Abstract

Abstract To date, no studies exist attempting to capture the temporal-relational emergence of dialect and standard German features in the second language (L2) across residence time in the Austro-Bavarian naturalistic context. In order to address this desideratum, 40 migrants with L2 German completed translation tasks assessing their ability to translate from standard German into dialect and vice versa. Taking a cross-sectional developmental perspective, our goal is to examine when dialect features (e.g., a-darkening, l-vocalization) manifest in participants’ multivarietal repertoires during residence in Austria over a timespan of approximately 13 years. The results of Bayesian binary logistic multilevel modeling reveal that participants quickly acquire dialect features such as negation particles (e.g., standard nicht vs. dialectal ned), fricative reduction (e.g., standard ich vs. dialectal i:), and Bavarian article use (e.g., standard das vs. dialectal des), but, even after over a decade of residence, do not produce morphological or syntactic dialectal features such as 2. person plural -s (e.g., standard braucht vs. dialectal brauchts) or relative clause connectors (e.g., standard die vs. dialectal de wos). Our results add to discussions concerning how the Austro-Bavarian naturalistic context impacts on patterns of L2 language variation and use and lend key insights into inquiries concerning which dialect features L2 learners acquire and when.

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