Lothar Hoffmann

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Lothar Hoffmann (born October 23, 1928 in Borsdorf near Leipzig ) is a German linguist specializing in applied linguistics who has shaped technical language research internationally.

Live and act

After graduating from high school in 1944, Lothar Hoffmann was deployed in the Second World War, after which he was taken prisoner by the English from 1945 to 1946. Following his release, he graduated from high school. From 1947 to 1952 he studied Slavic and English studies at the University of Leipzig. From 1952 to 1965 he was employed as a lecturer for Russian in the language teaching department of the Philosophical Faculty of the University of Leipzig. He obtained his doctorate in 1954. phil. in Slavic studies at the university, which has since been renamed Karl Marx University in Leipzig, with the work “The Slavic field names in the Löbau district”. From 1965 to 1967 Hoffmann was a lecturer in applied linguistics at the Philosophical Faculty of the Karl Marx University in Leipzig. His habilitation in applied linguistics, title of the unpublished work “For the machine analysis of the statistical structure of scientific texts. Lexik und Morphologie des Russischen “, took place in 1966. In the following two years he was professor with the chair for applied linguistics at the Philosophical Faculty of the Karl Marx University in Leipzig. From 1969 to 1975 Hoffmann was Full Professor of Applied Linguistics at the Theoretical and Applied Linguistics Section of the Karl Marx University in Leipzig and from 1975 to 1990 Full Professor of Applied Linguistics at the Foreign Languages ​​Section of Karl Marx University Leipzig. After the fall of the Berlin Wall , from 1990 to 1992 he was a full professor of applied linguistics at the Faculty of Culture, Linguistics and Education at the university, which was renamed Universität Leipzig.

Lothar Hoffmann researched mainly in the areas of specialist language research and specialist communication. He has shaped international specialist language research like no other. He not only understood the technical language as technical lexicons , according to the prevailing point of view at the time , but considered it "with all [its] manifestations and functions in a comprehensive communicative context." His definition of technical language given in 1976:

"Technical language, that is the totality of all linguistic means that are used in a subject-specific communication area to ensure understanding between people working in this area."

- Lothar Hoffmann : means of communication technical language. An introduction. Akademie-Verlag, Berlin, 3rd edition 1987, p. 53.

was used for decades by many researchers in applied linguistics as the basis for their investigations. Although it is still used, it has been criticized for a long time because of the separation of technical and general language and the "highly thematically oriented" specialist "approach".

More functions

  • 1963–1983 Deputy Chairman of the Scientific Advisory Board for Foreign Languages ​​at the Ministry for Higher and Technical Education in the GDR
  • 1965–1969 director of the Institute for Foreign Languages ​​at the Karl Marx University in Leipzig
  • 1969–1971 Deputy Director for Education and Training at the Theoretical and Applied Linguistics Section of the Karl Marx University in Leipzig
  • 1971–1975 head of the scientific field of technical languages ​​at the section Theoretical and Applied Linguistics of the Karl-Marx-Universität Leipzig
  • 1975–1980 deputy director for research at the Foreign Languages ​​section of the Karl Marx University in Leipzig
  • 1980–1983 Director of the Foreign Languages ​​Section at the Karl Marx University in Leipzig

Memberships

  • 1955–1959 Member of the Russian Expert Commission at the State Secretariat for Higher and Technical Schools in the GDR
  • 1973–1989 member of the International Association of Teachers of Russian Language and Literature
  • 1978–1983 Member of the Association Internationale de Linguistique Appliquée (AILA)
  • 1980–1983 member of the National Committee for Linguistics at the Academy of Sciences of the GDR in Berlin

Awards

  • 1963 Badge of Honor from the Karl Marx University in Leipzig
  • 1967 Badge of Honor from the National Taras Shevchenko University of Kiev
  • 1988 Gustav Hertz Prize from Karl Marx University in Leipzig
  • 2006 Eugen Wüster Special Prize from the International Information Center for Terminology (Infoterm) Vienna

Publications (selection)

