Das sind die Füsse, die Euch in das Land der Freiheit tragen werden

The current article analyzes the linguistic patterns of argumentation in the records of the International Congress for Women’s Work and Women’s Aspirations, which took place for the first time in Germany (Berlin) on September 19–26, 1896 and was dedicated to various aspects of the so-called women’s question (German: Frauenfrage). It will be shown that language plays a constructive role in the legitimization of the congress and the women’s movement in general, in the conceptualization of different images of women as well as in the communication dedicated to the determination of a future plan of action. This constructive role of language becomes linguistically tangible through the analysis of language patterns. In the following, concrete realizations of language patterns include topoi, metaphors, contemporary key wordsas well as communicative means of action planning. The language patterns of the congress records show similarities and differences to the language use of the early 19th century on the one hand, and to other contemporary text types of the early women’s movement on the other.