TheSociolinguisticStateofAlemannicDialects

CarlBodnaruk

AthesissubmittedinpartialfulfilmentoftherequirementsforthedegreeofBachelorofArts(Languages)(Honours)

DepartmentofLinguisticsDepartmentofGermanicStudies

UniversityofSydney

November2020

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

IwouldliketofirstlythankmysupervisorsAssociateProfessorLisaLimandDrTristanLayfortheirendlessguidanceandassistancethroughouttheyear,despitethenightmareofCOVID-19.Thankyoualso totheHonoursCoordinators,ProfessorNickEnfieldand DrBrangwenStone,fortheiradministrativesupportandguidancethroughouttheyear,andadditionallytoNickforhisassistanceinourweeklyhonourscohortmeetings.

IwouldalsoliketothankFrauFriedelScheer-Nahor,HerrFranz-JosefWinterhalterandthe Muettersproch-Gsellschaft for their support in the distribution and legitimisation of thestudy details to their membership, and Iain Semple for putting me in touch with HerrWinterhalter. Imustalso,ofcourse, thanktheover100peoplewhoparticipatedinthestudy,andwouldliketofurtherthankthosewhoansweredfurtherquestionsininterviews.

Thankyoutomyfamilyforsupportingmethroughouttheyear,listeningtomynon-stopthoughts,worries,and ideasduringlockdown,aroundthehouseandondailydogwalks.Andlastly,thankstoDrew,Ed,Eddie,Sean,Seb,Zoe,andeveryoneintheLinguisticsSociety.ThedatacollectioncomponentofthisthesiswasapprovedbytheUniversityofSydneyHREC,protocolnumber[2020/394].

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TABLEOFCONTENTSAcknowledgements................................................................................................................................................iii

TableofContents.....................................................................................................................................................iv

TableofFigures........................................................................................................................................................vi

Tables.............................................................................................................................................................................vi

1 IntroductionandLiteratureReview....................................................................................................1

1.1 WhyAlemannic?.................................................................................................................................1

1.2 LiteratureReview...............................................................................................................................2

1.2.1 GermanDialectGroups..............................................................................................................2

1.2.2 Backgroundofsociolinguistics..............................................................................................3

1.2.3 ScholarshipofSocialDialectologyinGermany.............................................................6

1.2.4 ResearchQuestionsandScope..............................................................................................7

2 Methodology....................................................................................................................................................9

2.1 Preamble.................................................................................................................................................9

2.2 PreliminaryContact..........................................................................................................................9

2.3 DesignofStudy....................................................................................................................................9

2.4 Survey....................................................................................................................................................10

2.4.1 Content............................................................................................................................................10

2.4.2 Structure.........................................................................................................................................11

2.4.3 Distribution...................................................................................................................................12

2.5 Follow-upInterviews....................................................................................................................13

2.5.1 InterviewDesignandSchedule..........................................................................................13

2.5.2 IntervieweeSelection..............................................................................................................14

2.6 OverviewofAnalysis.....................................................................................................................14

3 Study–AlemannicinGermany...........................................................................................................16

3.1 Overviewofthesurveyresults.................................................................................................16

3.2 Overviewoftheinterviews........................................................................................................17

3.3 Demographicscomparison.........................................................................................................17

3.4 Usage......................................................................................................................................................20

3.5 Attitudes...............................................................................................................................................23

3.6 Summary..............................................................................................................................................25

4 OverviewofAlemannicinFranceandSwitzerland..................................................................27

4.1 Alsace.....................................................................................................................................................27

4.1.1 RegionalOverview....................................................................................................................27

4.1.2 DialectSituation.........................................................................................................................28

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4.2 Switzerland.........................................................................................................................................31

4.2.1 RegionalOverview....................................................................................................................31

4.2.2 DialectSituation.........................................................................................................................32

4.3 Cross-BorderComparison..........................................................................................................33

5 ExternalInfluencesonAlemannic.....................................................................................................36

5.1 SouthBaden,Germany.................................................................................................................36

5.1.1 DevelopmentofWrittenStandardGerman.................................................................36

5.1.2 DevelopmentofSpokenStandardGerman..................................................................36

5.2 Alsace,France....................................................................................................................................37

