For a number of years, there has been concernin Germany about the decline of language . From a linguistic perspective, this hypothesis cannot be substantiated. Public debate, however, does raise some new questions about the stability and mutability of language norms. This volume undertakes a linguistic examination of the relationship between empiricism and standards in various forms and domains of communication."

This book connects the fundamental theoretical question of the object of linguistic analysis with the topical subject of "media." It is concerned in particular with the concept of competence - if there is no language competence independent of media, to what extent can competence still be regarded as "free"? Following on from Wittgenstein, the author develops the thesis that in many cases it is more appropriate to see linguistic competence as "competence in language games." This model is developed in the principal chapter and illustrated using numerous examples.

The volume brings together papers on new developments in the theory of writing systems, above all from the perspectives of linguistics, philosophy, media theory and language education.The papers in the volume reflect on the difficulties of spelling reform and on didactic controversies around the acquisition of written language, on the pragmatics of writing and on the aesthetics of various types of script.