Xenolectal Variation in the Dialect-Standard Continuum at the Workplace in the Middle Bavarian Communication Area

Abstract

Adolescent and adult learners of German are exposed to different manifestations of German language - variation - in their everyday (working) life. Like all other speakers, they receive dialectal/near-dialectal and standard/near-standard input, but unlike native speakers, they also encounter xenolectal structures of varying degrees, or in other words, linguistic features that are the result of the native speakers’ efforts to make their utterances more understandable to their non-native listener (for example by simplifications or omissions that result into utterances that deviate from the regularities of the spoken language). Dialectal/near-dialectal and standard/near-standard as well as xenolectal variation have already been described in terms of their functionality. However, a description of the interplay of these variation aspects, as it is crucial for the ‘language reality’ of many adolescents and adults learning German (in Austria) at professional training or at work, has not been undertaken yet. In order to remedy this desideratum, the present work is dedicated to the conversational analysis of dialogues between German native speakers and German learners at work or in professional training that have been recorded in Vienna and Upper Austria. In doing so we adopt the model of the Dialect-Standard-Continuum based on Auer (1986) as the spectrum within which xenolectal variation takes place. Such an analysis should provide better insight into the way the probably most important implicit language-teaching and language-learning method - the conversation - makes use of variation and is determined by it.