Issue 83/2018 – Abstracts
The issue 83/2018 of the WLG is available either as a complete issue (PDF) or as individual contributions (see below).
Minderheitensprachen zählen! Über Sprachzählungen und Minderheiten(-sprachen)
Katharina Prochazka
Minority languages are often reduced to their quantity: There are only speakers left, the number of speakers is declining, and the language disappears. Speaker numbers offer a seemingly simple and objective way to quantify the development of a language. However, there is not one fail-safe way of counting languages or speakers. This paper reviews the possibilities to count languages (and speakers) and the difficulties involved when reviewing the data. Using examples from minority languages in Austria, it is shown that the resulting numbers are far from objective because they heavily depend on the way the survey is conducted: Who asks whom and how? Moreover, the definition of a ‘minority language’ itself is examined: When is a language considered a minority language? As the paper shows, the two concepts ‘minority’ (in the sense of ethnic group) and ‘minority language’ are heavily interwoven and the lines often get blurred—especially when it comes to passing laws which grant rights to minority groups. For these laws, the results of language surveys are frequently used to measure how many members of a minority group live in an area. This means that language surveys are not just a linguistic tool, but have farreaching consequences, particularly for members of a minority group.
Schlagwörter: Minderheitensprache, Sprachzählung, Volkszählung
Chronotopes of Apartheid. Transmitted memory as positioning practice among the born-free generation of South Africa
Julia Sonnleitner
After decades of spatial segregation, it is not surprising that space features prominently in the way apartheid is remembered in South Africa. More than 20 years after the first democratic elections, a new generation, referred to as the born-frees, has grown up. I focus on how representatives of this generation make sense of the past for which I conducted interviews in six schools in different areas of Cape Town which used to be black, coloured and white Group Areas respectively. The chronotope by Mikhail Bakhtin provided me with a nuanced analysis of how subjects construe the past in spatial-temporal terms. I work out two aspects of the chronotope which are particularly salient in my data: the chronotope as a model of agency and as a participation framework.
Schlagwörter: Diskursanalyse, Chronotopos, Südafrika, Erinnerung, intergenerationale Weitergabe
Komposition in der türkischen Gegenwartssprache
Muzaffer Malkoç
Dieser Beitrag beschäftigt sich mit der Frage, wie die Komposita im Türkischen strukturiert sind. Das Kompositum ist eine Verbindung von zumindest zwei Wörtern oder Wortstämmen, wobei sich semantisch Determinativ- und Kopulativkomposita wie demir kapı ›Eisentür‹ und demirbaş ›Inventar‹ unterscheiden. Possessivkomposita wie karabaş ›Schäferhund‹, sırtıkara ›Blaufisch‹ gehören als eine besondere Art zu den Determinativkomposita. Dabei führt die Schreibart der Komposition in vielen Fällen zum Bedeutungsunterschied: aslan ağzı ›Maul eines Löwen‹ und aslanağzı ›Löwenmaul (Antirrhinum majus)‹. Strukturell werden im Türkischen von drei Arten der Komposita gesprochen: 1. Endungslose Komposita wie taş fırın ›Steinofen‹, karabaş ›Schäferhund‹ und demirbaş ›Inventar‹. 2. Komposita mit Possessivsuffix am Zweitglied wie evkapısı ›Haustür‹. 3. Komposita mit Fugenelement wie sırtıkara ›Blaufisch‹, günebakan ›Sonnenblume‹.
Keywords: Komposition, Determinativ- und Kopulativkomposita, Possessivkomposita, endungslose Komposita, Komposita mit Possessivsuffix und Fugenelement