IDS – Institute of German Language

IDS – Institute of German Language
Abbreviation IDS
Motto Lexik, Grammatik, Pragmatik
Formation 1964
Type NGO, GbR – Company Constituted Under Civil Law
Purpose Educational accreditation
Location
Region served
Europe, Germany
Membership
Leibniz Association
Director
Ludwig M. Eichinger
Staff
210
Volunteers
60 (Research Assistants)
Website ids-mannheim.de

The Institute of German Language (IDS) (in German: Institut für Deutsche Sprache) in Mannheim, Germany is an linguistic and social research institute and a member of the Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz Scientific Community.[1] Under the leadership of Prof. Dr. Dr. h.c. mult. Ludwig M. Eichinger,[2] president of the Institute, and Prof. Dr. Arnulf Deppermann, vice president of the institute, IDS employs a staff of about 210. The IDS was established in Mannheim in 1964 and is still headquartered there. It is the central state-aided institution for the study and documentation of the contemporary usage and recent history of the German language. The institute is organized as an NGO with a legal form of GbR – Company Constituted Under Civil Law.[3]

Organization and structure

The work of the IDS is divided into four departments and two central sections:

Research

In the Department of Grammar, the grammatical structures of German are identified and described, also including their comparison with other languages. The Department of Lexical Studies dealswith lexicological, lexicographical, and corpus-based research in which specific lexical fields are studied, enabling a comprehensive documentation of the German vocabulary. The Department of Pragmatics researches language use and language variation, that is, the form and development of linguistic diversity. In particular, spoken language usage is considered. Research activities pursuing predominantly cross-departmental objectives are directly subordinate to the Director and pooled together in the organisational unit Central Research, for instance the programme areas Research Infrastructures and Corpus Linguistics belong to this unit.[4]

The Central Data Processing Section supports each department's computer-based research through the development and maintenance of the required software. The Public Relations Section manages the areas of public relations and themedia, publications, documentation, and the library. Within the framework of its support services, the IDS maintains the German Language Archive, which is the largest collection of audio recordings of spoken German. Prospective users can order audio documentation and transcripts. In addition, the IDS provides online the archive corpora of written language (nine million book pages) as well as a specialized library that collects literature that encompasses all areas of present-day German linguistics.

See also

Notes and references

  1. "IDS - Institut für Deutsche Sprache in Mannheim". Leibniz Gemeinschaft. Retrieved 2 June 2014.
  2. "Prof. Dr. Ludwig Eichinger". University of Mannheim. Retrieved 17 May 2014.
  3. "IDS - Institut für Deutsche Sprache Profil". EZS Online. Retrieved 17 May 2014.
  4. "IDS - Institute for German Language: About Us". IDS Mannheim. Retrieved 17 May 2014.

Coordinates: 49°29′18″N 8°28′19″E / 49.4882°N 8.4720°E