29.3948, Review: German; Applied Linguistics; General Linguistics; Linguistic Theories; Sociolinguistics: Davies, Buhofer, Schmidlin, Wagner, Wyss (2017)

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LINGUIST List: Vol-29-3948. Thu Oct 11 2018. ISSN: 1069 - 4875.

Subject: 29.3948, Review: German; Applied Linguistics; General Linguistics; Linguistic Theories; Sociolinguistics: Davies, Buhofer, Schmidlin, Wagner, Wyss (2017)

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Date: Thu, 11 Oct 2018 22:37:34
From: Vitek Dovalil [vitek.dovalil at ff.cuni.cz]
Subject: Standardsprache zwischen Norm und Praxis

 
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EDITOR: Winifred V.  Davies
EDITOR: Annelies  Häcki Buhofer
EDITOR: Regula  Schmidlin
EDITOR: Melanie  Wagner
EDITOR: Eva Lia  Wyss
TITLE: Standardsprache zwischen Norm und Praxis
SUBTITLE: Theoretische Betrachtungen, empirische Studien und sprachdidaktische Ausblicke
SERIES TITLE: Basler Studien zur deutschen Sprache und Literatur, Band 99
PUBLISHER: Narr Francke Attempto Verlag GmbH + Co. KG
YEAR: 2017

REVIEWER: Vitek Dovalil, Universität Freiburg

SUMMARY 

The volume, edited by an international team of experts, explores the
phenomenon of standard language in the German-speaking space from various
perspectives. As the subtitle lets the reader know, these perspectives are
devoted not only to the contemporary theoretical discussions and empirical
analyses, but also to teaching practices and other didactic interconnections.
Actually, the volume is one more part richer, this fourth part being
designated “interdisciplinary approaches”. 

In total, the volume is divided into 15 chapters including an overview in
which the editors sketch their theoretical preliminaries. They systematically
build on the pluricentric character of standard German, which is projected
into the synchronic description and data analysis in each chapter. 

The only historically focused contribution is the first one in which Martin
Durrell discusses the role of the German language in the ideological
constructions of nation in the German-speaking territory in the 18th and 19th
century. He refers to discourses about German national identity having an
ethnolinguistic basis, and denies that the German linguistic unity would
precede the political unification in 1871. In his opinion, the myth of a
homogeneous language contributes to neglecting the real heterogeneity
particularly of spoken German, which strengthens the status of standardized
written German as the symbol of national identity. This, in turn, intensified
the perception of German as a monocentric language in the past and made the
position of educational elites stronger.

Regula Schmidlin approaches language variants as unclear or doubtful cases
(“Zweifelsfall” in German, p. 42-45). She refers to Klein’s concept of
Zweifelsfall, which can be defined as cases where a unified opinion on
conformity of concrete variants with standard norms does not necessarily
exist, and where even competent speakers have difficulties in making
appropriate decisions and in using the most appropriate variant. Apart from
Klein’s classification of this concept into three kinds (briefly: free
variants, gradual variants, and variants which are conditioned by contexts),
she argues in favor of an additional speaker’s perspective, because language
users’ evaluation of what is/not a correct variant depends to a large extent
on their regional origin. The author places emphasis on the necessity to deal
with these unclear cases in educational contexts, because doubting the
correctness and/or appropriateness of a variant helps to increase the pupils’
and students’ language reflection.

Konstantin Niehaus provides the reader with results of the research project
“Regional Variation in the Grammar of Standard German” (Variantengrammatik des
Standarddeutschen, see also
http://www.variantengrammatik.net/en/index_en.html). Just like the whole
project, this author’s chapter also draws on the quantitative methodology
(corpus analysis) that correlates the dependent and independent variables. For
Niehaus, the crucial independent variable is the territory. He argues in favor
of the more adequate pluriareal instead of the pluricentric conceptualization
of standard German. He describes the territorial distribution of several
selected grammatical variants – plural forms “Balkons” vs. “Balkone”,
grammatical gender “die E-Mail” vs. “das E-Mail”, lexical forms “durchweg” vs.
“durchwegs”, and the problem of separability of the prefix “wider” in the verb
widerspiegeln. Similarly to Regula Schmidlin’s remarks, he also favors more
tolerance toward language variation in the language instruction.

