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Chancellor Olaf Scholz (SPD) speaks at the general debate in the Bundestag.
© Kay Nietfeld/dpa
Plain language or technical jargon - how clearly do the members of the Bundestag speak?
Scientists at the University of Hohenheim have now investigated this.
Berlin - The speeches given in the Bundestag are more understandable than expected - but for many MPs there is definitely room for improvement.
This is the result of an analysis presented on Tuesday by the University of Hohenheim, which came about at the suggestion of Deutschlandfunk-Nachrichten.
There are no formal barriers to understanding, said communication scientist Frank Brettschneider.
“The packaging is such that access to the contents is not denied.” This is a positive result.
However, there is still “room for improvement” among the lower third of MPs.
96 speeches from the Bundestag budget week in September last year were examined.
Formal comprehensibility was examined using criteria such as word and sentence lengths as well as sentence constructions.
Foreign words, technical terms and anglicisms also make it difficult to understand.
In addition, long-standing readability formulas were included.
The “Hohenheim Comprehensibility Index” developed from this ranges from 0 points (difficult to understand) to 20 points (easy to understand).
According to these criteria, the most understandable speech of the budget week was given by Education Minister Bettina Stark-Watzinger (FDP), who received a score of 19.2.
With a score of 8.2, Environment Minister Steffi Lemke (Greens) performed worst among the cabinet members.
Chancellor Olaf Scholz (SPD) got a score of 14.3, which corresponds to 57th place, and opposition leader Friedrich Merz (CDU) got a score of 13.0, which corresponds to 71st place.
Agnieszka Brugger (Greens) and Claudia Raffelhüschen (FDP) gave the most incomprehensible speeches of all MPs, each receiving 8.0 points.
Bundestag President Bärbel Bas welcomed the investigation.
“The result challenges us to get to the heart of complex issues in an even more understandable way - without becoming polemical or irrelevant,” the SPD politician told the German Press Agency.
“The commitment to clear and understandable language is worth it.
The study also mentions positive examples from the ranks of MPs.
That should be an incentive for everyone.”
Since the beginning of her term as President of the Bundestag, Bas had appealed to MPs to try to use understandable language.
“This is still not successful enough: too many foreign words, too many technical terms, sentences that are too long,” she said now and emphasized: “The German Bundestag is an open house.
Our debates are public and should reach as many people as possible.
We MPs therefore have to explain complicated connections in a simple and understandable way.”
According to the investigation, it is primarily the members of the Left who express themselves more simply and comprehensibly in the Bundestag, followed by those from the CDU/CSU.
The SPD faction is in third place.
The Greens performed worst.
In the budget week, speeches from the opposition (15.9) were more understandable than those from the government camp (14.2).
The average for all speeches examined was 15.0 points.
That was better than the speeches of the CEOs at the general meetings of the DAX 40 companies last year, for which the University of Hohenheim determined an average score of 13.7 points.
The comprehensibility of speeches is made particularly difficult by “monster and tapeworm sentences,” as linguists noted.
Politicians therefore like to package unpleasant statements in box sentences, said Brettschneider.
But that is not new.
“Gerhard Schröder was a master at doing it that way,” said the communications scientist about the former SPD chancellor.
dpa