Herrschaft durch Sprachherrschaft (Control through language)

Zimmerer, V. (2006). Herrschaft durch Sprachherrschaft? Was uns die Psycholinguistik über die „Macht der Wörter“ sagen kann. Aptum: Zeitschrift für Sprachkritik und Sprachkultur 2, 137-156.

Zimmerer, V. (2006). Herrschaft durch Sprachherrschaft? Was uns die Psycholinguistik über die „Macht der Wörter“ sagen kann. Berlin: Weißensee Verlag.

These two publications are based on my Masters dissertation. Actually, the monograph is my dissertation with some edits. The project was supervised at the Heinrich-Heine-Universität Düsseldorf by Martin Wengeler and Martina Penke.

I did my Masters degree in German linguistics (which for the most part mixed philosophy and sociolinguistics), with psycholinguistics and German literature as minors. Since I became increasingly interested in psycholinguistics, but did not want to change my major, I had to figure out a way to do psycholinguistics in the wrong department. My solution was to approach the political idea of "controlling the people through language" by first addressing Benjamin Lee Whorf and then a range of psychological studies, before conducting my own. The methods were okay considering my resources. I made a bad statistical choice in the analysis, but all in all the work was alright and I got the highest mark.

My supervisors were very supportive and open to ideas, and I have to thank Professor Wengeler for inviting me to publish an article in Aptum. In addition there was a good opportunity to publish a monograph through a publishing house specializing of dissertations, so I took it. The work has been cited a couple of times (including by Peter Eisenberg, which makes me happy), and a German science TV show recommended it next to selected writings by Whorf, which was a bit surreal.

I also married the artist who made the front cover.