Legal, Official and Juristic Language – Yesterday and Today. A Visit to Southern Germany (Rechts-, Amts- und Juristensprache – Gestern und Heute. Ein Besuch in Süddeutschland)
Author : Wolfgang Wüst
Abstract :
Official or Paper German is not a fictitious neologism to describe a curiosity that there are forms of language that are very difficult or even impossible to understand for most addressees, despite or precisely because of their overabundance of words. Officialese is a reality, even in Bavaria, of course! Having flourished in the arrogance of traditional officialdom, officialese today is a companion to the lack of linguistic transparency between the state, offices and the people or, historically speaking, between rulers and subjects. Their mostly sedentary originators play in the world of satire, civil servant jokes, often also a civil servant play named Mikado. It is a game in which the person who moves first loses. The language of non-bourgeois offices - official German - or scientific and technical institutions - where technical jargon is spoken - is characterized by the frequent use of xenologisms in order to simulate education, erudition and sovereignty through the use of humanistically radicalized foreign and technical words - they do not always have to be of Greek origin - or foreign-sounding word creations. Nothing can be expressed simply any more. The cheapest roll of toilet paper has thus morphed into a "cellulose product" for the hygienic cleaning of defecation processes.
Keywords :
Southern Germany, historical and contemporary official language, good policy, comprehension problems, bureaucracy, administrative chaos
