Flag word

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In linguistics - especially in language and politics research - the flag word is a linguistic expression with high symbolic power, under which people gather in political struggle or competition and which thus creates an identity for a social or political group. Flag words belong to the political buzzwords .

Features of flag words

Flag words belong (according to a classification by Walther Dieckmann) within the political vocabulary to the so-called ideology vocabulary, which from a pragmatic point of view consists of flag words and their opposite, the stigma words . Flag words serve to use the leeway in the language. With them you can literally show the flag for your own side in the dispute and create a metaphor on which “spirits separate”.

Flag words are (according to Josef Klein ) important elements of the basic vocabulary in a democracy . All flag words have in common that they have a so-called deontic meaning in addition to a very positive basic characterization , that they have more or less positive connotations , express a high ideological value and the addressed people to a certain action, in this case Encourage the content expressed by the words and their implementation.

Since one uses flag words to refer to the contents of one's own ideological system and the semantically opposite stigma words to objects of the other, the “foreign” ideological system, one speaks (according to Heiko Girnth) of “ingroup and outgroup reference” of such expressions.

Ideological polysemy

Flag words have a large semantic leeway and can be used almost anywhere, not least because of their more or less unconditional acceptance. Frequently encountered flag words are (in the western democratic understanding) for example:

All of these words and phrases are very general expressions that have no clear and unambiguous meanings and can therefore be defined differently, sometimes even in contradiction. What is understood by “democracy” or “freedom” etc. in a specific individual case depends on the respective political orientations of individual parties or the corresponding political system. A sentence like "Freedom is a great good" is so general that hardly any political group would not agree with this statement and could not claim it for its own position.

These general expressions can accordingly be defined depending on the political framework or remain deliberately unexplained in political rhetoric, so that when they are used, only the positive connotation and the affirmative character inherent in the words come into effect. This also explains why, at the time of two German states, both West Germany and its ideological counterpart, the GDR , were deemed to be “democracy” and were able to find approval. Flag words are therefore fundamentally useful to different worldviews, they therefore show a so-called “ideological polysemy ”.

A certain expression can also contain an ideological contradiction if the same word can be used on the one hand as a flag word and on the other as a stigma word, i.e. as a derogatory expression for the opposing position. Something like that is present in the words

  • Pacifism (e.g. for supporters of the peace movement a flag word to mark their own attitude, for military advocates, however, a stigma word to discredit this attitude and their representatives) and
  • Conservative (positively understood as "proven, (value) stable, rich in tradition, dignified, serious", negatively interpreted as "old-fashioned, outdated, not open to the new, narrow-minded").

Different scope of meaning

Flag words can have very different meanings . Expressions such as “freedom” or “equality” have a maximally large scope of meaning so that everything imaginable can be understood under them. At the same time, such words have very little meaning and under certain conditions they can be used as empty empty words.

However, a number of flag words are more specific and refer to specific issues that are typical of a democracy, such as

All previous examples refer to fundamental ideological issues. In addition to these words expressing basic values ​​- that is, flag words in the narrower sense - such terms can also become flag words or be consciously used as such that relate to concrete, contested things or facts in everyday political life. This is in Austria for example in the expression

that has been a constant political bone of contention between the opponents SPÖ and ÖVP since 2000 . In this case, the thing referred to by the word refers to the underlying views (free vs. controlled study access), which are themselves part of the respective party ideology. Other examples of this type are around

It is also possible to design expressions consciously and to use them like a flag in the political debate. One such case is the expression that was also rumored in Austria in 2000 and shortly thereafter

After the decades of the SPÖ government, the new ÖVP government considered it an extremely urgent political goal: the minimization of national debt. As tangible evidence of a corresponding policy, the unconditional achievement of the zero deficit should be, i.e. a balanced income-expenditure calculation of the state. “Zero deficit” thus stood as a positively identifying flag for the newly implemented budget policy, which also included unusual measures. After it became clear after a certain time that this debt-free economy would not be successful for a long time, the expression “zero deficit” was first redefined in order to correspond to the current situation, and later “pulled in” as the flagship word in good time and banned from political rhetoric in order to prevent attacks by the enemy.

Delimitations

From a linguistic and pragmatic point of view, the term "flag word" is described in its properties, but has fuzzy meaning boundaries with other word types, which also do not necessarily have to be used in a political context:

  • Key word :
    A flag
    word can be a key word at the same time. Such expressions are "guiding" for a certain point of view, but often at the same time expressions of a certain zeitgeist , or they are only of importance for a certain period of time. In many cases, however, the terms “Leitwort” and “Flagwort” are used synonymously .
  • High value word :
    High value words are designations for matters that may also be politically explosive. They do not only have to cover the political and social area alone, but can also include terms for ethical and moral matters or cultural things or facts such as e.g. B. “Honor”, ​​“People”, “Nation” or “Cross” (in the Christian sense). Seen in this way, the difference between a flag word and a high-value word is often only that the expression "flag word" specifically characterizes its function in political rhetoric.

Flag words are not to be confused with

  • Euphemisms that
    also have a positive connotation, but are used for taboo reasons, for reasons of camouflage or for the deliberate upgrading of things that are generally considered to be value-neutral. In addition, euphemisms are used instead of other expressions, while flag words are not substitute words and cannot themselves be replaced by synonymous expressions.

literature

  • Dieckmann, Walther: Language in Politics. Introduction to the pragmatics and semantics of political language. 2nd edition Heidelberg: Winter 1975.
  • Girnth, Heiko: Language and Use of Language in Politics. An introduction to the linguistic analysis of public-political communication. Tübingen: Niemeyer 2002. ISBN 3-484-25139-5
  • Hermanns, Fritz: Explosive words. For the lexicographical treatment of party-language words and phrases in dictionaries of contemporary German. In: Herbert Ernst Wiegand (ed.): Studies on New High German Lexicography II. Hildesheim: Olms 1982. ISBN 3-4870-7441-9
  • Klein, Josef: "Basic vocabulary" of democracy . In: Jörg Kilian (Hg): Language and Politics. German in a democratic state. Mannheim: Dudenverlag 2005, pp. 128–140. ISBN 3-4110-4221-4
  • Panagl, Oswald (ed.): Flag words of politics. Continuities and breaks. Vienna: Böhlau 1998. ISBN 3-205-98867-1

Individual evidence

  1. Keyword “zero deficit”, in: Oswald Panagl / Peter Gerlich (ed.): Dictionary of political language in Austria. Vienna: Öbv 2007.

See also

Web links

Wiktionary: flag  word - explanations of meanings, word origins, synonyms, translations