Sprachbiographien der 2. Generation deutschsprachiger Emigranten in Israel. Zur Auswirkung individueller Erfahrungen und Emotionen auf die Sprachkompetenz

Abstract

Based on 62 autobiographical narrative interviews with children of German-Jewish refugees from Nazi-terror to Palestine/Israel, some representative case studies have been chosen to illustrate the interdependence of language attitudes and abilities. German was often the first, but never remained the best language of the second generation. It can be proved that the degree of the acquired competence and later maintenance, attrition or loss of the language highly depended on emotional reactions to external experiences, especially in childhood and youth, such as good or bad relations with the family, acceptance or rejection of life style and culture of the parents, mocking or scorn by class mates, stigmatisation of everything originating from Germany by the surrounding Jewish community, etc. Growing insight into the historical and political facts, as well as new cultural orientations played a role in later years — and sometimes positive experiences regarding Germany or German people today, would even further the revitalisation and improvement of the half forgotten language. The analyses show very different psychological reactions to similar situations, and they reveal/confirm that self perception and identity concepts of the individuals have the main impact on their linguistic behaviour.