Campusfest 2024: Why a grasshopper is (not) an insect and minne is not love - a hands-on lab

Location: Platz in front of the University Library (arcades in rainy weather)

Interdisciplinary campus festival project of the departments "Linguistics - Semantics and Lexicology of Modern High German" and "Older German Literature" on the topic:

Why a grasshopper is (k)an insect and minne is not love.
The relevance of word meaning and conceptual history for political and literary discourse - a hands-on lab.

"Heuschrecken!" is a warning cry - or an insult. Those who feel minne (Middle High German) are in love - or in dialog with God. Word meanings change in the historical course of language use, they are recoded by social groups to set themselves apart, or deliberately 'reinvented' by actors in political discourse. Currently, this is particularly evident in the context of the election of the "bad word of the year", in which politically relevant shifts in meaning or new word formations are regularly selected. This raises the question of the extent to which speakers are aware of these shifts in meaning, reinterpretations or even creeping changes in meaning and also reflect on their own use of language. Changes in meaning play a particularly important role in political language and literary texts. In the latter case, historical distance often leads to a misunderstanding of the texts and the ideas and mentalities they convey. In the former case, it must be decided whether certain terms are intentionally given new meanings or whether the change in meaning is the result of a change in political ideas and systems that is reflected in language.

In a hands-on lab, interested visitors to the Campus Festival will have the opportunity to reflect on their own use of language interactively and playfully using selected examples. A combination of factual knowledge transfer, playful text and word analysis and analytical experimentation with one's own use of language and terminology will be used. The aim is to raise participants' awareness of the equally political and poetic power of language and the corresponding phenomena of language change.

Persons involved (subject areas):

• David Bieseke (FB02, Older German Literary Studies)
• Sarah Bley (FB02, Older German Literary Studies)
• Maurice Bontemps (FB 02, DFG project "Language in Conspiracy Theories")
• Vivien Donath (FB02, Older German Literary Studies)
• Merle Hormann (FB02, Semantics and Lexicology of Modern High German)
• Jennifer Langer (FB02, Older German Literary Studies)
• Michael Mecklenburg (FB02, Older German Literary Studies)
• Hanna Poloschek (FB 02, DFG project "Language in Conspiracy Theories")
• Christine Riess (FB02, Semantics and Lexicology of Modern High German)
• David Römer (FB02, Semantics and Lexicology of Modern High German)
• Vanessa Sternath (FB02, Older German Literary Studies)
• Lisa Maren Stöhr (FB02, Older German Literary Studies)