5.2.1 HistoricalShifts...........................................................................................................................37

5.2.2 RiseofFrenchinAlsace..........................................................................................................37

5.2.3 AlsatianRegionalistAutonomyMovement..................................................................38

5.3 Switzerland.........................................................................................................................................39

5.3.1 AdoptionofStandardGerman............................................................................................39

5.3.2 MaintenanceofAlemannicinSpeaking.........................................................................40

5.3.3 Summary........................................................................................................................................41

6 Conclusion–ExternalInfluencesonDiglossia............................................................................42

6.1 MajorSocio-PoliticalEvents......................................................................................................42

6.2 GovernmentLanguagePolicy...................................................................................................43

6.3 SocialandCulturalAttitudes.....................................................................................................43

6.4 TheStabilityofDiglossiaandtheFutureofAlemannic..............................................44

References.................................................................................................................................................................46

AppendixI:SurveyQuestions.........................................................................................................................49

AppendixII:InterviewStructure..................................................................................................................53

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TABLEOFFIGURES

Figure1.1:AdministrativeregionswithLowerAlemannic-speakingpopulationsacrossFrance,Germany,andSwitzerland...................................................................................................................................................3

Figure1.2:AdministrativeregionswithLowerAlemannic-speakingpopulationsinthecontextofwiderEurope..........................................................................................................................................................................3

Figure3.1:Agedistributionofsurveyrespondents,comparedtoagedistributionsofthegeneralpopulationfromregionalandstatedemographicdata18

Figure3.2:Overandunderrepresentationofagegroupsinthesurveyrespondentscomparedtooverallregionaldata.............................................................................................................................................................19

Figure3.3:Comparisonbetweenthedistributionofpopulationbetween(a)ruralvscity,and(b)FreiburgvsoutsideFreiburginthegeneralpopulationandthesurveycohort...................................20

Figure3.4:Numberof respondentswho reporteda givennumberof situations inwhich theywoulduseAlemannic...........................................................................................................................................................21

Figure3.5:Thesurveycohortsplitbyretirementstatusandusagelevel(usageacrossallareasvsusageacrosssomeareas).NotethecomparativelysmallsegmentofRetiredLowUsage........22

Figure3.6:Divisionofeachattitudesstatementbetweenthefivepossibleresponses....................23

Figure4.1:TheFrenchdepartmentsofHaut-RhinandBas-Rhinarehighlightedinblue...............27

Figure4.2:Alsatian-speakingproportionofeachagegroup(adaptedfromOLCA2012:8).........29

Figure4.3:Alsatian-speakingproportionoftownsbypopulation(adaptedfromOLCA2012:9)..........................................................................................................................................................................................................30

Figure4.4: SwissCantonswith only German as an official language, indicatedwith blue, andcantonswithGermanasanofficiallanguagealongsideotherlanguage(s), indicatedwithgreen..........................................................................................................................................................................................................31

TABLESTable 1.1: The possible combinations of diglossia and bilingualism and examples (Fishman1967)................................................................................................................................................................................................5

Table4.1:SummaryofsimilaritiesanddifferencesinusageofAlemannicinthethreecountries..........................................................................................................................................................................................................34

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1 INTRODUCTIONANDLITERATUREREVIEW1.1 WHYALEMANNIC?Switzerland and Germanyare both, at least on paper, German-speaking countries. Given thisfact,why is it thatpeople fromGermany, as soon as they cross the border into Switzerland,struggletounderstandthelocals?ThiswasaquestionIfoundmyselfaskingwhileIwaslivinginGermanyinthebordercityofKonstanz.JustpastthetrainstationandmainshoppingcentrelaytheSwissborder,butassoonasIcrossedover,theconversationsaroundmeseemedtobeinatotallydifferentlanguage.Thiswasn’t limitedtome,anL2speakereither.NativeGermanspeakerswho had not grown up in the border region reported a similar experience. So if itwasn’ttheGermanIhadlearnedinschoolandwasspeakinginmyday-to-daylifeinGermany,whatlanguageweretheyspeaking?

