient texts in order to understand "the world behind the text" (section B).

A slection of different texts (section C) will provide the start-up discussion to develop individual research projects (presentation and written papers) that will be evaluated during the final exam.

The project and the research will be guided and followed by the teacher during a part of the course or during office hours (see STUDIUM).

A The transformation process from ancient German language to modern and contemporary German

- Gerhard Wolff, Deutsche Sprachgeschichte von den Anfängen bis zur Gegenwart, UTB, 2009.

B Historical analysis

- Jörg Riecke, Rainer Hünecke, et.al., Einführung in die historische Textanalyse, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2004.

C Anthology of Text in German:

A brief collection of texts in German will be available on the web-page of STUDIUM