Deutsches Seminar
Universität Zürich
Deutsches Seminar
Schönberggasse 9
CH-8001 Zürich
Telefon +41 (0)44 634 25 71
Telefax +41 (0)44 634 49 05
www.ds.uzh.ch
From action to culture
The concept of practice in the analysis of leave-taking
Dr. Juliane Schröter
Abteilung für Linguistik
Telefon +41 (0)44 634 25 60
juliane.schroeter@ds.uzh.ch
Abstract
Abstract
,Practice‘ is currently one of the most widely used key words in linguistics, literary studies, and their
neighborhood disciplines. My presentation focuses on one of the many possible usages of ,practice‘ in
linguistics: I will show how ,practice‘ can be used in the analysis of leave-taking in the German speaking
countries in the 19th and 20th century.
To this end, I will first explain why there is a need to apply the term ,practice‘ to leave-taking. Second,
I will present a definition of ,practice‘ that takes into account the characteristics of leave-taking. Third, I
will sketch what it means to analyze leave-taking with this specific concept of practice. Doing this, I will
try to show how the concept can help to analyze the emergence of culture from action and that the
concept hence might be useful for other studies in pragmatics, cultural linguistics, and beyond.
My argumentation will be backed up by an outline of different understandings of the term ,practice‘ in
linguistics and other humanities: the presentation includes an overview of important linguistic usages
of ,practice‘, a summary of the debates about ,social practices‘ in sociology and cultural studies, and
an explanation of Anthony Giddens’ ,theory of structuration‘, in which ,practice‘ is central.
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