31.1254, Review: German; General Linguistics; Sociolinguistics: Dürscheid, Schneider (2019)
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Subject: 31.1254, Review: German; General Linguistics; Sociolinguistics: Dürscheid, Schneider (2019)
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Date: Thu, 02 Apr 2020 22:12:33
From: Vitek Dovalil [vitek.dovalil at ff.cuni.cz]
Subject: Standardsprache und Variation
Discuss this message:
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Book announced at http://linguistlist.org/issues/30/30-3106.html
AUTHOR: Christa Dürscheid
AUTHOR: Jan Georg Schneider
TITLE: Standardsprache und Variation
SERIES TITLE: narr Starter
PUBLISHER: Narr Francke Attempto Verlag GmbH + Co. KG
YEAR: 2019
REVIEWER: Vitek Dovalil, Charles University in Prague
SUMMARY
The publication under review is a booklet which provides students with an
introduction to, and a brief overview of, the field of variation and standard
language. This complex topic pertains to prominent sociolinguistic research
areas. Consequently, writing a brief overview (96 pages) makes sensitive
reductions of specific contents necessary. Therefore, both authors must have
faced a particular challenge when they needed to carry out such
simplifications.
The book is divided into 7 chapters, which goes hand in hand with the cover
announcing that readers get “7 important points for a successful start into
the topic” in their hands. References and index are added.
The first chapter raises the crucial question for the whole book – what is
standard language? The authors try to answer this question by pointing out
such conceptual features as ‘normal practice’, ‘being used without doubts or
specific deliberation’ (p. 8), or ‘being default case’. Standard is broadly
accepted in nationwide and rather formal contexts, and it is believed to be by
no means salient. Related more specifically to language, the authors
interconnect the standard with a possibility of communicating easily with
people coming from different regions (p. 9). The notion of standard language
is consistently viewed from the usage-based perspective. Additionally,
standard language is put into educational contexts, which makes the normative
components of this notion more visible (p. 10). Teaching and using written as
well as spoken standard language is a part of school curricula.
Chapter two contains a historical overview of shaping standard German. The
authors refer to the prominent role of written language in this process. This
is interwoven with the codification of spelling as the most binding part of
all codified subsystems of German. However, the authors also deal with the
codification of pronunciation, showing numerous differences between these two
fields.
Standard language ideologies and their effects are the topic of Chapter Three.
It begins with the issue of correctness derived from written language bias,
which manifests itself in the popular language criticism. One of the problems
consists in the fact that the written standard is usually misconceived as a
benchmark for the spoken standard (p. 27). Hence, various inadequate
evaluations of spoken variants can often be found. Moreover, standard language
ideology with its homogenizing effects gives rise to discrimination.
Regardless of such undesirable phenomena, the authors admit that standard
language is endowed with significant social capital. This pushes speakers to
adapt towards language norms (p. 33).
The fourth chapter is devoted to written and spoken standard German. First,
the question as to what extent the written standard can be taken for a
“leading variety” is discussed. The authors hark back to the written basis of
standard German. They also refer to the fact that modern technologies and
electronic corpora containing large amounts of texts with billions of words
make written data sources easily available. Sophisticated software tools
enable various kinds of analyses. Due to the language corpora, empirical
evidence of grammatical and lexical structures as well as spelling has become
easily attainable since the 1990s, particularly as far as the written language
use is concerned. Dealing with peculiarities of the spoken standard, the
authors consistently argue against the simplistic position according to which
the written standard could (or even should?) be considered the benchmark for
the spoken standard. High frequencies of specific structures occurring in the
spoken language are the main criterion for classifying such structures as
standard.
Chapter Five concentrates on the concept of norm. Language norms are defined
as rules which are recorded in grammars, dictionaries, or other guidebooks (p.
49). Norms may have prescriptive character. A distinction between subsistent
and set norms (“subsistent” vs. “statuiert” in German) is drawn, and a close
tie between norms and codification is sketched. Codices are explained as
reference books which help language users solve disputes concerning what is,
or is not, a part of standard language (p. 52). An important part of this
chapter is devoted to the relation between the norm and the system.
Variation, variants and varieties are the core of the sixth chapter. In a
preliminary note, the authors raise a question if there is a difference
between ‘linguistics of varieties’ (Varietätenlinguistik in German) and
‘variationist linguistics’ (as well as sociolinguistics). The conclusion is
not unequivocal. However, what is clear is the authors’ conceptualization of
sociolinguistics as variationist sociolinguistics only (p. 67). Referring to
Labov as the distinguished expert of this paradigm, the authors point out the
correlative approach with its interconnections between linguistic (dependent)
and extralinguistic (independent) variables. Afterwards, various dimensions of
language variation are presented.
