@inproceedings{tong-etal-2026-semantic,
title = "Semantic Shifts of Nationalist Lexemes in {G}erman: From Pre-War to Post-War Periods (1918{--}2024)",
author = "Tong, Yiting and
Wang, Anni and
Zhuang, Yaxi and
Zhao, Wei",
editor = "Lee, Hung-Yi and
Dev, Sunipa and
Li, Jessy and
Elliott, Desmond",
booktitle = "Findings of the {A}ssociation for {C}omputational {L}inguistics: {EMNLP} 2026",
month = oct,
year = "2026",
address = "Budapest, Hungary",
publisher = "Association for Computational Linguistics",
url = "https://aclanthology.org/2026.findings-emnlp.587/",
pages = "12388--12398",
ISBN = "979-8-89176-462-0",
abstract = "This study investigates semantic changes in four historically loaded German political lexemes: Volk, Nation, Staat, and Land. These terms denote basic categories of peoplehood, national community, institutional statehood, and territorial belonging, but their use and emotional associations were reshaped by the ideological language of National Socialism and by the political reconstruction of Germany after 1945. Using DWDS as the empirical basis, we compare a pre-war and wartime baseline (1918{--}1945) with the post-war period (1945{--}2024). Our study combines frequency analysis, collocation analysis, and LLM-assisted annotation along three dimensions: nationalist intensity, emotional valence, and temporality. The results suggest different trajectories across the four lexemes: Staat and Land remain comparatively stable as institutional and territorial terms, while Volk shows clearer signs of contextual restructuring, semantic distancing, and possible renewed political markedness. Nation displays intermediate patterns shaped by historical rupture, reunification, and contemporary political discourse. By integrating corpus-based semantic analysis with conceptual history, our study contributes empirical evidence to debates on post-war German national identity and the linguistic reconfiguration of political concepts"
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<abstract>This study investigates semantic changes in four historically loaded German political lexemes: Volk, Nation, Staat, and Land. These terms denote basic categories of peoplehood, national community, institutional statehood, and territorial belonging, but their use and emotional associations were reshaped by the ideological language of National Socialism and by the political reconstruction of Germany after 1945. Using DWDS as the empirical basis, we compare a pre-war and wartime baseline (1918–1945) with the post-war period (1945–2024). Our study combines frequency analysis, collocation analysis, and LLM-assisted annotation along three dimensions: nationalist intensity, emotional valence, and temporality. The results suggest different trajectories across the four lexemes: Staat and Land remain comparatively stable as institutional and territorial terms, while Volk shows clearer signs of contextual restructuring, semantic distancing, and possible renewed political markedness. Nation displays intermediate patterns shaped by historical rupture, reunification, and contemporary political discourse. By integrating corpus-based semantic analysis with conceptual history, our study contributes empirical evidence to debates on post-war German national identity and the linguistic reconfiguration of political concepts</abstract>
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%0 Conference Proceedings
%T Semantic Shifts of Nationalist Lexemes in German: From Pre-War to Post-War Periods (1918–2024)
%A Tong, Yiting
%A Wang, Anni
%A Zhuang, Yaxi
%A Zhao, Wei
%Y Lee, Hung-Yi
%Y Dev, Sunipa
%Y Li, Jessy
%Y Elliott, Desmond
%S Findings of the Association for Computational Linguistics: EMNLP 2026
%D 2026
%8 October
%I Association for Computational Linguistics
%C Budapest, Hungary
%@ 979-8-89176-462-0
%F tong-etal-2026-semantic
%X This study investigates semantic changes in four historically loaded German political lexemes: Volk, Nation, Staat, and Land. These terms denote basic categories of peoplehood, national community, institutional statehood, and territorial belonging, but their use and emotional associations were reshaped by the ideological language of National Socialism and by the political reconstruction of Germany after 1945. Using DWDS as the empirical basis, we compare a pre-war and wartime baseline (1918–1945) with the post-war period (1945–2024). Our study combines frequency analysis, collocation analysis, and LLM-assisted annotation along three dimensions: nationalist intensity, emotional valence, and temporality. The results suggest different trajectories across the four lexemes: Staat and Land remain comparatively stable as institutional and territorial terms, while Volk shows clearer signs of contextual restructuring, semantic distancing, and possible renewed political markedness. Nation displays intermediate patterns shaped by historical rupture, reunification, and contemporary political discourse. By integrating corpus-based semantic analysis with conceptual history, our study contributes empirical evidence to debates on post-war German national identity and the linguistic reconfiguration of political concepts
%U https://aclanthology.org/2026.findings-emnlp.587/
%P 12388-12398
Markdown (Informal)
[Semantic Shifts of Nationalist Lexemes in German: From Pre-War to Post-War Periods (1918–2024)](https://aclanthology.org/2026.findings-emnlp.587/) (Tong et al., Findings 2026)
ACL