Situativer Sprachgebrauch und Spracheinschätzung in Österreich und Südtirol : Auswertung einer Umfrage / eingereicht von Guido Steinegger

• VerfasserIn: Steinegger, Guido
• Place / Publishing House: 1997
• Year of Publication: 1997
• Language: German
• Physical Description: 321, IX S.; zahlr. graph. Darst.

eng: The sociolinguistic survey examines by the means of a standardized questionnaire the language use dependent on situation in Austria and South Tyrol. 1464 people were interviewed, the only question being about their self-assessment. The most important topics are: - language use dependent on situation and conversation partner; - language use with children, at school, in radio and TV; -assessment of Austrian German compared to Germany; - assessment of regional dialects. We investigated if these results depend on the social variables as social class, dimensions of the place of residence, sex, age. We can assume, that in Austria there is a fluid linguistic spectrum roughly consisting of dialect, 'colloquial speech' (Umgangssprache) and 'high German' (Hochdeutsch). Although three-quarters of the population may be regarded as dialect speakers and although the use of dialect in the country and in small towns is stronger than in cities, in a number of situations colloquial language is used. Colloquial language has generally become the everyday speech of the middle and upper classes, especially in towns. There are as well as fluid transitions not only polyglossia, but also a sociolinguisic continuum, sociolinguistic prestige increasing from dialect via colloquial speech to standard. The dialect is mostly used in conversation with friends and family. Colloquial speech and finally the standard are used with increasing distance to the conversation partner and in the case of the more formal character of the conversational situation.