Leichte Sprache: una panoramica tra criticità e prospettive

This paper gives a critical survey over the most relevant aspects of German Easy Language. At first, its historical development is outlined in the context of other forms of simplified forms of German, such as “bürgernahe Sprache” and Plain German, and different types of definition are presented. After a brief survey over the main target groups and fields of application, the most important linguistic features (vocabulary, sentence structure, text struc-ture) are described. Subsequently, a thorough discussion is given of text ex-amples opposing the Standard German original and the Easy German trans-lation. At last, critical aspects of German Easy Language are outlined in view of future developments.