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Communication Dans Un Congrès Année : 2021

How Heinz Kloss learned history on the job: from the Deutschamerikanertum to the American Bilingual Tradition.

Résumé

How Heinz Kloss learned history on the job: from the Deutschamerikanertum to the American Bilingual Tradition. In 1977, Heinz Kloss sealed his reputation as a sociolinguist with the publication of the American Bilingual Tradition. The book remains an authoritative study of the United States’ multilingual history to this day. But Kloss’s career started on a different continent and in a different field. Born in Halle in 1904, he read law and economy to earn a doctorate in 1929. A member of the Deutsches Ausland-Institut (DAI), he traveled frequently to the United States to research German American communities. The extent of his involvement with the NSDAP and how it might have oriented his work has been the subject of several studies (Hutton, 1999; Wilhelm, 2002). What is clear however, is that Kloss’s interest for Deutschamerikanertum was a starting point for a broader, comprehensive study of America’s diversity (linguistic, ethnic, and racial). In 1937, he published a study of German speakers in the United States (Um die Einigung des Deutschamerikanertums); three years later, he shifted his focus to language rights (Volksgruppenrecht in den Vereinigten Staaten). The purpose of this paper is to put Heinz Kloss on a historiographical map. In his works, Kloss quoted American historians; he also referred to German, and German American historians. Kloss borrowed from earlier studies of German Americans; how his own history of German Americans compares to those of his predecessors will be our first focus. Kloss’s scholarship developed at a time when “hyphenated Americans” were subjected to an intense (and often intrusive) public scrutiny. How Kloss understood hyphenation will be our second focus. Lastly, we will study Kloss’s scholarly trajectory: walking in the footsteps of his Progressive predecessors, Kloss borrowed from other disciplines, notably from sociology, to broaden his perspective on German Americans and all language-minority groups in the United States eventually.

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hal-03530854 , version 1 (17-01-2022)

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  • HAL Id : hal-03530854 , version 1

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Ghislain Potriquet. How Heinz Kloss learned history on the job: from the Deutschamerikanertum to the American Bilingual Tradition.. Colloque "Rootedness and Acculturation. Experiences from German Immigrant Communities in the USA (1883-1918)", 14-15 octobre 2021, Université Bordeaux Montaigne, Pessac, Oct 2021, PEsac, France. ⟨hal-03530854⟩

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