29.4445, Review: German; Discourse Analysis; Historical Linguistics; Lexicography; Writing Systems: Schimmel-Fijalkowytsch (2018)

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Subject: 29.4445, Review: German; Discourse Analysis; Historical Linguistics; Lexicography; Writing Systems: Schimmel-Fijalkowytsch (2018)

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Date: Mon, 12 Nov 2018 16:35:52
From: Dimitrios Meletis [dimitrios.meletis at uni-graz.at]
Subject: Diskurse zur Normierung und Reform der deutschen Rechtschreibung

 
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AUTHOR: Nadine  Schimmel-Fijalkowytsch
TITLE: Diskurse zur Normierung und Reform der deutschen Rechtschreibung
SUBTITLE: Eine Analyse von Diskursen zur Rechtschreibreform unter soziolinguistischer und textlinguistischer Perspektive
SERIES TITLE: Studien zur deutschen Sprache, Bd. 75
PUBLISHER: Narr Francke Attempto Verlag GmbH + Co. KG
YEAR: 2018

REVIEWER: Dimitrios Meletis, Karl-Franzens-Universität Graz

Orthography has the power to polarize. On the one hand, it is a form of
prescription negotiated by authoritative stakeholders invested in linguistic
policy. It regulates and codifies exactly how the writers in a literate
community can use the resources of their writing systems and still move within
the realm of standardized norms. On the other hand, these members of literate
communities strongly perceive orthography as common property that belongs to
everyone who uses it. This ambivalent status invites sociolinguistically
charged tensions that reveal themselves most clearly in the face of
orthography reforms. Who should be allowed to decide on changes of
orthography? How is it changed? It is questions like these that encourage
actors from various domains and ranks to engage and intervene in often heated
debates that produce a myriad of discourses on orthography. These discourses
are the subject of “Diskurse zur Normierung und Reform der deutschen
Rechtschreibung – Eine Analyse von Diskursen zur Rechtschreibreform unter
soziolinguistischer und textlinguistischer Perspektive” (“Discourses on the
standardization and reform of German orthography – An analysis of discourses
on the orthography reform from a sociolinguistic and textlinguistic
perspective”) by Nadine Schimmel-Fijalkowytsch. With its focus on the
orthography reforms of German, and its excursions that describe similar
situations for French and Portuguese, it characterizes three central types of
orthographic discourses: political, media, and technical discourses.

SUMMARY

The book is structured in eleven chapters. Additionally, it includes indexes
of used abbreviations and print media, and a list of references. It is written
in German. Titles of chapters, sections etc. as well as quotes from the book
given in this review were translated by me. 

The first part of the book, which comprises roughly the first three chapters,
serves as its theoretical footing. Chapter 1 (“Introduction”) gives an
overview of what the reader can expect from Schimmel-Fijalkowytsch’s study. It
establishes the fact that orthography reforms differ from other types of
reforms such as tax reforms in that their consequences are not quantitatively
tangible – instead, they have a qualitative dimension (p. 15) that warrants a
(in essence Foucauldian) discourse-analytical approach. The book puts emphasis
on two strains of discourses: on the one hand, those that are characterized by
criticisms, accusations, and stereotypes and have contributed to the mistrust
of the norms as well as the “constructors” (“Konstrukteure”, p. 16) who are
responsible for them. These discourses highlight how, as Horbin (2014: 233)
puts it, in “Germany, spelling reform is treated with suspicion and
hostility”. On the other hand, there is a focus on discourses that involve
institutions invested in language. As Schimmel-Fijalkowytsch argues, an
analysis of these two broad types of discourses allows drawing conclusions
about how German orthography will develop in the future. The first chapter
additionally mentions which aspects are going to factor into the analysis:
what Schimmel-Fijalkowytsch calls “system-linguistic” aspects (= linguistic,
structure-oriented research on orthography), ideological aspects, specifically
of the actors involved in the discourses, and aspects pertaining to
orthographic variation. It is the ideological aspects that clearly feature
most prominently in the book. 