IhadasimilarexperiencewhenvisitingtheFrenchcityofMulhouse,nearthetri-borderbetweenFrance,Germany,andSwitzerland.WhilemoststreetsignswereinFrench,somestreetnames had an alternative translation underneath in something that initially looked just likeGermantome,butitwasjustalittlebitdifferent.Hereagain,thereseemedtobethisalmost-but-not-quiteGermanthatexistedtovariousdegrees.Thisisnot,ofcourse,somemysterythathadgoneunnoticedbyalllocalsandacademia.Inreality,Iwasalreadymarginallyawareoftheexistenceandnatureoftheselanguagevarieties,butthisfirst-handexperiencepromptedmetoresearchfurther.

Historically, theGerman languagewas a longdialect continuum, running from the farNortheastoftheNetherlandsthroughtosouthwesternAustria.ThedialectsintheregionIwasin (SouthBaden inGermany,German-speakingSwitzerland, and theFrench regionofAlsace)werevarious formsofadialectgroupcalledAlemannic. InSwitzerland it is referred to today(verybroadly)asSchweizerdeutsch(de) (Schwiizertüütsch(al)1,SwissGerman),where it is,atfirstglance,spokenverywidely.InAlsaceisitcalledAlsatian(Elsässisch(de,al),Alsacien(fr)),whereitseemedtobespokenbysome,butnotwidely.InGermanyhowever,whereitissimplycalledAlemannic,orevenmorelocallybythenameofregionortowninwhichitisspoken(e.g.Badisch inBaden,Emmendingerisch fromEmmendingen), itwasnotatall clearwhospoke itandwhere,as,atleastinmyownexperience,Ihadnothearditspokenaroundmeinmyownday-to-daylife.Inadditiontothis,thisposedthequestionofwhy-ifthisonedialectgroupwasspokenandtreateddifferentinthethreedifferentcountries–thiswasthecase,andwhetherwecould use observations from a case study such as this more widely in researching theinteractionbetweencountriesandlanguage.

These initial observations will be expanded upon in the Literature Review in theremainderof this chapter. Chapter2 comprises themethodology andbackground forastudyconducted into theuseofAlemannic inGermany,whileChapter3discussesandanalyses thestudy’sresults.Chapter4comparestheseresultswithpreviousresearchconductedonsimilarareasinFranceandSwitzerland.Chapter5investigatesthenon-linguisticcontextsofthethree

1ThereisnostandardspellingsystemforGermandialects,and,asacontinuum,therearelargeamountsofvariationinpronunciationandspellingwhenthelanguagevarietiesarewritten.Assuch,spellingsintranslations into Alemannic are fairly arbitrary and are given here to provide an impression of thevariationbetweenStandardGermanandAlemannic.

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countries and assesses what factors could have led to the similarities or differences inAlemannicusageseeninChapter4,andChapter6willattempttosummariseandisolatetheseextra-linguistic factors into more generally applicable observations on the nature ofmultilingual, diglossic language systems and their interactions with the relevant speechcommunity.

1.2 LITERATUREREVIEW

1.2.1 GERMANDIALECTGROUPSContemporaryStandardGerman2originatedthroughoutthe16thand17thcenturiesasalinguafranca andwritten language in the German-speaking nations of Europe between speakers ofdifferentdialectsalongtheWestGermanicdialectcontinuum.It isnotasinglespecificdialectgiven prestige, but is rather an amalgamation of various dialectswith their own prestige forvarious reasons. The development of this lingua franca is itself not totally clear to scholars(Salmons2018),andwillnotbeassessedhere.

Thisdialectcontinuumcomprisesthreemaingroups:High/Upper,Middle/Central,andLowGerman.ThesecategoriesaredelineatedbyasetofisoglossesindicatingthecompletenessoftheHighGermanSoundShift,asoundshiftmorecompleteinthesouthern-most(uppermost)dialectsofthecontinuum(Salmons2018).

Upper German is divided into three major groups, High Franconian, Bavarian, andAlemannic. The Alemannic dialects stretch from Lower Alemannic, spoken in southern andwestern Baden-Württemberg (with Swabian sometimes classified asAlemannic to the north-east(Russ1990b)),throughHigherAlemannicintheSwissPlateau,intoHighestAlemannicinCentralSwitzerland.

