There are countless ways of illustrating the national decay everybody is complaining (or simply wailing?) about. No matter if it is about the youth, the economy, politics, culture - the elegies are on the rise. Quite certainly not without reason. All the same, one, maybe the sufficient criterion has hardly been brought up. Even if he is wearing professional blinkers - the author has the language use in public in mind.
To avoid the risk of hasty rejection or enthusiastic approval: It is not about the increasing impact of (pseudo) Anglicisms on our pure, purer, purest German mother tongue. That kind of suspicious control should be left to the professionals, the amateur linguists who are desperately seeking entrance to the chat shows. Instead, this text is about the decreasing capability of composing well-formed German sentences that are in keeping with grammatical and orthographical demands. All we have to do is spend a day in front of the TV set to find out praised journalists apparently have never learnt how to handle their tools: words. If we have a look at the inserted news texts, we cannot escape the conclusion they were produced by dyslexic trainees. So it is speculated in Germany that the development will cost us intelligence, reluctant childs cannot be teached, dedectives in exonomics are needed, it is better as the latest year, it is one of the most extreme experiences or becoming increasingly harder, we are seemingly getting more and more stupid (although we are apparently doing so) and much more of that kind. There are so many issues on this notice of defects and they are still on the rise. It is only a matter of time till the most ignorant speakers will be rewarded with special awards for their outstanding gift for unpretentious languages. That is the way German elementary pupils are motivated. What about the British ones?
Anyway, these remarks are merely incidental. Let us turn to the epitome of the public culture of speaking, that kingly discipline which has enobled cultivated and mature democracy ever since, practically the soul of occidental philosophy of state: the parliamentary speech. Thanks to the archiving efforts of a programme wich is orthographically slightly firmer we get the opportunity to watch historical debates every Sunday afternoon and compare them to recent ones. Even though things were not wholly better in the past (which can be seen from the notoriously underexposed pictures from the 1970s), the cultural shockis painfully striking. No doubt, a lot of nonsense was uttered then, too; of course any controversy was presented as a manichaeic battle between chavinism and communism. Still, the speakers' inclinations to pointed statements matched their rhetorical skills. When the chancellor attacked the opposition leader, the latter could at least rely on a member of his fraction would be able to respond something appropriate. The confrontation was quite entertaining. Moreover, the rhetoric training seemed to comply anything but complacent evading precise comments which often hurt but hardly bluntly offended. So who did not realize then the politicians were competent has to apologize in the year 2004. After all, what was sober, original, self-confident, vivid, supportive of the State, determined, vernacular or committed in former times, now is dull, would be innovative, pompous, unimaginative, hectic, uninspired, nagging, demagogic or shrill. Remaining doubts can be dispelled by comparing the names of relevant politicians now and then.
Is this just another case of solding politicians? Not quite, for our representatives are eager to please the imaginary majority, after all. And the decline of parliamentary debates is of course due to the inflation of statements in 'political' talk shows which are not even meant to resemble a forum anymore. Or to the hectic waylaying journalists, competitively waiting to get a half-minute statement from a politician on his way to a committee meeting. Political speech in the narrow sense is discernibly (which makes the present form specific) no more a debate. It merely interrupts the steady decision-making process which takes place outside the plenum. And by now really all speakers know exactly where the camera has been installed into which they deliver a text they are reading for at best the second time.
When was the last time a relevant political speech impressed the public opinion by its rhetorical skill? Since the author has been allowed to vote, for 14 years, he has some difficulties in remembering one. The so-called "swing" speech a former Federal President held seven years ago was no rhetorical highlight in spite of media promotion. And that lack of skill cannot be excused by the speakers' concern they might induce the stupid people to lead a total war once again if they display rhetorical brilliance.
Unfortunately, the original unity of rhetorical demands, content and shape, seems to have split up anyhow. The parliament is predominated by the austere content, upright, predictable, official occasions in comparison by a more stylized, but vague address. However, if striving for eloquence simply counts as recreation from everyday practice, we can have no right to complain about our political culture.
Apparently we Germans are content with consoling ourselves by digging up the outdated image of the 'poets and thinkers' and outsourcing its realization. But there is hope: model experiments with E-Campaigning via WWW suggest we can give up rhetorical contortions in future and form our opinion in favour of an election platform by means of 20 simple questions. And perhaps there will be soon the virtual representative - endowed with an integrated oratorical function which allows the sophisticated user-voter to stipulate the number of metaphors, chiasms or even coprolalies per speech unit. After all we only hear what we want to hear and disregard the rest.