Chapter 2 (“Fundamentals”) is a mixture between a methodology chapter, a
literature review and an anticipatory summary of the chapters that follow. In
the methodology portion, the author discusses how discourses can be
operationalized. To the previously named method of discourse analysis, she
adds “empirical text analysis” (p. 24) and states that her text sample is
representative: it stems from discourses from periods prior to and after the
reform of German orthography in 1996 as well as the modifications of 2004 and
2006. The goals of the study are also stated most clearly in this chapter, as
the author characterizes the study as more or less a comparison of different
European nations’ language policy strategies, particularly in dealing with
orthography. In this context, the book’s title, which highlights German, is
surprising. In a very brief section (of three pages), some of the relevant
literature on discourses and specifically on orthographic discourses and the
German orthography reform is dealt with. 

Chapter 3 (“The language policy background of the orthography reform”) can be
regarded the final theoretical chapter, as it describes and defines central
concepts and terms, the most important ones being language cultivation
(“Sprachpflege”) and language policy (“Sprachpolitik”), with linguistic
awareness (“Sprachbewusstsein”) and language criticism (“Sprachkritik”) also
being addressed. Even though an actual common thread is missing from this
chapter, the former two concepts occur throughout and are identified as basis
for at least some of the factors that influence an orthography reform. Their
relations with other central concepts such as standardization and their
entanglement with politics are carved out. Highlights of the chapter are
section 3.5 (“Orthography and language system”), which comes closest to a
critical definition of orthography (see my evaluation below) and a figure (p.
48) that illustrates language policy actions with respect to linguistic needs,
be they of societal, cultural, or political nature. As implied above, this
chapter appears more like a collection of topics which are of relevance to the
overall study than a coherent chapter (see below). 

Chapters 4 (“Language cultivation and language policy in the German-language
area”) and 5 (“Language cultivation and language policy in other language
areas”) constitute what I see as the second thematic part of the book which
deals predominantly with political orthographic discourses, but frequently
mentions the other types of discourses as well. Chapter 4, with over 80 pages,
is the longest of the book. First, it covers, in great detail, the
historico-political background of the orthography reform in Germany from the
19th century to the present. In a strikingly shorter section (of only six
pages), the situation in Austria is addressed. A considerably more extensive
treatment (of about 40 pages) is given to language cultivation and language
policy in Switzerland. Here, some of the most significant sections compare the
Swiss orthography with the (Federal) German orthography of Germany (sections
4.7.4 and 4.7.5), and discuss how the diglossic situation of German-speaking
Switzerland is dealt with in political discourses (section 4.7.12). What
should be mentioned about this chapter is that the Austrian and Swiss
situations are addressed against the backdrop of Germany, which – even though
Swiss “idiosyncrasies” are dealt with at length – cements the impression that
at the core, this study treats Germany as the default from which other regions
deviate. 

Chapter 5 is an excursion dedicated to orthography reforms of French and
Portuguese. As in the preceding chapters, the reasons for orthography reforms
(and goals of these reforms), the changes introduced, the stakeholders and
their actions etc. are described and discussed. Missing translations for
French and Portuguese quotes, which are abundant, make reading the chapter a
lot harder for anyone not fluent in these languages. 

The third part of the book is concerned with technical discourses and
comprises Chapters 6 (“Technical discourses”) and 7 (“In-house
orthographies”). As a brief but interesting chapter, Chapter 6 details how
linguists, educationalists etc. involved (or not involved) in the Council for
German Orthography and its work groups shaped technical discourses. Their
work, Schimmel-Fijalkowytsch claims, has led to a “high degree of scientific
analysis and reflection” (p. 237). These technical discourses take into
account not only linguistic considerations, but also didactic and ideological
aspects. Compared to the political and media discourses, they were not
dominant in the public’s awareness. However, the author believes them to be
the “substrate for all further developments of German language” (p. 238). 

Chapter 7 deals with in-house orthographies, i.e. orthographies that are only
valid in given institutions and deviate (systematically) from the official
orthography. The chapter’s focus is, once again, clearly Switzerland and the
in-house orthographies of some of its press organs. Schimmel-Fijalkowytsch
argues that in-house orthographies make visible internal technical discourses
and that they assume a role model function for the public. Differences between
the various in-house orthographies are demonstrated by example of loan word
spellings. Interestingly, and quite tellingly in the light of the overall
conclusions that this study draws, Schimmel-Fijalkowytsch mentions how the FAZ
(Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung), a German newspaper, frequently reported on
differences between its in-house rules and the rules of the official
orthography, and that it did so only to obscure that it had, in fact, adopted
the reformed official orthography. 

