German Studies Dissertations and Theseshttps://hdl.handle.net/1808/101792024-03-29T15:05:38Z2024-03-29T15:05:38Z"It just doesn't sound right": Spracherhalt und Sprachwechsel bei deutschen Kirchengemeinden in Cole County, Missouri : Resultate einer SpurensucheDippold, Dorishttps://hdl.handle.net/1808/299492020-02-04T09:00:44Z2002-05-31T00:00:00Z"It just doesn't sound right": Spracherhalt und Sprachwechsel bei deutschen Kirchengemeinden in Cole County, Missouri : Resultate einer Spurensuche
Dippold, Doris
A major focus of current sociolinguistic research is the issue of minority language maintenance and language shift. German-American speech islands, existing well into the twentieth century, are providing a valuable basis for such research.
This thesis presents the results of research involving twenty-one church congregations in Cole County, Missouri, with a German heritage and representing five different denominations: Roman-Catholic, German-Methodist, Evangelical-Lutheran (Iowa Synod, Missouri Synod} and German-Evangelical. Its goal is to comprehend the process of language shift in these congregations and bring out its dominant influential factors. To achieve that goal, publications and records of the congregations were analyzed in the following four categories: church services, parochial and Sunday schools, church clubs, official records and public relations. Combined with some information gained through interviews with and questionnaires from older church members, those written sources provided data on the general timeline and the factors influencing language shift, and finally, the way the congregations with their members saw and see themselves: as Germans, German-Americans or Americans. These data were compared to the statistics of the denominations and previous research.
The results show clearly that the First World War is just one of many factors,·but not the·major reason of language shift in those German-American congregations. Though it may have initiated the change in some cases or was even being "used" as such an initiator, I am suggesting that shift in language use and cultural perception cannot happen without changes in the social and demographic structure of the immigrant communities. Apart form that, diminishing institutional support leads to language loss as well as loss of cultural awareness.
Those results being extracted, the research also offers valuable insight into questions of ethnicity and identity and is a basis for future work in these areas.
M.A. University of Kansas, Germanic Languages and Literatures 2002
2002-05-31T00:00:00ZThe Low German Dialect of Concordia, MissouriBallew, William Noblehttps://hdl.handle.net/1808/299462020-01-29T09:00:56Z1997-12-31T00:00:00ZThe Low German Dialect of Concordia, Missouri
Ballew, William Noble
A resurgence of interest recently in various German dialects present in many regions of the United States has led to the gathering of data in many small towns throughout the Midwest whose dialects and dialect speakers will have died out within the next decade. With this realization, research efforts in these communities have been stepped up over the last five years, as we all feel the pressure of a most certain deadline. The researchers of this project, primarily graduate students at the University of Kansas under the supervision of Dr. William Keel, are seeking to record, analyze, and preserve these dialects for future study before they have completely died out. This paper is part of ongoing research into the Low German dialects spoken in the region of Western Missouri in and around Lafayette County, particularly in the towns of Concordia and Cole Camp (Benton County). Thus, this project has both dialectological and historical significance in helping to complete the bigger picture of Germans in America, their language and their culture.
As a specific example, fieldwork in the town of Concordia will be used to illustrate how cultural ties to the German homeland, the historical development of the town, its religious affiliations, and its Low German Club have contributed to a revitalization of sorts in its efforts to preserve its heritage and language. Included will be discussions of the town's history, the basic structure and sounds of the dialect, interesting or unusual characteristics of the spoken dialect, and some of the language behaviors exhibited by various speakers. Finally, some implications of the marketing and death of Concordia Low German will be examined.
Dissertation--(Ph.D.)--University of Kansas, Germanic Languages and Literatures, 1997.
