The three focal points of this study are National Socialism, discourse, and language criticism. Language is conceived here as language-in-use, as discourse. From this perspective, âthe German languageâ is understood not so much in terms of the combinatorial rules of grammar and vocabulary, but rather in terms of the uses to which they are and have been put by German speakers in their social interactions. The âpower of languageâ is a common axiom in many of the commentaries reviewed in this study, and it is possible to overstate this power. The National Socialists did not acquire and hold on to power solely by means of rhetoric, nor were they defeated by an opposing discourse, butâin both casesâby dint of physical force. But this does not mean that â languageâ can be pushed to the margins in a discussion of National Socialism, as âonly wordsâ. As Michael Townson (1992, p. 135) observes, âthe brutalisation through language was a necessary prerequisite for the physical brutality which was to followâ in the âThird Reichâ.
The discourse practices of National Socialism are at the centre of this study, but so, too, are the testimonies of contemporary German speakers who found themselves in a kind of exile from their speech community, even while remaining in Germany. The experiences, observations and commentaries of these âunquiet voicesâ, the mental and linguistic resilience of their private and public counter-discourses, occupy the central chapters of this study. Finally, building on the strengths but also on the shortcomings of these first critics of âNazi languageâ, this book traces the development of a peculiarly German academic tradition of political discourse analysis, informed as perhaps in no other country by the urgent need to understand a nationâs shame by asking how National Socialism could acquire not just political power but the active or passive support of millions of Germans.
Discourse and Discourse History
There are many definitions of discourse, perhaps the most influential in the socio-political field being those centred on the works of Michel Foucault, Pierre Bourdieu, and Antonio Gramsci. All of these are relevant in various ways to the present study, but they will not be explicitly referenced. Instead, a very basic linguistic model of discourse is adopted, as a kind of social conversation about a given topicâsport, food, the weather; gender, ethnicity, the nation. Discourses (fundamentally in the plural) can merge and overlap: a discourse on the state of the language can feed into and be part of a larger discourse on national identity, which can in turn feed into a discourse on ethnicity and migration, or into a discourse on empire. On one view, discourses âtransportâ knowledge; on another, they actually create and validate what members of the discourse community regard as knowledge, and truth. Discourses have a historical as well as a synchronic dimension, indeed the power of a discourse at a given point in time may be difficult to understand without appreciating the historical impetus of the discourse traditionsâgrand narrativesâon which it draws in shaping and maintaining a system of attitudes, beliefs and valuesâan ideology. Such discourses thrive on metaphor and stereotypes, shape and confirm identity by creating in- and out-groups, function as affective (emotional) as well as intellectual rallying points and recruiting sergeants and, perhaps most crucially, are fluid and constantly evolving.
The diverse theoretical orientations and practical applications of discourse studies are reflected in recent collections of essays (e.g. Wetherell et al. 2001; Angermuller et al. 2014). The concept of discourse and the principles of analysis and commentary underlying the present study are broadly those set out in the âBozen Manifestoâ (Lanthaler et al. 2003), the main points of which are encapsulated in the following statement by JĂŒrgen Schiewe and Martin Wengeler:
Sprachkritik ist streng genommen nur als Sprachgebrauchskritik, Wortkritik nur als Wortgebrauchskritik möglich. Es sind die Kontexte, die ĂŒber die Bedeutung von Wörtern entscheiden, es sind die Diskurse, in denen Wörter ihre semantische PrĂ€gung erhalten. | In sprachlichen Diskursen, in der Ordnung der Zeichen und Texte, eignen wir uns psychisch Wirklichkeit an. Eine Kritik der Diskurse, innerhalb derer die Kritik des Wortgebrauchs einen wichtigen Teil ausmacht, vermag aufzuzeigen, dass wir die Wirklichkeit prinzipiell auch anders sehen, erfassen, kategorisieren können. Der Sprachkritik geht es letztlich um die Frage, welche Sicht der Wirklichkeit von wem aus welchen GrĂŒnden konstituiert worden ist. (Schiewe and Wengeler 2005, p. 7)
Language -as-discourse, then, implies the study of the use of language ( parole ) as opposed to the language system ( langue ) as traditionally codified in dictionaries and grammars. This is not to deny the influence of the language system on the way speakers conceptualize the world. Syntax and semantics, for example, already provide cognitive frameworks within which ârealityâ is organized, in the latter case by establishing an inventory of lexicalized concepts. Nevertheless, it is discourse which is held to be ultimately constitutive of our psychological reality: linguistic meaning is fully unfolded not at the level of the word (lexical semantics), or the clause or sentence, or the paragraph, or even the complete text, but at the level of discourse. Schiewe and Wengeler argue that âSprachkritikâ in the sense of a description of or commentary on discourse should not itself seek to be normative, but to uncover the often conflicting norms encapsulated in particular discourse practices and make them available for rational discussion. This view of âSprachkritikâ emphasizes its role as an arbitrator in language disputes, and as a potential corrective to the power of hegemonic discourses. A slightly different stance is taken by Teubert (2014, pp. 108, 113), who has argued that whilst traditional âSprachkritikâ has the potential to contribute to the ideal of a âdeliberative democracyâ of discursively empowered citizens, it also operates within the discourse community it addresses, and like all such contributions to the discourse, seeks to present a particular view of reality and normality, typically in opposition to powerful established discourses.Language criticism, strictly speaking, is possible only as criticism of the use of language , lexical criticism only as the criticism of the use of words. It is the contexts which decide the meaning of a word, it is in discourses that words receive their semantic imprint. | In linguistic discourses, in the arrangement of signs and texts, we acquire reality psychologically. A critique of the discourses, within which the critique of word use plays an important part, has the ability to reveal that in principle we are capable of seeing, comprehending and categorizing reality differently. | Language criticism is in the final analysis concerned with the question of what view of reality has been constructed, by whom, and for what purposes.