As the final type of discourses, media discourses are addressed in Chapters 8
(“Media discourses in the German-language area”) and 9 (“Media discourses in
the international press”), the fourth part of this book. Chapter 8 is overall
second in length (with about 55 pages). It details how the reform was
perceived by the media as an “attack on the German language as a static
element” (p. 273). Media discourses did not focus on didactic reasons for
changing orthographic norms, or the reasons inherent in the structure of the
traditional orthography, but continually critically assessed the added value
of a reform. This, Schimmel-Fijalkowytsch claims, is also a reflection of the
fact that the media was strongly personally affected by the reform, and
dissatisfied with the new regulations. On the other hand, although they can be
(and tended to be) one-sided and pejorative with regard to the orthography
reform, it is a strength of media discourses that they can potentially act as
multipliers of acceptance: if the media accepts (parts of) the reform, the
public is assumed to follow. The chapter describes how the media debated the
consequences of the reform and addresses the catchphrase “orthographic peace”
(“Rechtschreibfrieden”). The biggest part of it is focused on Switzerland (p.
284-352). 

Chapter 9 widens the scope and considers the supraregional and international
press not as sources, but as a means to evaluate how much range the regional
orthographic discourses of the German-language area could have. Furthermore,
discourses in the international press can be operationalized to determine the
relevance of a topic for the respective language communities: if the press in
France, for example, dwells on a given aspect of the discussion, this might
reveal the importance of this topic for French language policy as well. The
chapter includes views to France, the Portuguese-language area, and the UK and
the US and discusses their respective treatments of the orthography reform of
German. 

The conclusion of the book outlines the results (Chapter 10: “Results of the
present study”) and gives an outlook (Chapter 11: “Outlook”). While not a
classical summary (the reader might look back to portions of Chapter 2 for
that) or conclusion, a number of crucial conclusions are still found here,
among them that media discourses are critical reflections of political and
technical discourses, that different discourses are weighted differently
across language communities, and that the media mischaracterized the German
orthography reform as a largely political endeavor, thereby downplaying the
significance of technical discourses. In her results, the author also recaps
many of the stakeholders (institutions etc.) that are invested in language and
have strived to objectify the emotional situation surrounding the reform. She
also laments the vagueness of the role of some of these actors. This leads to
the most crucial desideratum named in the outlook, the disentanglement of
interests that are constructed in the discourses, and the actors who are
associated with them. The present study has shown, however, just how
intertwined the discourses (and the interests expressed in them) are, so
suffice to say, it will be a challenge separating them in a more fine-grained
manner than Schimmel-Fijalkowytsch has already laudably done. 

EVALUATION

In sum, this book represents an insightful and valuable contribution to
orthography research and, more generally, to the field of language policy
research. Schimmel-Fijalkowytsch attempts to treat the book’s subject in
extensive detail and from myriad possible angles, which results, on the one
hand, in a remarkable overall picture that enriches the field, but, on the
other hand, is also responsible for some of the book’s shortcomings which I do
not want to leave unmentioned. 

One of the criticisms concerns the definition of orthography itself. Even
though it is at the heart of the study, what really constitutes orthography
remains to a large degree implicit. This becomes most obvious in sections such
as 3.5 (“Orthography and language system”), which is crucial as it addresses
the difference between “in conformity with the system” and (normatively)
“correct”, but ultimately remains too superficial. Accordingly, an explicit
differentiation between orthography and writing system, two concepts that are
not synonymous (although, as Neef 2015 notes, this is a distinction largely
unknown to the English-speaking realm), is missing. Of course, the purpose of
this book is not a linguistic description of orthography; yet, a deeper
understanding of the triad of system–use–norm (cf. Mesch & Noack 2016) and its
implications still proves vital for any discussion of orthography. 