  • Lothar Hoffmann / Olga Kuznetsova: We are learning to speak Russian. A pocket textbook. 2 volumes, Verlag Sprache und Literatur, Halle / Saale, 1960/62.
  • Lothar Hoffmann: On the machine analysis of the statistical structure of scientific texts. Lexicon and Morphology of Russian. Habilitation thesis, Leipzig, 1966, unpublished.
  • Lothar Hoffmann: Communication means technical language. An introduction. Akademie-Verlag, Berlin, 3 ed. 1976–1987.
  • Lothar Hoffmann: Technical languages ​​- instrument and object. VEB Verlag Enzyklopädie, Leipzig, 1987.
  • Lothar Hoffmann: From technical term to technical text. Contributions to applied linguistics. Narr, Tübingen, 1988.
  • Lothar Hoffmann (Ed.): Technical languages ​​and language statistics. Akademie-Verlag, Berlin, 1975.
  • Lothar Hoffmann (Ed.): Language in Science and Technology. An anthology. Verlag Enzyklopädie Berlin, 1978.
  • Lothar Hoffmann (Ed.) Recommendation - Standard - Norm. Contributions to rationalization in specialist communication. VEB Verlag Enzyklopädie, Leipzig, 1990.
  • Lothar Hoffmann / Hartwig Kalverkämper / Herbert Ernst Wiegand in connection with Christian Galinski / Werner Hüllen (eds.): Fachsprache / Languages ​​for Special Purposes: An international handbook for specialist language research and terminology research / An International Handbook of Special Languages ​​and Terminology Research. de Gruyter, New York, Berlin, 1998.

literature

  • Werner Reinecke (Ed.): Reports of the Foreign Languages ​​Section: Festschrift for Lothar Hoffmann's 50th birthday. Leipzig, 1978.
  • Reports from the Foreign Languages ​​Section. Festschrift for Prof. Dr. sc. Lothar Hoffmann on his 60th birthday. Leipzig, 1988.
  • Klaus-Dieter Baumann: Lothar Hoffmann - 60 years. In: Linguistic work reports. No. 65, 1988, pp. 88f.
  • Hartwig Kalverkämper / Klaus-Dieter Baumann (Hrsg.): Technical text types. Components - Relations - Strategies. Dedicated to Lothar Hoffmann on the occasion of his 65th birthday. Narr, Tübingen (= Forum for Technical Language Research, Vol. 25), 1996.
  • Klaus-Dieter Baumann / Hartwig Kalverkämper (eds.): Plurality in technical language research. Dedicated to Lothar Hoffmann on his 75th birthday. Narr, Tübingen (= Forum for Technical Language Research, Vol. 67), 2004.

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Lothar Hoffmann in the professorial catalog of the University of Leipzig
  2. ^ Rainer Arntz: The comparison of technical languages. In: Klaus-Dieter Baumann / Hartwig Kalverkämper (ed.): Plurality in specialist language research. Dedicated to Lothar Hoffmann on the occasion of his 75th birthday. Narr, Tübingen, (= Forum for Technical Language Research, Vol. 67), 2004 p. 285.
  3. ^ Lothar Hoffmann: Communication means technical language. An introduction. Akademie-Verlag, Berlin, 3rd edition 1987, p. 53.
  4. ↑ Suns Anne Göpferich: types of texts in science and technology. Pragmatic typology - contrasting - translation. Narr, Tübingen (= Forum for Technical Language Research 27), 1995, pp. 23–31.
  5. ↑ Jan Engberg: Development of a text type: To adapt a specialist magazine to new times. In: Klaus-Dieter Baumann / Hartwig Kalverkämper (ed.): Plurality in specialist language research. Dedicated to Lothar Hoffmann on the occasion of his 75th birthday. Narr, Tübingen, (= Forum for Technical Language Research, Vol. 67), 2004, p. 436
personal data
SURNAME Hoffmann, Lothar
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German linguist in the field of applied linguistics
DATE OF BIRTH October 23, 1928
PLACE OF BIRTH Borsdorf near Leipzig