Stephan Elspaß – författare

Standardisation is not a natural form of language change. The aim of such efforts is usually to create a largely uniform standard, often backed by a strong standard language ideology. However, standard languages are sometimes Janus-faced. Additional standard varieties emerge, leading to situations with «double standards» or even «multiple standards».This volume brings together fifteen contributions on «double standards» in twelve languages – and various standard varieties thereof – from three language families, thus providing a novel comparative view on standardisation. Three main aspects of the «double standards» concept are identified: the descriptive vs prescriptive notion of standards, the coexistence of standard varieties in pluricentric or pluriareal settings, and the impact of the cohabitation of several standards in native or foreign language teaching.

Focusing on the sociolinguistic history of Germanic languages, the current volume challenges the traditional teleological approach of language historiography. The 30 contributions present alternative histories of ten ‘big’ as well as ‘small’ Germanic languages and varieties in the last 300 years. Topics covered in this book include language variation and change and the politics of language contact and choice, seen against the background of standardization processes of written and oral text genres and from the viewpoint of larger sections of the population.

Das Gegenwartsdeutsche ist faszinierend – vielfältig, lebendig und dynamisch. In mancher Hinsicht ist es exotisch, z.B. in der Wortstellung, in anderer eher mainstream, z.B. bei den Möglichkeiten, Wörter aus anderen Sprachen zu integrieren (z.B. ›mainstream‹). Das Buch erfasst das Deutsche in seiner ganzen Breite: Es bezieht Variation sowohl innerhalb als auch außerhalb der Standardsprache ein, beleuchtet die Rolle des Deutschen in der mehrsprachigen Gesellschaft und ordnet zentrale grammatische Merkmale in aktuelle Entwicklungstendenzen ein – stets mit Bezug auf reale sprachliche Daten und öffentlich zugängliche Textkorpora aus so unterschiedlichen Bereichen wie Kiezdeutsch, Texas German oder digitalen Chats.