Of these groupsofdialects, LowerAlemannic is unique in that it isspokenacross theregionwhereFrance,Switzerland,andGermanymeetontheRhine(seeFigure1.1andFigure1.2), three nations with very different historical and contemporary language policies andsystems.TheareainGermanylargelyoccupiesthehistoricalregionsoftheMarkgräferland,theBreisgau,theOrtenau,andtheSchwarzwaldorBlackForest.Todescribetheregionasawhole,thetermSouthBaden(Südbaden)willbeusedinthisthesis.

2Hochdeutsch,lit.HighGermanbutnottobeconfusedwiththeHighGermandialectsdescendedfromOldHighGerman,distinguishingthemfromtheLowGermanofthelowlandsinNorthernGermany(Schönfeld1990)

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Figure1.1:AdministrativeregionswithLowerAlemannic-speakingpopulationsacrossFrance,Germany,and

Switzerland

Figure1.2:AdministrativeregionswithLowerAlemannic-speakingpopulationsinthecontextofwider

Europe

1.2.2 BACKGROUNDOFSOCIOLINGUISTICSTheideathatlanguageandculture,orlanguageandsocialcontext,wouldhaveanyinfluenceoneach other is not new. Franz Boas suggested in 1911 that therewas likely some connectionwhereby languagewas influencedby culture, though that the reversewas likelynot the case(Boas1911), a hypothesis supported by his student Edward Sapir (Sapir1929). Despite thisearlydiscoveryof theconnectionbetween languageandculture, the fielddidnotdevelop foranotherfewdecades(Mesthrieetal.2009).

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Whilesociolinguisticsasaconcepthadbeenexplored insomewaysprior, the fieldofsocialdialectology,thatis,theconceptofdialectalvariationconditionedbysocialfactorsratherthangeographicones,didnotemergeuntilthethirdquarterofthe20thcentury(Mesthrieetal.2009;Meyerhoff2006).Meyerhoff(2006)presentsLabov(1963)studyofdiphthongvariationinMartha’sVineyard,Massachusettsasthefirstresearchintosocialdialectvariation.Thestudyfoundthataresidentoftheisland’s(asopposedtoasummertourist’s)useofthe[aʊ]and[aɪ]wasconditionedbythespeaker’sage,butalsothatthisrelationshipwasnotlinear.While,untiltheyoungestgeneration,theregionalpronunciationwasshiftingclosertothenormfortheNewEngland region, the youngest generation appeared to have shifted further away. Labovsuggested that thiswasaresultofan impetus toexpressregional identityagainst the touristpopulationontheisland(Labov1963).

Mesthrieetal. (2009),however,provideanearlierstudy,on theconclusionsofwhichLabovundertookfurtherinvestigationandbuiltawiderframework.Fischer(1958)undertookastudyofchildrens’speechinavillageintheNewEnglandregion,specificallyfocussingontheusageoftwoformsofthepresentparticipleverbending;-inor-ing.Mostnotably,hefoundthatspeakersdidnothaveasingleformthattheyconsistentlyused,butratherwoulduseeitherone.Fischerdismissestheusageoftheterm‘FreeVariation’,whichwouldhavepreviouslybeenusedtodescribethephenomenon,sayingthatitis“alabel,notanexplanation”,andthatthetermis“awayofexcludingsuchquestions[ofwhereandwhythevariantsareused]fromthescopeofimmediate inquiry.” (Fischer 1958: 48). By asking these questions, he found that somedemographicfactorssuchasgenderandclass,aswellasthecontextofthespeechandeventhespecificverbusedallseemedtoinfluencewhichvariationwasused.Fischerproposedtheterm“comparativeidiolectology”forhisproposedareaofstudy,ashewasproposingadetailedfocuson the idiolect of single individual. This was expanded towards modern social dialectologyinitiallyinLabov(1963)andsubsequentresearch.

Inthissubsequentresearchintotherelationshipbetweenlanguageandsocialfactors,anumberofphenomenahavebeenidentifiedthatareparticularlyrelevanttothedescriptionofrelationshipsbetweenGermanvarieties.

