Almost everyone agrees that hate speech is poison for the solidarity of a society. Nevertheless, the question of what constitutes hate speech and where the limits of freedom of expression lie is debated in the courts, in newspapers, and on social media platforms. In the training course led by Prof. Dr. Joachim Scharloth, professor at Waseda University, the participants first looked at definitions of hate speech to understand the different purposes pursued with the term. In the second part, corpus research was used to identify typical word formation and phrasing patterns and thus raise awareness of discriminatory linguistic forms. However, because the derogatory and marginalizing effect of hate speech does not result from linguistic forms alone, the third part of the half-day training course consisted of examining typical constellations and situational contexts of its use. The participants were asked to focus in particular on the role of third parties / the audience. Finally, various approaches were discussed as to how hate speech can be treated as a topic in foreign language and regional studies lessons and what should be taken into account.
Speaker: Prof. Dr. Joachim Scharloth
Professor at Waseda University in Tokyo and visiting professor at Heidelberg University
Prof. Dr. Joachim Scharloth's research focuses on cultural-analytical linguistics and corpus linguistics. He was a member of the concept group of the Collaborative Research Center “Invectivity” at TU Dresden and is the author of numerous essays and editor of several anthologies on hate speech and the language of the new right. His most recent book is “Ugly words: Hate speech as a principle of the new right ” (Metzler 2021).
