This migrants' babble is not a German dialect

The interaction of standard language ideology and 'us'/'them' dichotomies in the public discourse on a multiethnolect

Bibliographic Data

ID2884492
AuthorsHeike Wiese (0000-0002-6310-3045, University of Potsdam, corresponding author)
Year2015
Volume44
Issue3
Pages341-368
Publication date2015-06-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueLanguage in Society (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0047-4045 • E-ISSN: 1469-8013
PublisherCambridge University Press (CUP) (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1017/s0047404515000226
OpenAlexW2275425890
LanguageEN
Citations received23
References cited35

This article investigates a public debate in Germany that put a special spotlight on the interaction of standard language ideologies with social dichotomies, centering on the question of whetherKiezdeutsch, a new way of speaking in multilingual urban neighbourhoods, is a legitimate German dialect. Based on a corpus of emails and postings to media websites, I analyse central topoi in this debate and an underlying narrative on language and identity. Central elements of this narrative are claims of cultural elevation and cultural unity for an idealised standard language 'High German', a view of German dialects as part of a national folk culture, and the construction of an exclusive in-group of 'German' speakers who own this language and its dialects. The narrative provides a potent conceptual frame for the Othering of Kiezdeutsch and its speakers, and for the projection of social and sometimes racist deliminations onto the linguistic plane. (Standard language ideology, Kiezdeutsch, dialect, public discourse, Othering, racism by proxy

Dichotomy · Epistemology · German · Ideology · Linguistics · Media studies · Narrative · Political science · Politics · Sociology · Standard language · Law · Linguistic Variation and Morphology · Linguistics, Language Diversity, and Identity · Multilingual Education and Policy · Philosophy

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