"This collection provides a broad account of variationist sociolinguistic research on varieties of German, with the goals to encourage greater geolinguistic diversity in the field and to expand our understanding of language variation and change. The bookillustrates that incorporating a wider variety of language data in sociolinguistic studies provides a broader, more holistic picture of variation and change. On the one hand, the book examines how variationist methods can contribute to the study of varieties of German, with each chapter following the principles of variationist sociolinguistics. On the other hand, the chapters examine how both intra- and extra-linguistic factors can influence variation and change. The volume also seeks to provide a broader understanding of German variation and change across time and space. The book highlights how the study of varieties of German through a variationist lens can offer new insights into language change more broadly, with applications for further research to other languages. This volume will be of most interest to scholars in language change, sociolinguistics, dialectology, and historical linguistics"--
This collection provides a broad account of variationist sociolinguistic research on varieties of German, with the goals to encourage greater geolinguistic diversity in the field and to expand our understanding of language variation and change.
The book illustrates that incorporating a wider variety of language data in sociolinguistic studies provides a broader, more holistic picture of variation and change. On the one hand, the book examines how variationist methods can contribute to the study of varieties of German, with each chapter following the principles of variationist sociolinguistics. On the other hand, the chapters examine how both intra- and extra-linguistic factors can influence variation and change. The volume also seeks to provide a broader understanding of German variation and change across time and space. The book highlights how the study of varieties of German through a variationist lens can offer new insights into language change more broadly, with applications for further research to other languages.
This volume will be of most interest to scholars in language change, sociolinguistics, dialectology, and historical linguistics.
This collection provides a broad account of variationist sociolinguistic research on varieties of German, with the goals to encourage greater geolinguistic diversity in the field and to expand our understanding of language variation and change.
List of contributors
Foreword - Sali A. Tagliamonte
Acknowledgements
1. Variationist sociolinguistics: theoretical and methodological foundations
James M. Stratton and Karen V. Beaman
PART I: Bridging German dialectology and variationist sociolinguistics
2. The social versus the regional: a multivariate analysis of
(morpho-)syntactic variation in Austrias rural dialects
Philip C. Vergeiner, Lars Bülow, and Stephan Elspaß
3. Dialect maintenance in German Alemannic and the role of pro-Alsatian
attitudes and orientations
Peter Auer, Martin Pfeiffer, Göz Kaufmann, and Julia Breuninger
4. Sociolinguistic variation in a non-native variety of Swiss German: Romansh
migrants in the city of Berne
Andrin Büchler
PART II : Diving into social-discursive functions
5. Fei schee: the social meaning of intensifier use in Swabian
James M. Stratton and Karen V. Beaman
6. Subjunctive and diminutive use as politeness strategies in German in
Austria: comparative evidence from sociolinguistic interviews and
conversations among friends
Katharina Korecky-Kröll and Anja Wittibschlager
7. A socio-stylistic analysis of variation in support verb constructions in a
corpus of spoken German
Colleen Neary-Sundquist and John D. Sundquist
8. Sociolinguistic variation in German: the case of the modal particles halt
and eben
Oliver Bunk, Antje Sauermann, and Fynn Raphael Dobler
PART III: Merging historical and sociolinguistic perspectives
9. Variation in an Austrian winegrowers 19th-century chronicle
Anna D. Havinga and Simon Pickl
10. Socio-historical data and the need for representative historical corpora
Katrin Fuchs
Afterword
Index
James M. Stratton is an assistant professor of German and Linguistics at Pennsylvania State University. He specializes in language variation and change in Germanic languages, both past and present, with a particular emphasis on lexis and discourse-pragmatics.
Karen V. Beaman is a lecturer and post-doctoral fellow in sociolinguistics at the University of Tubingen, Germany. Her research interests concern language variation, coherence, and change, with particular focus on how factors of identity, mobility, and social networks affect change.
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