Analyse der Identität in der Fremdliteratur

Germany can be considered a country of immigration due to the fact that there have been several waves of immigrants moving to Germany from different countries due to various circumstances. One of the immigrant groups addressed in this thesis is the group of young Turks who were invited to work in the Federal Republic of Germany after 1960. This group is referred to as the pioneer generation of the guest workers. Whereas the second and third-generation of guest workers are known as the foreigner generation and the resident generation, respectively. Additionally, another group addressed in this thesis is the more recent group of refugees who fled from the civil war in Syria, which started in 2011. In order to investigate the guest workers’ and refugees’ identities within the foreign literature, I will use Anthony Gidden’s identity concept of choice of identity. Moreover, the notion of identity will be further analyzed through both the rhetorical and linguistic choices as well as the topics discussed in the literature. The aim of this thesis is first to analyze the identity of authors that belong to different groups (author identity) of foreign literature (pioneer literature, foreigner literature, resident literature, and refugee literature), and secondly to examine the identity of the foreign literature itself (literature identity). Thus, I will also address the question of what foreign literature (especially refugee literature) means to German literature. In regards to the author identity, the rhetorical and linguistic choices reveal the following: First, the pioneer generation unites the parts of its Turkish and German identity into a personal identity; secondly, the foreigner generation forms its identity by integrating elements from Turkish and German, as well as other languages or dialects (e. g., English, slang, North German dialect); and lastly, the resident generation’s identity is more deeply rooted in the guest culture (Germany) than the identities of the other two groups. In contrast, the refugee’s identity cannot be analyzed based on language because it is not originally written in German but rather translated. Finally, in regard to the literature identity, it is evident that through the distribution of refugee literature, the readership should become more informed about Arabic-speaking countries, as well as more aware of the stereotypes towards Arabic-speaking people that should be reduced.%%%%A Thesis submitted to the Department of Modern Languages and Linguistics in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts.%%%%Spring Semester 2018.%%%%April 11, 2018.%%%%Auslanderliteratur, Fluchtlingsliteratur, Gastarbeiterliteratur, Identitat, Inlanderliteratur, Pionierliteratur%%%%Tatjana Soldat-Jaffe, Professor Directing Thesis; Birgit Maier-Katkin, Committee Member; Alina Dana Weber, Committee Member.