The questions of a peculiar Belgian German variety and its position in the
pluricentric discourse are discussed by Robert Möller. One of the problems
concerning the status of this variety consists in the fact that German is used
by a relatively small minority of speakers in this country (fewer than 70 000
people). The East-Belgian variants are categorized in German codification as
variants of a regional language. The author refers to the socio-cultural
circumstances which co-define the situation of this minority variety: the
dialectal background of the region, its closeness to Germany as well as the
historical specifics of the regional government and school-system. Belgian
identity of the German speakers coming from this region clarifies the reasons,
why they concentrate on multilingualism rather than on the cultivation of
German.

The chapters by Winifred Davies, Eva Wyss and Melanie Wagner present the
results of a comparative project focused on the German in high schools in
Germany, Luxembourg and the German-speaking part of Switzerland. One part of
data comes from various educational documents (school curricula, teaching
plans etc.), the other part was collected by means of questionnaires
distributed in schools. Winifred Davies concentrates on the role of German
teachers in one region of North Rhine-Westphalia. She finds out that German
teachers are not familiar with the concept of pluricentric German at all,
which results, logically, in the lack of reflection in their teaching
practices. 

Eva Wyss’s chapter deals with the more complicated situation of German in
Switzerland, which has been classified as a typical diglossia for decades.
Referring to the more differentiated perspectives which take the media,
acquisition-related, and instruction-related specifics into account, she
argues against the conceptualization of this situation as diglossic. Swiss
teachers of German use differing concepts of standard variety, which has to do
with their perception of (Swiss) Standard German as a non-native variety.
Furthermore, the author mentions weak loyalty of these teachers toward the
Swiss German standard. 

Melanie Wagner deals with the situation of German in Luxembourg. Drawing upon
the analysis of the questionnaires and other documents (curricula, guidelines
of language policy and planning in Luxembourg), she concludes that it is
impossible to categorize the teaching method for the school subject German as
first, second, or foreign language. In her opinion, this fact raises a
question to what extent Luxembourg – with German as the main language of
instruction – can be classified as one of half centers of this language.

Yet another project – Austrian Standard German as a language of instruction
and education – served as a basis for the chapter published together by Rudolf
de Cillia, Illona Fink and Jutta Ransmayr (Das österreichische Deutsch als
Unterrichts- und Bildungssprache, for more details see also
http://oesterreichisches-deutsch.bildungssprache.univie.ac.at). Similarly to
the previous project, these authors also analyze the curricula of schools,
universities, and faculties of education, as well as the data collected by
means of questionnaires from, and partially interviews with, teachers,
students and pupils in Austria. The authors are interested in how familiar the
teachers are with the concept of pluricentric German, in the teachers’
language loyalty and practices of correction as well as in the extent to which
Austrian pupils become more perceptive toward the variation of German. The
results reveal that although the expert concept of pluricentric German can
hardly be considered as well-known in Austria either, the respondents are more
aware of different forms of standard German.

Aivars Glaznieks and Andrea Abel present the results of the analyses of
grammatical competence drawing on a corpus-based project “Language of
Education in Comparison”. The authors concentrate on writing competence of
pupils attending the last grade before the school-leaving exam. The
respondents come from three regions – South Tirol, North Tirol and Thuringia.
The authors identify various regional variants as problematic, the case
governments (accusative, dative, genitive) being in the foreground. Similarly
to K. Niehaus’s and R. Schmidlin’s consideration, these authors also favor
such teaching practices in which debates about language variation would
contribute to more adequate language use.

Karin Gehrer, Maren Oepke and Franz Eberle explore the usefulness of the Swiss
school-leaving language test database EVAMAR II for the linguistic research on
the pluricentricity of German. They also deal with the influence of family
varieties on the language competence of university students. They reveal that
no significantly different results can be proven in the competence of
high-school graduates who were linguistically socialized in Swiss German and
those who underwent this kind of socialization in German standard. Trying to
explain their results, the authors refer to the high level of Swiss high
schools, which do not allow every applicant to be admitted.

Stefan Niehaus chose a literary topic for his chapter, the only one in the
volume. Not surprisingly, the literature canons are traditionally established
within the national borders. These practices have been broken neither by
migrants, nor by gender-related topics yet. In spite of the decline of
state-related nationalism after 1945, these general tendencies are still
operating. Literature does not stop playing an important role in the
discourses of national as well as regional identities.