The aspect of use brings me to the users of orthography, and with it a glaring
omission: public discourses. Although they are often entangled in political
and media discourses, the “public” also has opinions and takes part in its own
discourses on orthography that involve distinct aspects not present in other
discourses. A limitation of the study to political, technical, and media
discourses is ultimately warranted and even reasonable on the grounds of the
restricted scope of a PhD thesis – which this book, an enormous achievement as
it is, is based on. However, assuming engaged individuals of the public have
voiced their opinions on the reform, for example on the internet (which, at
least following the modifications of 2004 and 2006, seems like a reasonable
assumption), discussion forums, comment sections and the like would allow at
least a glimpse into not only what discourses the public construed but also
how the other types of discourses dealt with in this book were perceived and
negotiated by the public. Ultimately, while orthography is decided on by a few
people, it is used by all of them. This alone marks public discourses as
highly relevant, and at least an occasional mention of the public’s reaction
(and not just its reflection through the media) would have enriched the study.
Leaving it out completely leaves an elitist aftertaste. 

The classic literature review, embedded in Chapter 2, is surprisingly sparse,
and some omissions are striking (for example, there is no mention of Johnson
2005). Granted, much of the relevant literature is included in the main body
of the book. However, a more comprehensive critical survey of what research
has been done on the topic in the first part of the book would have provided a
richer background for Schimmel-Fijalkowytsch’s own study. 

My last global point of criticism concerns the book’s structure. As I stated
above, the overall picture and common thread are there, and contentwise, they
are strong, but they are not straightforwardly visible due to a sometimes
confusing structure and frequent excursions that are interesting but detract
attention from the main point. This includes the lengthy excursions about
French and Portuguese. These are in and of themselves highly interesting, and
they do serve as a means of comparison for the discussion of the orthography
reform of German. However, as the latter is undeniably the focus of the book
(as the title suggests), these excursions could have been leaner. They would
still have enriched a comparative perspective, but would not have shifted the
focus from German to other languages and orthographies altogether. 

In some chapters (such as Chapter 3), the author struggles to establish
coherence as she addresses so many topics which are, superficially, not
closely related, and sometimes, subsections that are indeed related are
separated by other sections between them (such as 3.3 “Language cultivation
and language policy in the political discourse – Prerequisite of a cultivation
of language” and 3.7 “Language cultivation and language policy – a panoply of
opinions in political discourses”). This leads also to a large amount of
repetition, which is not a problem per se, and for the reading of individual
chapters, even proves useful. However, when reading the whole book, these
repetitions become palpable. Instead of textual summaries, a few more figures
or tables would have been helpful, for example to summarize the respective
changes of orthography in the reform and its modifications (such as the table
provided for French on p. 175), or to summarize the stakeholders, their
actions, and generally, the most important events with respect to the
orthography reform in something like a timetable. 

Overall, as I mentioned, this comprehensive book gives a detailed account of
three types of orthographic discourses that concern the reform of (not only)
German orthography: political, technical, and media discourses. Despite a few
shortcomings, it does so quite successfully. It also highlights which aspects
of orthography reforms are still in need of an investigation, and lays the
necessary groundwork to make this further research possible. 

REFERENCES

Horobin, Simon. 2014. Does spelling matter? Oxford: Oxford University Press. 

Johnson, Sally. 2005. Spelling trouble? Language, ideology and the reform of
German orthography. Bristol: Multilingual Matters. 

Mesch, Birgit & Christina Noack (eds.). 2016. System, Norm und Gebrauch – drei
Seiten derselben Medaille? Orthographische Kompetenz und Performanz zwischen
System, Norm und Empirie. Baltmannsweiler: Schneider Hohengehren.

Neef, Martin. 2015. Writing systems as modular objects: proposals for theory
design in grapholinguistics. Open Linguistics 1. 708-721.


ABOUT THE REVIEWER

Dimitrios Meletis is a PhD candidate at the Department of Linguistics at the
University of Graz, Austria. He holds two master’s degrees in linguistics and
Slavic studies (with a focus on Russian) and has published a book on
graphetics (2015), the study of the materiality of writing. Currently, he is
working on his PhD project titled “Naturalness in scripts and writing systems”
and is also conducting research on the linguistic attitudes on orthography,
orthographic mistakes, and the pejorative correction of orthographic mistakes
on the internet, a practice for which he has coined the term “orthographic
shaming”.





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