To avoid the risk of hasty rejection or enthusiastic approval: It is not about the increasing impact of (pseudo) Anglicisms on our pure, purer, purest German mother tongue. That kind of suspicious control should be left to the professionals, the amateur linguists who are desperately seeking entrance to the chat shows. Instead, this text is about the decreasing capability of composing well-formed German sentences that are in keeping with grammatical and orthographical demands. All we have to do is spend a day in front of the TV set to find out praised journalists apparently have never learnt how to handle their tools: words. If we have a look at the inserted news texts, we cannot escape the conclusion they were produced by dyslexic trainees. So it is speculated in Germany that the development will cost us intelligence, reluctant childs cannot be teached, dedectives in exonomics are needed, it is better as the latest year, it is one of the most extreme experiences or becoming increasingly harder, we are seemingly getting more and more stupid (although we are apparently doing so) and much more of that kind. There are so many issues on this notice of defects and they are still on the rise. It is only a matter of time till the most ignorant speakers will be rewarded with special awards for their outstanding gift for unpretentious languages. That is the way German elementary pupils are motivated. What about the British ones?
Anyway, these remarks are merely incidental. Let us turn to the epitome of the public culture of speaking, that kingly discipline which has enobled cultivated and mature democracy ever since, practically the soul of occidental philosophy of state: the parliamentary speech. Thanks to the archiving efforts of a programme wich is orthographically slightly firmer we get the opportunity to watch historical debates every Sunday afternoon and compare them to recent ones. Even though things were not wholly better in the past (which can be seen from the notoriously underexposed pictures from the 1970s), the cultural shockis painfully striking. No doubt, a lot of nonsense was uttered then, too; of course any controversy was presented as a manichaeic battle between chavinism and communism. Still, the speakers' inclinations to pointed statements matched their rhetorical skills. When the chancellor attacked the opposition leader, the latter could at least rely on a member of his fraction would be able to respond something appropriate. The confrontation was quite entertaining. Moreover, the rhetoric training seemed to comply anything but complacent evading precise comments which often hurt but hardly bluntly offended. So who did not realize then the politicians were competent has to apologize in the year 2004. After all, what was sober, original, self-confident, vivid, supportive of the State, determined, vernacular or committed in former times, now is dull, would be innovative, pompous, unimaginative, hectic, uninspired, nagging, demagogic or shrill. Remaining doubts can be dispelled by comparing the names of relevant politicians now and then.
Is this just another case of solding politicians? Not quite, for our representatives are eager to please the imaginary majority, after all. And the decline of parliamentary debates is of course due to the inflation of statements in 'political' talk shows which are not even meant to resemble a forum anymore. Or to the hectic waylaying journalists, competitively waiting to get a half-minute statement from a politician on his way to a committee meeting. Political speech in the narrow sense is discernibly (which makes the present form specific) no more a debate. It merely interrupts the steady decision-making process which takes place outside the plenum. And by now really all speakers know exactly where the camera has been installed into which they deliver a text they are reading for at best the second time.
When was the last time a relevant political speech impressed the public opinion by its rhetorical skill? Since the author has been allowed to vote, for 14 years, he has some difficulties in remembering one. The so-called "swing" speech a former Federal President held seven years ago was no rhetorical highlight in spite of media promotion. And that lack of skill cannot be excused by the speakers' concern they might induce the stupid people to lead a total war once again if they display rhetorical brilliance.
Unfortunately, the original unity of rhetorical demands, content and shape, seems to have split up anyhow. The parliament is predominated by the austere content, upright, predictable, official occasions in comparison by a more stylized, but vague address. However, if striving for eloquence simply counts as recreation from everyday practice, we can have no right to complain about our political culture.
Apparently we Germans are content with consoling ourselves by digging up the outdated image of the 'poets and thinkers' and outsourcing its realization. But there is hope: model experiments with E-Campaigning via WWW suggest we can give up rhetorical contortions in future and form our opinion in favour of an election platform by means of 20 simple questions. And perhaps there will be soon the virtual representative - endowed with an integrated oratorical function which allows the sophisticated user-voter to stipulate the number of metaphors, chiasms or even coprolalies per speech unit. After all we only hear what we want to hear and disregard the rest.
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