1997-12-31T00:00:00Z“Annexation or Reunification?” Linguistic Appraisal of German and Russian news reporting on CrimeaCassidy, Laurenhttps://hdl.handle.net/1808/267022018-09-07T08:00:54Z2018-05-31T00:00:00Z“Annexation or Reunification?” Linguistic Appraisal of German and Russian news reporting on Crimea
Cassidy, Lauren
“Fake News” has reached new heights of contestation within recent times around the globe. Appraisal Theory provides a framework through which instances of news platforms’ positive and negative judgments can be identified, including their stances toward what counts as truthful reporting. Previously, researchers have identified the stances of news agencies by conducting linguistic analyses on news articles, showing how new agencies are able to assert their views through textual constructions. However, the expression of stance in German and Russian news articles showing different sides to the same conflict involving the Russian annexation of the Crimean peninsula has remained largely unexplored. To address this gap, I selected articles reporting on Russian involvement in Crimea from a liberal German news source, a conservative German news source, and a Russian-state sponsored news source based in Germany. Using a manual linguistic coder, I identified each instance of positive and negative attitude towards Russian involvement in Crimea within each news article. The analysis reveals that German and Russian news sources use different linguistic constructions to moralize Russian actions in Ukraine, with each side reporting information to support a German or Russian worldview respectively. The study shows how news agencies attempt to align readers with a particular worldview and that even if news sources appear to provide information from multiple sources or perspectives, they can still constitute bias.
2018-05-31T00:00:00ZThe Establishment, Dissolution, and Restoration of Heimat in German-Jewish Narratives by Stefanie Zweig and Jeanine MeerapfelVan Scoyk, Stefanyhttps://hdl.handle.net/1808/257692018-09-20T19:42:55Z2016-08-31T00:00:00ZThe Establishment, Dissolution, and Restoration of Heimat in German-Jewish Narratives by Stefanie Zweig and Jeanine Meerapfel
Van Scoyk, Stefany
Writers and filmmakers of second-generation Holocaust survivors often seek to establish tenuous continuities between their parents’ pre-exile Heimat and their own experiences of German culture through their artistic works. The novelist Stefanie Zweig and the filmmaker Jeanine Meerapfel, as members of the second generation, have composed narratives that create such continuities and their complexities in the search for place and the quest for belonging. This dissertation focuses on Zweig’s novels of the Rothschildallee (2008-2012) and Meerapfel’s feature film Der deutsche Freund (2012), narratives that tell stories of this quest for Heimat from the perspectives of the first and second generations, and analyzes the complexities of this search. To elucidate aspects of this search for place and belonging, this analysis works with conceptual tools borrowed from cultural geography and the Bakhtinian chronotope. The application of material and non-material traces from cultural geography in the analysis of these works reveals the unique character of German-Jewish geography as presented in these narratives. Through the Bakhtinian chronotope, an in-depth analysis of Heimat at a given time and of its changes over time reveals the complex relationships between time, space, and places in both public and private spheres. The house and the threshold emerge as the most important chronotopes in the narratives and evolve from novel to novel and from the written to the cinematic medium. This analysis discusses the challenges of establishing Heimat from the perspective of the parent generation. The house in the Rothschildallee becomes symbolic of German-Jewish culture in its negotiation between the public and private spheres while the threshold here becomes a point of momentous crossings. Furthermore, it identifies the children’s attitudes towards and expectations of the Heimat which their parents created for them. For the child generation, the threshold develops into a significant place of departures and arrivals that reveal the socio-cultural struggles for the younger Sternbergs. Over time, the chronotopes of the house and threshold respond to the processes of dissolution and restoration of Heimat, showing the interdependencies of the public and private spheres. Finally the analysis shows the difficulties in establishing and maintaining Heimat across different houses and thresholds set in various cultural geographies This analysis contributes to the study of Heimat from a German-Jewish perspective and points to developments in German-Jewish literature that has again become part of scholarly discourse in post-World War II literature and cinema. Zweig’s novels commemorate the German-Jewish Bildungsbürgertum and acknowledge the daily struggles involved in establishing Heimat. Meerapfel’s film treats the pursuit of a German-Jewish Heimat as one strand of a much broader story about the post-war quest for a place of home in two countries faced with the aftermath of exile and war crimes.
2016-08-31T00:00:00Z