Text-Symbiosen: Latein und Volkssprache im Spannungsfeld von Gebrauchssituation und Gebrauchsfunktion

The article focuses on the relation between Latin and vernacular ›benedictions‹ and asks for their situational and functional use within the particular context of transmission. The analysis of certain examples from the 9th to the 16th century offer various types of how the situational and functional use had been connected during literary history. Without claiming a teleological transition, the article states, that those types track a conceptual development starting with the original Latin functional use over to its de-contextualization right up to vernacular re-contextual- ization in the sense of an emancipation of vernacular language