The last three chapters are unified by their primarily didactic orientation.
Klaus Peter analyzes the role of language awareness and language knowledge of
teachers dealing with language variation. On the one hand, language knowledge
is conceptualized as knowledge of meaning; on the other hand, it corresponds
to encyclopedic knowledge. The author argues that evaluation of linguistic
variants may only be adequate if data concerning both language attitudes, and
individual language knowledge have been analyzed. He identifies weak points in
the language attitude research for reasons of discrepancy between both kinds
of knowledge.

Interesting findings showing how Swiss teachers understand language norms are
summarized in the contribution by Adriana Gatta. She analyzes how they
evaluate Helvetisms, and to what extent they correct them. The author
correlates the collected linguistic data with extra-linguistic variables (age,
education, or teaching experience of the teachers). She concludes that younger
teachers may behave in a more tolerant manner toward Helvetisms than the older
ones. However, the other factors do not seem to influence the general
skepticism toward these variants. What these teachers most often correct are
syntactic Helvetisms.

Finally, Chiara Scanavino deals with Teutonisms, specifically German variants,
in the lexicography of the 21st century. She views this field with much
criticism. Not only does she point out the terminological discrepancies – she
suggests e.g. that the term “gemeindeutsch” (Common German) be replaced by
“innerdeustch” (Inner German) – but she is critical of how Teutonisms are
presented in dictionaries. She argues that lexicography should be more
inspired by encyclopedic handbooks. She also supports the principle of
alphabetical nesting of lemmas, accompanied by more information about the
frequency and the contexts in which the word is used appropriately.

EVALUATION

The programmatic orientation of the whole volume toward the pluricentricity
(or pluriareality) of standard German is likable, and this review is a
convenient opportunity to highlight this approach. The editors’ point of view
fits with the increase in social diversification, which represents one big
group of features characterizing the contemporary post-modern era:
heterogeneity of many social phenomena including the language use, higher
prestige and support of regional identities, protection of minorities and
individual rights as well as loosening of social norms (for further details
and connections see Neustupný 2006: 2217-2220). By the way, the pluralization
of standards can be interpreted as a form of language destandardization (Auer
1997: 136). At the same time, the pluricentric orientation of the research on
standard varieties has already become quite usual. Thus, it is revealed that
the more complicated problem concerns the implementation of this approach as
well as research findings in teaching practices. The efforts to implement the
concept of pluricentric standards in the educational sphere, not to mention
some other public discourses, have largely failed so far as is convincingly
evidenced by Davies, Schmidlin, Wagner, de Cillia, Fink and Ransmayr, Gatta
and some other contributors. These authors confirm the experience that
speakers belonging to both dominant, and non-dominant centers are rather
rarely aware of the pluricentric character of their language, although the
linguists may have been sharing the „pluricentric opinion” for decades. 

Thus, it is predominantly the expert discourse that constructs the
pluricentric character of German – to some (or rather a large?) extent even on
behalf of the German speakers themselves. Hence, the concept of the
specifically pluricentric standard is in this German-related context (still)
an etic, and not an emic one. In other words, this kind of
pro-pluricentric/pluriareal behavior of experts toward German starts on the
macro-level and eventually needs to reach the micro-level. This has not
happened in very many cases yet, though.

Generally speaking, it is the methodological design of the research on norms
and standard varieties that appears to remain the most difficult question
(going beyond the volume reviewed). Most researchers cope with the dynamics of
discourses, in which these standards are shaped, to approach the social
reality more adequately. A tool is needed that would structure the phases of
these dynamic processes and that would help to operationalize the theoretical
frames including the connection of the micro-macro-level in practice (see e.g.
the language management approach and its methods in Fairbrother & Nekvapil &
Sloboda 2018, or the website http://languagemanagement.ff.cuni.cz). This also
holds for the more systematic consideration of the role of social actors (and
their networks) who participate in these processes (institutions and norm
authorities with their social status, (lack of) power, their ways of enforcing
various suggestions in interactions with other speakers etc.) as well as
further socioeconomic circumstances. 

