Introduction

[Simone Kimpeler]

Dear Colleagues,

my name is Simone Kimpeler and I´m a Ph.D.candidate at the "Institut
fuer
Kommunikationswissenschaft" at the "Westfaelische Wilhelms-Universitaet"
in Muenster (Westfalia), Germany.

My field of research is communication science and my dissertation
project is based on the theory of "Operational Constructivism". The
basic elements of this theory are Constructivism  and  the Theory of
Social Systems. As this theory observes the processes of cognition and
communication as basic social actions of differentiation and
observation, my interest lies in the coupling of individual cognition
and social communication: in the thematic structure of "Public Opinion".

Therefor I have developed a method of discourse analysis which is up to
the standards of this theory;  especially to observe the orientation of
a certain discourse (in my example about the debate of the so called
"Doppelte Staatsbuergerschaft") to several social subsystems and its
range of  "offers for personal identification".
By being subscribed to this list I hope to get a general idea of the
international state of art of the field of Discours Analysis. And I´m
looking forward to get some encouraging impulses from the discussions.

Thanks,
Simone Kimpeler