place in life

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Sitz im Leben is a specialist terminus of the shape history and refers to the alleged original creation situation or function of a text. The "seat in life" must be taken into account when interpreting the text for its understanding.

origin

The term goes back to the German Protestant theologian Hermann Gunkel , the founder of the school of religious history . Today the term is also used outside of theological research, whenever the aim is to examine a text for its sociologically relevant aspects. In linguistics today, the “seat in life” is examined and determined by text pragmatics . In addition, a “seat in the book” is provided for texts in prophetic research .

Examples

  • The "seat in life" of a counting rhyme ("Ene mene Miste, it rattles in the box ...") is to choose one from a group of children who will start a game.
  • The “seat in life” of the Ave verum corpus (“Greetings, true body”) is the elevation of the host at mass or its exposure in the monstrance .

literature

  • Andreas Wagner: genre and “seat in life”. On the importance of the formal history work of Hermann Gunkels (1862–1932) for the understanding of the linguistic quantity “text”. In: Susanne Michaelis, Doris Tophinke (Ed.): Texts - Constitution, Processing, Typics (= Edition Linguistics. Vol. 13). LINCOM Europa, Munich et al. 1996, ISBN 3-89586-096-4 , pp. 117–129.