German in Austria

The scope and topic of the FWF Special Research Programme (SFB) “German in Austria” encompass the entire spectrum of variation and varieties of German in Austria.

The Special Research Programme (SFB) German in Austria: Variation – Contact - Perception is a project financed by the Austrian Science Fund (FWF F60). Its nine project parts are collaboratively conducting research into the variation and change of the German language in Austria. The SFB explores the use and the subjective perception of the German language in Austria as well as its contact with other languages. The project is situated at four academic institutions in Austria (the University of Vienna, the University of Salzburg, the University of Graz and the ACDH-CH) and is headed by project speaker Alexandra N. Lenz (ACDH-CH, University of Vienna).

The SFB will produce comprehensive and detailed analyses using digital humanities methods and make them available via an online digital research infrastructure. Areas of collaboration with the ACDH-CH include the exchange of knowledge and competence regarding tools for online research platforms as well as close cooperation with the ‘Dictionary of Bavarian Dialects in Austria (WBÖ)’ (Phillip Stöckle) on issues of data structure and annotation.

The SFB is also closely tied to the go!digital project ‘Austrian Dialect Cartography 1924-1956. Digitalisation, Contextualisation, Visualisation’, which is led by SFB co-opted investigator Manfred Glauninger (ACDH-CH, University of Vienna) and staffed by Jan Braun. In addition, Agnes Kim, research assistant in SFB project part on ‘German and the Slavic languages in Austria: Aspects of language contact’, is collaborating with the ACDH-CH as a guest researcher on the technical infrastructure of her dissertation project about the representation of Slavic languages in dictionaries of Viennese.

Publications