Beat Siebenhaar

Spracheinstellungen und phonetische Variation als Ausdruck verschwommener Dialektabgrenzung

The following text presents parts of a study that was carried out in Leipzig. 22 native inhabitants of Leipzig were interviewed for their perception of different varieties spoken in their hometown. A result of the study showed that people generally differentiate between a Standard German and a dialectal variety, which both are subcategorized in a higher and a lower variety. Concerning the perception of their individual linguistic behavior, the interviewed speakers can be categorized into three main groups. The fi rst category consists of people using only varieties that can be evaluated as better and worse Standard German. A dialect does not belong to their repertoire. The second category also uses different varieties.–The lower of these varieties is now called dialect, that is only used in specifi c situations. One part of this group states to use a lower standard variety for everyday live. The other part differentiates three varieties: a variety close to the standard, a higher dialectal variety that is their usual variety and the low dialect they try to avoid. The third category consists of speakers who use the higher dialect as their main variety. Besides they admit themselves a limited competence in Standard German. Comparing this perceptive distinction made by the speakers themselves to actual phonetic realization, the distinction cannot be maintained. No one of the interviewees has full competence of the dialect. Particularly, when asked to translate Standard German phrases into the dialect of Leipzig, some of them even realize less dialectal variants than in the interview. Concluding, dialects are blurred due to the fact that people do not have a sense for a dialectal grammar anymore, and substandard varieties cannot be linguistically differentiated. Therefore, there is only one variety below the standard. However, the old dialect has captured new fi elds of application. The dialect can be used as a stylistic variant within a conversation. Nevertheless, to focus on this aspect, one the one hand new recordings have to be done and on the other hand new approaches using methods of variation linguistics and of conversation analysis have to be developed.