Gesellschaft für deutsche Sprache
The Society for German Language ( GfdS ) is a mainly funded by the Standing Conference and the Minister of Culture Club, which has made it its mission to cultivate the German language and to explore and to show the functioning of the German language in a global context recognizable. The GfdS accompanied thereby the current language change critically and makes recommendations for the use of language from.
The club was founded by Landgerichtsdirektor Max Wachler in 1947 as successor organization to the General German Language Club. Since the relocation of GfdS from Lüneburg to Wiesbaden by the then Managing Director Otto Nüssler GfdS has its headquarters in Wiesbaden.
- 2.1 German branch associations
- 2.2 Foreign branch associations
Activities
The GfdS maintains a language consultancy service in which they ( as on spelling, grammar or style) supports individuals, companies, government agencies and institutions in the clarification of language-related issues and formulate opinions (about to name ). For some time he is however a charge, which is why the number of requests has declined sharply.
Every two years, the GfdS in a public ceremony the media prize for voice culture. Also, is awarded in cooperation with the Alexander Rhomberg Foundation of Alexander Rhomberg Award for young journalists and journalists. Since 1971 the GfdS created the linguistic Year in Review "Word of the Year".
Activity for the German Bundestag
The editorial staff of the Society for German Language at the German Bundestag has Bundestag and Bundesrat as well as ministries and authorities of the countries since 1966 advising on all language issues. These sites can check all kinds of texts by the editorial staff of the GfdS on linguistic accuracy and comprehensibility. Also requests for gender-neutral formulation, like questions about style, grammar and spelling an area of responsibility of the editorial board. The task of the Editorial Staff of the GfdS that he perceives for the German Parliament in the legislative process is set out in § 80a of the Rules of Procedure of the Bundestag ( GOBT ):
The most important task of the editorial board at the German Bundestag is to revise him handed over for examination texts linguistically. He endeavors are simple and clear formulations, but the peculiarities of legal language and other specialist languages are considered.
Work for the Federal Ministries 2009-2012
The editorial staff legal language at the Federal Ministry of Justice was established in 2009. He was the result of the two-year project " Understandable Laws", which goes back to a bipartisan parliamentary initiative, and was led to the end of 2012 under the sponsorship of the GfdS.
Magazines
The GfdS is the editor of two journals language: the language services and language.
The voice service is a bi-monthly magazine with a circulation of 3,200 copies ( 2007), which was founded in 1957 from the practical work of GfdS and to this day at the same time is their handout.
The journal is aimed at a broad audience interested in language and includes contributions on all aspects of the German language. The periodical overviews "Word of the Year" and " Most popular first names " are known. In each issue, language requests will be printed of general interest. The focus is on language development, linguistic criticism, commentaries, word history, grammar, style, phraseology, terminology, toponymy and spelling.
In addition, the club's quarterly publication available for German language native language and sets out on particular issues in front of book publications.
Organization
The Chairman is the linguist Armin Burkhardt, who teaches at the Otto -von- Guericke- University Magdeburg, Managing Director is Andrea Eva Ewels from Wiesbaden. The German Language Society currently has 100 volunteer -led branch associations in over 35 countries (as of October 2010).
The GfdS sees itself not as a trade association or professional body Germanistic. It is open to all those interested in the German language and invites them to become a member. According to the company it currently has 2600 members at home and abroad (as of June 2012).
German branch associations
48 branch associations have their headquarters in Germany, at least one branch club is available in every state. In the states with more than one club branch a branch association has its seat in the national capital.
Most agencies provide this North Rhine -Westphalia (Aachen, Bonn, Dortmund, Dusseldorf, Münster, Siegen, Western Ruhr and Wuppertal) and Hesse ( mountain road, Darmstadt, Frankfurt am Main, Kassel, Marburg an der Lahn and the headquarters Wiesbaden). These are followed by Sachsen (Chemnitz, Dresden, Leipzig, Zittau and Zwickau ) with five representatives, Lower Saxony (Braunschweig, Celle, Göttingen and Hannover ) and Baden- Wurttemberg ( Freiburg, Heidelberg, Karlsruhe and Stuttgart) and Rheinland- Pfalz ( Koblenz, Mainz, Pfalz and Trier), each with four representatives.
Other states with several branch associations are with three representatives, Bavaria (Munich, Nuremberg and Würzburg), Mecklenburg- Vorpommern ( Greifswald, Rostock and Schwerin ) and Thuringia (Erfurt and Weimar) and Saxony- Anhalt (Halle / Saale and Magdeburg ) and Brandenburg (Potsdam and Frankfurt / Oder ) with two branch associations. In each case a representative is stationed in Berlin, Bremen, Hamburg, Saarland ( Saarbrücken) and in Schleswig- Holstein ( Kiel).
Foreign branch associations
More 52 branch associations have their headquarters abroad, of which 22 are outside Europe. With the branch associations Kaliningrad, Moscow, Omsk, Polar Region ( Apatity ), Saratov, St. Petersburg, the Urals, Voronezh are only eight branch associations in Russia.
In other European countries, more branch associations in Brussels ( Belgium ), Sofia ( are (Bulgaria ) Tallinn ( Estonia), Turku (Finland ), Tbilisi (Georgia ), Athens ( Greece ), London ( UK ), Bolzano, Milan, Rome all Italy), Zagreb (Croatia ), Luxembourg, Innsbruck, Vienna (both Austria ), Warsaw ( Poland ), Bucharest (Romania ), Bratislava (Slovakia ), Madrid (Spain ) Prague (Czech Republic ), Kiev (Ukraine ) and Budapest (Hungary).
Outside Europe there are branch associations in Africa ( 6) Asia (9 ) and America ( 7). The six African branch associations have their headquarters in Cairo ( Egypt), Yaoundé (Cameroon), Lomé (Togo), Johannesburg, Cape Town (both South Africa) and Windhoek ( Namibia). The person sitting in North America offices are located in detail in Boston, Chicago, Madison, New York and Philadelphia (all USA). The South African branch associations are in São Paulo and Porto Alegre (both Brazil). The Asian Club branches are located in Hangzhou, Beijing, Shanghai (all China), Yerevan (Armenia ), Tel Aviv (Israel ), Seoul (South Korea ), Tokyo ( Japan) and Pune ( India) represented.
Memberships / Cooperations
Represented by the Chairman of the GfdS is a member of the Council for German Orthography. In 2003 she founded together with the Goethe Institute and the Institute for German Language to German Language Council, which later joined also the German Academic Exchange Service.
The GfdS is in close contact with various university and non-university institutions of linguistics, especially with the German Academy for Language and Literature and the Institute for German Language.