Abstract

The article reflects on how differently linguistics and historical science research linguistic and discursive changes in the recent past. Beginning with the 1990s, when the project ‘Geschichtliche Grundbegriffe’ was completed and the first empirical studies on ‘Sprachgeschichte als Mentalitätsgeschichte’ [history of language as history of mentality] respectively ‘Historische Semantik’ [historical semantics] were published, I present the possibilities and limits of the mutual awareness of the two disciplines and their cooperation in practice. In addition, the different methods and results of the two disciplines are summarised in the provocative thesis that the former "use a sledgehammer to crack a nut" and the latter "explains the world" with little evidence. Moreover I show several examples how historical studies can benefit from discourse linguistic research. Finally, the linguistic research project "Kontroverse Diskurse. Sprachgeschichte als Zeitgeschichte seit 1990" [Controversial Discourses. Linguistic history as contemporary history since 1990] is outlined as an example of current research that could benefit from historical expertise.