Diglossia, immigrant dialects and language maintenance in Australia: The case of limburgs and Swabian

Abstract

Abstract In this article two aspects of language maintenance are investigated. Firstly, the effect which the variable ‘language variety’, i.e. standard variety versus dialect variety, has on the language maintenance patterns of Dutch‐and German‐born immigrants in Australia, i.e. do German and Dutch standard speakers maintain their first language variety better than German (Swabian) and Dutch (Limburgs) dialect speakers? The investigation proved that the overall rate of language maintenance in the first generation was not greatly influenced by the fact that the informant was a dialect or a standard speaker. An analysis in terms of ‘language variety’ did, however, clarify certain patterns of language behaviour which were left unexplained in an analysis in terms of ‘language’. It also revealed that certain dialect speakers (here the Limburg dialect speakers) maintained only their dialect and not the standard variety which considerably reduced the group of speakers with whom they could converse in the mother ...