Liebe Seniorinnen und Senioren! vs. Dragi seniori! Wortschatzveränderungen im Bereich der Altersgruppenbezeichnungen im Deutschen und Rumänischen

Abstract

 The fact that certain social groups in a language community, people over 55 are elevated to the subject of discourse allows conclusions to be drawn both about the cultural attention paid to these groups and about the defining group. The formation of new names for certain groups can also be understood as an indication of changes in the group of those responsible for the foreign designations, which lie between an unmarked "we" and the conceptually marked "other". In the semiotic changes of language use, the collective formation of social categories, including their contradictions, becomes palpable in specific terms – making the conceptual historical analysis group designations a practicable linguistic tool of cultural analysis.