Textpragmatik der Holocaust : Rede von Philipp Jenninger / Colin Dean Barnes.

The following thesis sets out to analyse the holocaust speech given by former Bundestag president Philipp Jenninger on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of Reichskristallnacht in 1988. Through international media attention, pragmatics, and rhetorical analysis, I shall interpret a speech which has brought both national and international condemnation as well as point out pragmato-rhetorical errors, both of which forced Mr. Jenninger's resignation. The first chapter is a stenographic copy of the speech, supplied by the West German Parlamentary Archives. The second chapter divides international media reports into sub-headings, which distinctly exemplify the importance of a strong knowledge of pragmatism and rhetoric in speech writing through their analysis of the Jenninger speech. The third chapter is a discourse on speech act theory with a practical political application. The fourth chapter analyses speech excerpts and concludes with a discussion of the pragmato-rhetorical concept of the target audience and its bearing on speech content.