Sponsored "from the gate turn"
In Germany, the "bad word of the year" is once again named. Moreover, according to the results of 2020, it was decided, as an exception, to “title” two at once and not words, but concepts, because there are more words that express them. What are these words? What are the concepts? And why two "winners" instead of one?
No one doubted that the “antiword of the year” (German: Unwort des Jahres) would be associated with the “crown”. That is why the "Action of a critical attitude to language", which annually identifies "bad" words, decided this time to analyze two lexical lines: one associated with the pandemic, and the other completely unrelated to it. Two words-byaki were supposed to show that negative linguistic tendencies are also manifested outside the ocean of public passions generated by the coronavirus. And here is the verbal negative at the end of 2020: Corona-Diktatur and Rückführungspatenschaften.
To understand what is wrong with these words, you need to clarify the situation. Unwort des Jahres is not an anti-reward for obscene or obscene words. This is an anti-reward for obscene concepts. The “Action of a Critical Attitude to Language” analyzes new social phenomena from the point of view of morality, humanism, kindness, justice, and draws attention to what is out of this framework. And it assigns the title of "anti-word of the year" to fashionable (albeit briefly) formulations that these out-of-the-box phenomena denote. So, the very first "anti-word", back in 1991, was "ausländerfrei" (German free from foreigners), which participants in racist demonstrations in the Saxon city of Hoyerswerda tried to push through.
The current Rückführungspatenschaften is also about the attitude towards immigrants. Although the concept was not born in Germany. In fact, this is a translation from English: return sponsorship is the name of a new political program aimed at returning refugees to their homeland. Which also requires costs. As the EU Commission explains, the “sponsored return” program (called Rückführungspatenschaften in Germany) is a political option for those EU countries (eg Hungary or Poland) that do not want to accept refugees. If you don't want to accept, invest in "return". Simply put, a sponsored turn-off. The jury of the Action of a critical attitude to the language regarded this concept as "cynical", as "an attempt to put a good face on a bad game." Moreover, the underlying word Patenschaften (German: patronage, guardianship) should convey the desire to take responsibility for the fate of another person, to help him.
Curiously, the decision met with an almost instant response in Brussels. The representative of the European Union Commission issued a statement in defense of return sponsorship, stressing that this is a new political concept, an element of migration policy reform that can actually strengthen European unity. But the word is not a sparrow. The jury also had its say, it flew out - you won't catch it.
Corona-Diktatur ("dictatorship of the crown") is one of the wordings in the designation of the originality of the present moment, used by opponents of restrictions imposed by the pandemic. These are supporters of the conspiracy theory, they call themselves "thinkers across" (German: Querdenker) and are trying to unite in a political movement against "the suppression of freedoms by means of combating a contrived pandemic." The jury, which included prominent linguists, substantiated its decision on Corona-Diktatur as follows: this concept is used by far-right circles to discredit government measures to combat the spread of a dangerous disease, so it does not deserve recognition and trust.
https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unwort_des_Jahres_(Deutschland)
https://www.swr.de/swr2/leben-und-gesellschaft/unwort-des-jahres-2020-102.html
https://www.faz.net/aktuell/gesellschaft/menschen/unwort-2020-rueckfuehrungspatenschaften-und-corona-diktatur-17141846.html
https://www.br.de/nachrichten/kultur/unwort-2020-corona-diktator-jury-chefin-nina-janich-interview,SLrqKis