The diatopic dimension is presented in the last chapter. Dialects as varieties
based on the territorial criterion are contrasted with standard varieties.
Importantly enough, the authors do not claim that there would be only one
standard variety of German. The pluricentric and/or pluriareal nature of
standard German is discussed, which shows the relevance of the diatopic
dimension for this variety as well, not only for dialects as non-standard
varieties. In the second part of this chapter, empirical data showing the
distribution of several grammatical and lexical variants in the
German-speaking area are offered. As a challenge for future research, diatopic
variation in communication routines (coined as pragmatic standards) is
discussed on the last pages.
EVALUATION
The reader gets a practical and transparent introductory format, the purpose
of which is to inform those interested in variation and standard language.
Admittedly, this format necessarily requires complex topics to be simplified.
The authors succeeded in part, by covering the quantitative approach to this
field. One would get an impression that high frequencies are almost the sole
criterion for a variant to be considered as standard, or that standard
languages and their norms can be found in the corpora (or more specifically in
the relevant genres of texts) objectively. Passage 3.2 approaching (standard)
language as symbolic capital, which hints at the qualitative perspective, is
too brief to let the reader know that norms have to do with agency, including
unequal power relations of speakers with their various social roles. Mentions
of negotiating norms – in interactions – are missing, including the
decision-making processes. The undoubtedly legitimate introductory question
“what is standard language” could have been reconsidered critically from the
methodological point of view at least in one separate chapter. Admittedly,
this framework question looks understandable and “objective” at first glimpse,
just like the results drawing upon the quantitative approach with the
empirical evidence coming from large corpora (e.g. on p. 38). However, a more
specific question “who decides about what is standard language, in
interactions with whom, how, in which social contexts, and with which
consequences etc.” should also have been raised.
>From the sociological point of view, this complementary question is more
differentiated and it contains the elements which make the dynamic nature of
standard languages in social contexts more apparent. Such an alternative
perspective would not have caused confusion. Rather, it would have bolstered
the desirable sensitivity to this important issue, which appears very relevant
for arguing against the one-sided standard language ideology and its
discriminatory effects (e.g. in terms of König’s recommendations in Chapter
3). At the same time, this complementary question would indicate that language
corpora, no matter how practical and important they may be, can hardly
represent the exclusive data source when standard languages – and even less
standard language ideologies – are explored.
Actually, the concept of ‘standard’ based on frequencies corresponds to what
was designated as language use, or ‘usus’ many decades ago (e.g. in the Prague
School, but not only there). There is no special advantage in overlaying or
even replacing the language use with standard, because standard languages are
not entirely free of evaluative components (unlike usus). Similar to corpus
frequencies, many other social phenomena also occur frequently, e.g. using
cell phones when driving a car, biking through a red light, shoplifting etc.
However, they are by no means classified as standard. In other words: mere
facticity does not bring about normative effects under all circumstances. More
differentiated qualitative questions are required when norms as social
phenomena are supposed to be analyzed adequately.
One point concerning the authors’ work with some references appears remarkable
in connection with this issue. Discussing language norms (Chapter 5) from the
quantitative point of view, the authors refer to Gloy’s (2004 and 2012)
approach among others. Interestingly enough, Gloy does NOT prefer the
quantitative approach based on frequencies. Just on the contrary: he argues
that high frequencies are to be interpreted only as a reference to a
potentially underlying norm, not to the norm as such yet (Gloy 2004: 396).
These high frequencies allow the linguists to formulate only a preliminary
hypothesis which remains to be proven. Instead of preferring the frequencies,
which may miss the target, Gloy (2004: 392) conceives language norms as
deontic contents (= obligations) which effectively regulate language use as
well as language expectations – especially the normative expectations, which
are not given up even though social reality does not correspond to them.
Hence, language norms as contents of consciousness cannot be derived from the
language use immediately. Regulatory effects must be observable in the actors’
behavior. In other words: standard languages as well as language norms are
both metalinguistic in nature. It means that norms of standard languages
neither exist, nor can be found in (written as well as spoken) texts of the
object language. Both subsistent, and set norms (“statuierte Normen” in
German) do depend on social actors’ behavior towards language, i.e. on their
metalinguistic activities. This also has to do with the other reference to
Gloy (2012, in the publication under review on p. 48 or p. 50), which is not
quantitatively oriented either. Here, norms correspond to ‘interpretative
processes of reception’ (“interpretierende Rezeptionsprozesse” in German, see
Gloy 2012: 32). Adequately to this way of thinking, decision-making processes
conducted by social actors with unequal power are a necessary data source to
analyze standard languages (Gloy 2004: 394; Dovalil 2015).
