Abstract

The inner Protestant controversies after 1548 represent a public battle for the sovereign interpretation of Reformation doctrine. In the process, expletives were used in the sense of a political-theological framing. The terms used in the various controversies and their respective interpretations were intended to generate images and emotions in the minds of the recipients in order to influence the understanding of the texts and the classification of the events; or the recipients could feel confirmed in their already existing perception of the world and of events by the terms used and interpreted in the publications. Since words, taken from various contexts, were functionalised as expletives, an expansion of German can be observed, which made it necessary to improve the recipient’s education.