Beschwörungen der Apokalypse. Ein linguistischer Blick auf Wunderzeichen im Frühdruck

At the turn of the 16th century, prodigy broadsheets became a widespread means to distribute the news of assumed miraculous signs. Recipients were convinced by the attested actualization and authenticity (often based on the presence of woodcuts). The use of Latin was a strategy to boost credibility even for inexperienced readers who were not able to understand Latin, while German dialect features directly addressed the local reader. Using a way of speaking that was closer to everyday communication (with modal adverbs or comments) might also have convinced an unskilled reader, if we assume that a member of a non-literate society believes rather in personal eyewitness reports than in erudite ‘hearsay’.