Identity In Germany Research Articles

A linguistic odyssey: one family's experience with language shift and cultural identity in Germany and France

Describing his, his wife's, and his three childrens experiences as an American family settled in Germany, the author retraces the childrens linguistic development, which exemplifies the decisive influence of the language(s) spoken in school (English-German bilingualism) and, in the long term, by theparents at horne (English by thefather, French by the mother). A striking difference between countries ofresidence, due apparently to their official approach to foreigners, emerges from their experience: after moving to France and having a year ofschooling there, the children feit French. But despite continuous residence in Germany, despite intense, early contact with the German language and German playmates and classmates, and despite the fact that the three children are today partly perceived by their California relatives and by others as German, they have never claimed tofeel German or German-American. English rather than German has become their main language, with French a dose second.

The Provocation of His Images

once asked Heiner Miiller what he thought about when he wrote his plays. He answered, as always, very softly, almost shyly: I don't think about anything. At the moment when start to write, thinking is over. am simply looking for a black space. In an interview published later he continued in a similar vein. I don't like detailed concepts. don't want to know the plot before find it. never look for a plot. find it, before look for it. That's what like about writing. Its a risk, an adventure, an experience. When am finished can think about it, but that's quite another thing altogether.2 In the beginning was not the word. What has characterized a certain genre of critical writing about Miller both before and after his death is an unwillingness to struggle with his images; a tendency as well to remain fixated exclusively on his offhand public sound bites sometimes in order to nail him ideologically. The extraordinary obituary in the Economist unmasks its own inability or even desire to comprehend MUller's difficult texts: Even those who never entered a theater felt they knew the man from his public insults. 'The only national identity in Germany is the D-Mark,' is one. 'Ten Germans are more stupid than one,' is another. Neither are MUller's plays much fun to watch. They are black, often violent and complicated.3 Similar, theoretically more pretentious remarks could also be heard coming from some West German critics, who since 1989 have appeared increasingly surprised and even angered by the fact that the

The Christians in Socialism--and after: The Church in East Germany

With democratic and market-oriented systems taking shape in what used to be the German Democratic Republic (GDR), it has be come common for analysts to stress the burgeoning unity and national identity of Germany. Such arguments tend to underestimate the im portance of contrasting cultural, traditional, and contemporary exper iences of the two Germanies in the post-war period. These often aggressively competing legacies manifest themselves in various ways in the economic, political, and religious spheres. Some people of the for mer East Germany resent what has been perpetrated on them in the name of democracy, liberal-market, and new ideologies; others are still unable to adjust to the drastic changes following unification. Interviews with pastors, university professors and students, party officials, city administrators, and environmentalists in the former East Germany point to the fact that the emerging dominance of West Ger man institutions, ideas, and resources has fostered resentment among East Germans. Eastern religious leaders have become disenchanted with Western materialism and insensitivity to the former Eastern cul

Racial Assimilation in Secondary Groups With Particular Reference to the Negro

1 The race problem has someti:mes been described as a problem in assimilation. It is not always clear, however, what assimilation means. Historically the word has had two distinct significations. According to earlier usage it meant "to compare" or "to make like." According to later usage it signifies "to take up and incorporate." There is a process that goes on in society by which individuals spontaneously acquire one another's language, characteristic attitudes, habits, and modes of behavior. There is also a process by which individuals and groups of individuals are taken over and incorporated into larger groups. Both processes have been concerned in the formation of modern nationalities. The modern Italian, Frenchman, and German is a composite of the broken fragments of several different racial groups. Interbreeding has broken up the ancient stocks, and interaction and imitation have created new national types which exhibit definite uniformities in language, manners, and formal behavior. It has sometimes been assumed that the creation of a national type is the specific function of assimilation and that national solidarity is based upon national homogeneity and "like-mindedness." The extent and importance of the kind of homogeneity that individuals of the same nationality exhibit have been greatly exaggerated. Neither interbreeding nor interaction has created, in what the French term "nationals," a more than superficial likeness or like-mindedness. Racial differences have, to be sure, disappeared or been obscured, but individual differences remain. Individual differences, again, have been intensified by education,