As Schiewe and Wengeler point out, a critique of individual lexical items (phrases as well as words) can play an important role in the study of discourse. The present study follows the majority of language commentators reviewed in this book in seeking to access discourses through their keywords. It is not, however, a lexicographical study and makes no claims to be encyclopaedic. More comprehensive lists and categorizations of words and expressions associated with the âlanguage of Nazismâ can be found, for example, in Keller (1978, pp. 603â607, 609â621), Wells (1985, pp. 407â420), the Wikipedia âGlossary of Nazi Germanyâ, and in Brackmann and Birkenhauer (1988). The concept of the keyword adopted here is much broader than that of the (high) cultural keyword analyzed by Raymond Williams (1983). It extends to everyday expressions which have the force of the âSchlagwortâ (literally, âhit wordâ), for which the closest English equivalent is the slogan. One of the most trenchant observations on the âSchlagwortâ was given by Karl Jaspers in Von der Wahrheit (1947, On Truth), a work conceived in inner exile from National Socialism, when Jaspers and his Jewish wife narrowly avoided âdeportationâ to a death camp:
Worte sind allzu leicht Schlagworte. Wenn ich an Worten hafte, so verlasse ich die Bewegung aus der Offenheit fĂŒr Bedeutungen und gebe das eigene Wesen preis an eine versimpelnde Starrheit. | So können Worte relativ gleichgĂŒltig werden vermöge des Zusammenhangs der SĂ€tze, in denen im Ganzen erst der Sinn aufleuchtet. Andererseits können Worte hinreiĂen als diese Worte. | Dann werden Worte zu etwas wie Fahne und Symbol. Die Worte sind es, auf die schon ohne Satz der Mensch mit seiner ganzen Leidenschaft reagiert, in ihnen Wahrheit und Falschheit wie weiĂ und schwarz unterschieden sieht. (Jaspers 1947, p. 409)
German linguists have developed a range of terms for the ideologically-primed âSchla gwortâ depending on its pragmatic use in a battle for and with words (Klein 1989), some of which are referenced in this study: the âFahn enwortâ (banner word) acts as a rallying point for supporters, the âStigma wortâ (stigma word) attacks the integrity of opponentsâ keywords, the âHoch wertwortâ (prestige word) proclaims a shared value of high importance to the believers, the âSchimpf wortâ (cuss word) and âSchmĂ€ hwortâ (smear word) hurl insults and slurs. In these metaphors of battle we see the traditional approach to meaning as (lexical) semantics translated into a model of language-in-action, pragmatics. âPragmatizedâ semantics, a theme in the academic debate on language since the 1960s, is the logical correlative of seeing language in socio-pragmatic terms, as discourse. The popularly understood concept of (positive and negative) connotation is clearly relevant here, and it is only a short step from connotation to contestationâthe need to define, claim, or defend oneâs territory against alternative value systemsâ...Words all too readily become slogans. When I attach myself to such words I take leave of the possibilities inherent in an openness for meanings und betray my own being to a simplifying rigidity. | Words can be relatively imprecise in meaning due to the context of sentences in which the meaning first lights up as a whole. But in the other case, words as single words can infatuate. | Then words become something like a flag and a symbol. It is to such words that a person reacts with their utmost passion even before they are put in a sentence, seeing truth and falsehood distinguished in them as clear as black and white.