The volume reveals that questionnaires, which were used for data collection in
many contributions, are not necessarily very helpful, as e.g. Davies remarks
briefly (p. 134). They may deform the social reality in that it is an expert
who notes a language problem/inadequacy on behalf of the other social actor.
In other words, respondents may not perceive quite a few linguistic structures
or forms as doubtful or problematic if a researcher does not do so on their
behalf. As participant observation is, for understandable reasons, difficult
to accomplish, then self-observation of the respondents (Rodríguez/Ryave 2002)
or follow-up interviews with them (Neustupný 1999) help the researchers to
approach the social reality more adequately. Particularly the follow-up
interviews appear practical and advantageous, because they are recorded e.g.
with language norm authorities when the relevant correction events have
already taken place, i.e. after teachers (or editors) corrected what they had
noted as a deviation from their own expectations (for application and further
reflection on this method see Dovalil 2015). By means of the follow-up
interview, the researcher can make the relevant actors – in our case language
norm authorities  – discuss, re-think or explain their decision-making
processes and find out the decisive underlying argumentation. 

The research on norms of standard varieties represents a primarily qualitative
methodological challenge, which does not rule out the relevance of
quantitative elements, of course. However, the qualitative perspective is
seldom to be found in the contributions (partially, for instance, in the
Austrian project of R. de Cillia, I. Fink and J. Ransmayr, pp. 210-212). Owing
to the title of the volume (standard language between NORM and practice), this
remark is not entirely marginal. Although several contributors (E. Wyss, or A.
Glaznieks & A. Abel) refer e.g. to Gloy’s concept of norm, this concept is not
projected into their research quite consistently. Gloy (2004) defines language
norms as deontic contents of human consciousness which effectively regulate
language use as well as language expectations (see also Dovalil 2015: 84).
Hence, language norms as contents of consciousness are neither directly
accessible, nor can they be interchanged with mere formulations in grammars,
dictionaries or expert articles. Contents of consciousness without regulatory
effects cannot be taken for norms. This should also be emphasized with regard
to the usual differentiation between subsistent and explicitly set norms (in
German “subsistente” vs. “statuierte” Norm, p. 42 in Schmidlin’s
contribution), because both kinds of norms have to effectively regulate the
language use (and expectations). (Subsistent) Norms need not be explicitly
formulated to bring about the aforementioned effects. Norms have to be
interpreted and derived from the observable behavior toward language. 

However, if standards are conceived purely quantitatively as high (or the
highest) frequencies of linguistic variants (see, for instance, in K.
Niehaus’s chapter, p. 70), then they need not have to do much with norms of
standard varieties. As Gloy (2004: 396) argues against the simplifying
quantitatively-based concept of norms, high frequencies are to be interpreted
only as a reference to a potentially underlying norm, not to the norm as such
yet. These high frequencies allow the linguists to formulate only a
preliminary hypothesis which remains to be proven. Thus, the reader may raise
a question concerning the interconnection of such standards with appropriate
teaching, which represent typical normative discourses and in which the
language use of pupils and students is still (more or less?) managed by their
teachers toward the standard varieties (= regulatory effects). 

This problem is relevant for the pluriareal approach (the same chapter, pp.
66-81) that is accompanied by even less normative force than the pluricentric
concept backed – at least partially – by state authorities: unlike the
pluricentric codification, the pluriareal approach cannot rely on any
comparable reference works (yet). Thus, the quantitative paradigm mapping the
(precise territorial) distribution of linguistic variants has to take into
consideration that the facticity (high frequencies of the explored variants)
does not have to influence the teaching practices at all. Typically, it is the
practice of a norm authority that might turn the high frequency of a variant
into the decisive argument when a solution to an unclear case (Zweifelsfall)
is discussed in an interaction. However, norm authorities may make a decision,
no matter how frequently a variant is used in a specific territory, or
regardless of its codification. A decision will be made anyway, although it
will not be adequate from the quantitative point of view (see K. Niehaus’s
discussion about the didactic dimension of his research on pp. 82-84, which
actually reveals potentially prescriptive effects of the linguistic
description). Or, in an opposite case – the fact that a variant is used (very)
frequently does not have to mean that this variant is not heavily criticized,
corrected and replaced by another one in schools. Therefore, it would be
useful and interesting to find out to what extent e.g. the Bavarian (or any
other) areal standard starts establishing any normative effects, and if
Bavarian teachers of German start enforcing (or at least stop correcting)
specific Bavarian variants at the expense of others. Hence, it is this
behavior of teachers toward language as it is realized in their interactions
with pupils for which empirical data should be collected. Apart from these
arguments, the correlative approach does not have to bring much provided some
of the pre-selected extra-linguistic variables turn out to be relatively
irrelevant in the end (see in Gatta’s contribution, pp. 378-386).
Interestingly enough, her data might serve as initial stage for promising
follow-up interviews with the teachers as indicated above.

