| This study critically analyzes the use of language for the creation of a German identity by the members and supporters of the "Allgemeine Deutsche Sprachverein" and the "Zeitschrift fur den deutschen Unterricht".;This study examines the language movement on a variety of levels: institutional, ideological and textual. Chapter one seeks to clarify the criteria with which the study of language was approached, and provides a backdrop for the movement's use of language. Chapter two links institution and ideology. Chapter three integrates the debates on education in the late 19th Century with the then institutional, paedagogical and ideological issues. Chapter four delves into the role of a 'picture language' for the language movement, linking it to the paedagogical imperatives the latter required. It concludes by linking Goethe and Schiller to the project of the language movement. Chapter five expands the ideological level of analysis. It links the language movement to the culture criticism of the time.;The movement was unable to reach its goal primarily because its debt to its literary past prevented it from going beyond the metaphorical level of communication. This ultimately made the language susceptible to the propagandistic perversions of the 'Third Reich'. The educational background of the members of the language movement had them opt for a literary rather than a folk language, making it impossible to establish precise criteria for a truly German tongue that was to be different from the then contemporary language.;For the success of the project the institutional hierarchy had to be infiltrated. This entailed an exploitation of the self-perception of the classically trained elite. Within the context of the realism quarrel of the late 19th Century, a conflict arose between the self-perception of the members of the language movement, educated in the humanistic Gymnasium, and the demands of their project on their loyalties--the conflict between their 'Deutschtum' and the tradition of the 'Bildungsburgertum'. |
