31.3249, All: Obituary for Dieter Götz

[The LINGUIST List]

LINGUIST List: Vol-31-3249. Mon Oct 26 2020. ISSN: 1069 - 4875.

Subject: 31.3249, All:  Obituary for Dieter Götz

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Date: Mon, 26 Oct 2020 16:59:45
From: Christina Sanchez [christina.sanchez at lmu.de]
Subject: Obituary for Dieter Götz

 Linguistic Field(s): Not Applicable

It is with great sadness that we have to inform you of the death of Dieter Götz (14.02.1942 – 30.08.2020). 

Dieter Götz held the Chair of Applied Linguistics (English) at the University of Augsburg from 1978 until his retirement. Before, he had studied at the universities of Würzburg, Freiburg and Erlangen-Nürnberg, took his Ph.D. in Erlangen in 1971, and worked there as a research assistant until he was appointed to a professorship in Augsburg in 1973. For twenty-six years he was also Director of the Language Centre at the University of Augsburg.

What was characteristic of Dieter Götz’s approach was that he was keen to combine research in the field of Applied Linguistics with practical language work and language teaching, as well as its provision for the whole university by the Language Centre. He was convinced that applying insights of linguistics to language teaching was as beneficial to language teaching as applying insights gained in teaching was for the assessment and development of linguistic theory. It is thus not surprising that, after his doctoral dissertation on the historical development of compounds, he put the focus of his research on translation theory, idiomaticity, stylistics, text linguistics, and lexicography. Together with Ernst Burgschmidt, he published an introduction to English linguistics, and a comprehensive book on contrastive linguistics. As one of the four editors of the Valency Dictionary of English (2004) he was instrumental in making this dictionary one of the first corpus-based dictionaries o
 f
the English language. His main contribution to lexicography, however, is that – together with Günther Haensch and Hans Wellmann – he edited the Langenscheidt Großwörterbuch als Fremdsprache, which first appeared in 1993, and which introduced the learners’ dictionary as a completely new type into the scene of German lexicography. Meanwhile, this dictionary has been through several editions and has established itself as the parent of a small family of dictionaries for learners of German worldwide.
Practical work on the dictionary became one of his passions, and he worked on modifying entries for a new edition until a few months before his death. His experience as a practical lexicographer and his affinity to language teaching were rooted in a strong pragmatism and a goal-oriented strategy of solving problems which went hand in hand with a certain scepticism towards lexicographical theories that ignored commercial factors such as space and time. 

His relentless efforts in making linguistics ‘applicable’, his no-nonsense approach to theory, and his generosity in sharing both made Dieter Götz a very popular teacher and colleague. His students were aware of the high standards he expected of their work, but knew that, if they made an effort, they would be certain of his support and assistance. Dieter Götz took a very deep interest in his students and his colleagues. After lunch, there used to be regular chats over a cup of coffee in his secretary’s office, to which colleagues and the student assistants of the department were equally welcome. And, on these occasions, everybody was entitled to their own opinion, whether it coincided with Dieter’s views on a subject or not.

Dieter Götz was the best supervisor and boss you could imagine. He gave us as young researchers every opportunity to develop our own interests and ideas. He would tell us when he thought we were wrong, and when it turned out that we were not, he was equally happy to admit it. Dieter taught us that disagreeing with someone on a particular point is not to condemn them. Up to a point, his communication strategy was a mixture of a rather “gruntled” sense of humour and a certain pleasure in provocation, driven by a good portion of common sense. 

And, most importantly for us as young researchers, we knew that he cared for us, that he would give us his 100 per cent backing – we knew that because if it hadn’t been the case, he would have told us. He ca



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