These circumstances account for necessity of the qualitative research on
interactions between teachers and their pupils/students (or between book and
journal editors and contributors, or other norm authorities and norm subjects
in general), in which it is possible to observe who are the most powerful
decision-making social actors, how their decisive arguments look, whose
language use is influenced by such a decision, how exactly, and in which
situations, etc.

The crucial process shedding light on the way in which differences between the
monocentric and pluricentric standard varieties in educational contexts are
(re-)shaped can be succinctly outlined as follows: in process of managing the
monocentric standard (a dominant center), the norm authorities note deviations
from their normative expectations and evaluate them negatively. Alternative
variants complying with the monocentric standard are implemented as
traditional corrections (sanctions). The deviations triggering the process are
viewed as mistakes. If this standard is really implemented, which means that
the mistakes are corrected and the corrections enforced, the whole cycle with
all phases, including implementation, repeats itself. Emphasizing successful
implementation is very important in this context, because it brings the
necessary empirical evidence for removing the alternative, i.e. pluricentric
variants, from language use (at least for the time being). 
In the process of managing the pluricentric standard, some noted deviations
from the normative expectations based on the monocentric standard are
evaluated positively (gratification), or at least not entirely negatively (see
note 1 underneath). This fact stops the process. The gratification of the
deviations contributes to the stabilization of these deviating structures,
which is of high importance particularly in public discourses and normative
settings (education). Therefore, this kind of management does not lead to the
changes in the variants. Rather, it illustrates and strengthens gradual
changes in the content of the expectations (when compared to the original
monocentric standard) in further cycles of language management.

Overall: this very useful volume provides the reader with lots of new valuable
findings and remarkable details (e.g. the school curricula and other official
documents related to educational policies across several countries, overviews
of attitudes of various social groups toward several varieties of German and
many other details). These findings confirm the legitimacy of differentiated
approaches toward language standards. Surprisingly (or not?), the discursive
nature of standard varieties, which depends on interactions between language
norm authorities and other social actors participating in the processes of
negotiation of norms, enables us to identify a methodological desideratum
underlying the whole volume. It reveals that the sociolinguistic research on
standard varieties should more systematically concentrate on metalinguistic
activities of the abovementioned actors through which the standard varieties
are (re)shaped. This would usefully complement the traditional quantitative
approach – especially in school contexts as they are focused in the volume. 

Language standards without normative effects remain primarily
frequency-related phenomena based on correlations of linguistic and
extra-linguistic variables (exemplified by the distribution of variants in a
territory, basically regardless of how the territory is called – area, region,
or center). However, if educational contexts, which are taken for so important
in many chapters, with various forms of language management are targeted, then
normative problems cannot be neglected. At least in these situations, a
stronger qualitative approach appears indispensable. Purely quantitative
methods miss the target when norms of standard varieties have to be analyzed. 

NOTES

Obviously, there is an essential precondition that needs to be repeated and
emphasized: the general expectations underlying the discussed management
process are oriented toward a language standard. Many deviations from the
monocentric standard are variants of dialects anyway – independent from the
region in which such variants are used. Austrian or Swiss dialect variants
represent deviations from the German standard just like Low German dialect
variants differ from the Austrian and Swiss standards.

REFERENCES

Auer, Peter. 1997. Führt Dialektabbau zur Stärkung oder Schwächung der
Standardvarietät? 
Zwei phonologische Fallstudien. In: Mattheier, Klaus J. & Edgar Radtke
(Hrsg.). Standardisierung und Destandardisierung europäischer
Nationalsprachen. Frankfurt/Main: Peter Lang. 129-161.

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.

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. 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.

Neustupný, Jiří V. 2006. Sociolinguistic Aspects of Social Modernization. In
Ammon, Ulrich, Norbert Dittmar, Klaus J. Mattheier & Peter Trudgill (eds.).
Sociolinguistics. An International Handbook of the Science of Language and
Society. Vol. 3. 3. Berlin & New York: Walter de Gruyter. 2209-2223. 

Neustupný, Jiří V. 1999. Následné (follow-up) interview. Slovo a slovesnost
60(1). 13-18.

Rodríguez, Noelie & Alan Ryave. 2002. Systematic Self-Observation (Qualitative
research methods series 49). London: Sage.


ABOUT THE REVIEWER

Vít Dovalil works on linguistic 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. For more details see also
http://paul.igl.uni-freiburg.de/dovalil/en/?Publications





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