It cannot be ruled out that a teacher (or any other language norm authority
with sufficient power) will negatively evaluate a variant which occurs quite
frequently in various newspaper texts. It may simply happen that such a
teacher will rely on his/her intuition and act without exact information about
the frequency (or codification) of the respective variant in his/her daily
practice. Despite this lack of knowledge, s/he will (have to?) make an
inadequate decision repeatedly in individual situations anyway. Which
consequences might this behavior have for pupils? Specific variants will be
imposed on them until these pupils find out some day that another variant is
used equally (or even more?) often, or that it is also codified in grammars as
standard. Or, they will not find it out at all and will further live with
their “teacher’s variant” as the only appropriate one. Notwithstanding any
further details – as for the social experience of these pupils at school at
the micro-level, they will enjoy success for a period of time with their
“teacher’s variant”, no matter how subjective or inadequate this teacher’s
original decision may have been. Such patterns of behavior are not rare at
all, but they are not covered by the quantitative approach. Hence,
metalinguistic data sources should not be entirely neglected. And that is why
it makes sense to distinguish between the standard on the one hand, and the
language use (usus – as recorded e.g. in the corpora) on the other.
Overall: the methodology of the research on standard language remains the most
difficult question, going beyond the book under review, of course. Most
researchers cope with the dynamics and the metalinguistic character of
discourses in which standard languages are shaped. A tool is needed that would
describe these processes and would help to operationalize the qualitative
theoretical frames including the micro-macro-linkage (for more details see
Fairbrother & Nekvapil & Sloboda 2018, or the web
http://languagemanagement.ff.cuni.cz). This also applies to the more
systematic consideration of the role of various social actors (and their
networks) participating in these processes (institutions and norm authorities
with their power, the ways of imposing the power on other participants etc.,
see Dovalil 2013). Apart from these approaches, experimental studies related
to language de/standardization are yet another method (see Kristiansen &
Grondelaers 2013). Hence, I would plea for employing both quantitative, and
qualitative approaches even in the publications of introductory character. The
book under review provides the reader primarily with the quantitative approach
to this issue at the macro-level only.
On the other hand, this affordable publication contains a transparent and a
well understandable presentation of the topic. The authors succeeded in
enhancing the value of the book by adding several exercises at the end of each
chapter. Solutions are available online. The book also offers important
references. And last, but not least – not only students will certainly
appreciate the practical and comfortable format of the book that can be put
into a pocket and studied not only in libraries.
REFERENCES
Dovalil, Vít. 2015. The German Standard Variety at Czech Universities in the
Light of Decision-making Processes of Language Management. In Davies, Winifred
& Evelyn Ziegler (eds.). Language Planning and Microlinguistics. Basingstoke:
Palgrave Macmillan. 83-102.
Dovalil, Vít. 2013. Zur Auffassung der Standardvarietät als Prozess und
Produkt von Sprachmanagement. In Hagemann, Jörg, Wolf Peter Klein & Sven
Staffeldt (eds.). Pragmatischer Standard. Tübingen: Stauffenburg. 163-176.
Fairbrother, Lisa, Nekvapil, Jiří & Marián Sloboda (eds.). 2018. The Language
Management Approach: A Focus on Research Methodology (Prague Papers on
Language, Society and Interaction 5). Berlin: Peter Lang.
Gloy, Klaus. 2012. Empirie des Nichtempirischen. Sprachnormen im Dreieck von
Beschreibung, Konstitution und Evaluation. In Günthner, Susanne, Wolfgang Imo,
Dorothee Meer & Jan Georg Schneider (eds.). Kommunikation und Öffentlichkeit.
Sprachwissenschaftliche Potenziale zwischen Empirie und Norm. Berlin & Boston:
Walter de Gruyter. 23-40.
Gloy, Klaus. 2004. Norm. In Ammon, Ulrich, Norbert Dittmar, Klaus J. Mattheier
& Peter Trudgill (eds.). Sociolinguistics. An International Handbook of the
Science of Language and Society. Vol. 3. 1. Berlin & New York: Walter de
Gruyter. 392-399.
Kristiansen, Tore & Stefan Grondelaers (eds.). 2013. Language
(De)standardisation in Late Modern Europe: Experimental Studies. Oslo: Novus
Press.
ABOUT THE REVIEWER
Vít Dovalil deals with German grammar, language norms, processes of
standardization and language management theory. He also researches language
policy and planning in the European Union including the case law concerning
the language-related disputes. He has worked at the Department of Germanic
Studies at Charles University in Prague as well as at the Department of German
Linguistics at Albert-Ludwigs-University in Freiburg im Breisgau. For more
details see https://german.ff.cuni.cz/cs/vyucujici/vit-dovalil/ and
http://paul.igl.uni-freiburg.de/dovalil/en/?Publications.
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