Diglossiareferstoalinguisticsystemwheretwolanguagevarietiesareusedinasociety,eachwithspecificdomains,orsituations,ofuse(Ferguson1959).The two languagevarietiespresentinthesystemaretypicallylabelledtheHvarietyandtheLvariety(HighandLow),theformermarkingthelanguageformreceivingovertsocialprestige,thatis,theoneseensociallyasmoreproper,orperhapsassociatedwithupperclassesandhigherformalitysituations.TheHvariety also typically has a wider literary history, a higher level of standardisation, and hasgrammatical categories not present in the L variety (for instance, more noun cases, verbinflections,orgenders).TheLvariety,however, is typicallylearnedbynativespeakersbeforetheHvariety(Ferguson1959).

SincethetermwascoinedbyFerguson(1959),itsexactdefinitionhasbeensuggestedtobe wider than originally established. Ferguson defined diglossia to be between two closelyrelated language varieties, though this definition has since been developed to what is nowreferredtoasextendedorbroaddiglossia.Fishman(1967)notedthattheoriginaldefinitionofa relation between two closely related language varieties fails to account for the differencebetweentwodistinctsystemsofbilingualism:

1) Systems inwhich speakers speakone language in everyday lifebut are able to speakanother(nodiglossia),and

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2) Systems in which speakers use two mutually unintelligible languages in differentdomainsofeverydaylife(diglossiabutwithdifferentlanguages).System(1)characterisescasessuchas,forexample,Germanspeakerswhohavelearned

Englishasaskillandwouldperhapsuseitwhenoverseasbutdonotuseitanysetareaoftheirday-to-day life, while system (2) characterises cases such as the joint use of Spanish andGuaraní in Paraguay (Fishman 1967), two unrelated languages that are used bymost of thepopulationinspecificdomainsofeverydaylife.System(2)containsmanyfunctionalsimilaritiestoFerguson’sdiglossia,butwithtwodifferentlanguagesratherthanrelatedformsofthesamelanguage.Thisalsobeginstoapproachthechallengeofdefininglanguagevarietiesasdialectsofonelanguageortwoseparatelanguages.Fishmansuggeststhatdiglossiaandbilingualismaretwoseparatefeaturesaspeechenvironmentcanhave,andthattheexample(1)givenabovecanbedescribedasbilingualismwithoutdiglossia,while (2)would exhibit bothbilingualismanddiglossia.ThefourpossiblesituationsthesetwobinarydistinctionscreatecanbeseeninTable1.1.

Table1.1:Thepossiblecombinationsofdiglossiaandbilingualismandexamples(Fishman1967)

+diglossia -diglossia+

bilingualismAll individuals in a society

speakmultiple languages, usingbothin daily life (Guaraní / Spanish,ColloquialArabic /ModernStandardArabic)

Individuals are able to speakmultiple languages but do not usebothindailylife(German/Englishasabove)

-bilingualism

Different groups in societyspeak different languages withminimal interaction(HistoricalusageofNormanFrenchbyBritishnobilitydespite the continued use of Englishintherestofthepopulation.)

N/A3

A lingua franca is defined by Mesthrie et al. (2009) as a language used for communicationbetweencommunitiesthatspeakdifferent firstlanguages.Thesecanexistonan internationallevel,whereforexampleEnglishtendstoactasalinguafrancaontheinternetorinbusiness,oronasmallerscale,whereneighbouringcommunitiesspeakingdifferentlanguageshaveathirdlanguage used for inter-community communication. In some situations, such as theinternationaluseofEnglish,thelinguafrancaisthenativelanguageofsome,butnotnecessarilyallmembers of the relevant speech community. In other contexts, however, it is possible fornone or very few of the groupswho use the lingua franca to speak it natively. Pidgins are apossible cause for the lingua franca with no native speakers, where the lingua franca thatdevelops isamixofmultiple languages, rather thanoneprestige language(Meyerhoff2006).Situationscanalsoarisewherealinguafrancadoeshavenativespeakers,buttheyareveryfewin number in the relevant communities, or non-existent. This situation can be seen in post-

3 Fishman (1967) suggests that a society totally lacking in diglossia, even the sense of differences inregisterorpoliteness,aremorehypothesisedthanactuallyidentified.

