#50 Language. Power. Justice. Who is allowed to speak and how?

50th Römerberg Talks

Gender asterisks, inline I’s and discriminatory terms – nothing is currently being debated as passionately as the correct use of language. A sense of justice is pitted against a sense of language. Some want to speak in a more inclusive and non-discriminatory way, while others feel compelled to make phonetic contortions. While for some, language is the repository of historical and social injustices, others feel patronized and overwhelmed by the inflation of ever new linguistic norms. In some places, gender language is now seen as the dominant language of a well-educated milieu in which not everyone participates. On the other hand, non-binary and trans people are struggling for social visibility.

The claim of a “language dictatorship” is already doing the rounds. This is obviously about more than just the correct use of words. What is this actually about and who decides how we should speak?

10:00 – Welcome Ina Hartwig
Head of the Department of Culture and Science of the City of Frankfurt am Main

10:15 – Aladin El-Mafaalani
Combat zone language: What does society negotiate?

11:00 – Paula-Irene Villa Braslavsky
Identity, language and discrimination – How does a society communicate?

12:00 – Henning Lobin – Peter Graf von Kielmansegg – Thomas Thiel
Framing – How politics is made with language

13:00 – Lunch break

14:00 – Gudrun Perko – Ute Sacksofsky
Language and justice

14:45 – Nele Pollatschek – Anatol Stefanowitsch
Language and Protest – The Gender Debate in Germany

15:45 – Sasha Marianna Salzmann
Recognizing language

16:15 – Martin Seel
Power and counter-power of language

17:00 – End