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colonialsocieties,wherethelanguageofthecolonisersisusedasalinguafranca(Mesthrieetal.2009),butisalsopossiblyexhibitedtosomedegreeinSwitzerland,wherethelinguafrancaofStandardGermanisrarelylearntasafirstlanguageinthehome(SiebenhaarandWyler1998).

1.2.3 SCHOLARSHIPOFSOCIALDIALECTOLOGYINGERMANYThedialectsoftheGermanlanguagehavebeeninvestigatedindetailsincethelate19thcentury,withthepioneeringworkofGeorgWenkerandhisSprachatlasdesdeutschenReichs(LanguageAtlasoftheGermanEmpire,1888-1923),anation-widesurveyoflocaldialectalvariationbasedon local dialect equivalents of standard words, elicited via a questionnaire containingapproximately40sentences.Thedatawerecollectedbymailfrom45,000schoolmastersacrossGermany. Kürschner (2018)provides a summaryofmajor research that has been conductedintothedialectssince,withsimilarSprachatlantenbeingbuiltthroughvariousformsofsurveyandinterview,eachmappingregionaldialectvariationinvaryingdetail.

Such Sprachatlanten are predominantly limited, however, to records of variations invocabulary,producingsetsof isoglosses todistinguishandidentifydialectalboundaries(theyare,afterall,atlases).Theyarealsolimitedbyademographicallyhomogenoussample,thatis,afocus on non-mobile, older, rural males. In addition to the wide-ranging Sprachatlanten is abody of more in-depth research into specific diachronic or synchronic features of singulardialects (Examples include Baechler 2018; Bohnacker 2013; Brandner and Bräuning 2013,investigatingareassuchassemanticsinpronounsandsyntacticphenomena).

Schönfeld(1990)suggestsinreferencetoEastLowGermanthatwhile“regional, local,socialandindividualdifferencesexist”,therewasatthetimenoconsensusandlittleresearchundertaken into the dialect’s usage. Only recently, Kürschner (2018) suggests, have theSprachatlanten begunto take sociolinguistic variables into account,with theMittelrheinischerSprachatlas’ssubsampleofyoungerresidentsinitslocations.TwofurtheratlasprojectswithintheBayerischerSprachatlashaveincludedfurthersocialdimensions,butnoneseektoassessthenature of the dialect from a totally sociolinguistic standpoint as opposed a descriptive one.Notablyalso,noneoftheseprojectsfactoringinsocialdimensionscovertheLowerAlemannicspeakingregionofGermany,coveredbytheSüdwestdeutscherSprachatlas.

Attention to social variables in speech is, however, by no means new to Germandialectology.Leopold(1959)assessestheshiftinusageofdialectsfollowingtheSecondWorldWar, and investigates the possible causes for this shift. He identifies the large migration ofindividuals within the German-speaking world after the Second World War (predominantlyrefugeesfromtheGDR)asacauseforashifttowardsastandardlinguafranca,notinghowthefine-grained nature of this migration blocked dialect enclaves in migrant communities fromforming.Healsoidentifiesaninversionofthetransferraloflanguagefromvillagetocity.Asthepowerofcitiesgrew,thelinguafrancaofthecitybegantospreadoutwards,asopposedtothespeechofthecitybeinginfluencedbythevillagessurroundingit.Thisarticleis,however,over60 years old, and there seems to be very little reanalysis of the situation in currentcircumstances,aside fromBister-Broosen(1996),asurveycomparing inbrief thedomainsofusageofAlemannicinFreiburgandAlsace.

This contrasts somewhat with recent research done in Alemannic-speaking regionsoutsideGermany,withHarrison’s (2016) investigationof theAlemannicdialectofAlsatian inFrenchschoolsandtheattitudesofparentsandeducatorstowardsitscontinuedpresenceintheeducationsystem.PhilippandBothorel-Witz(1990)refertoasurveyrecenttotheirchapter’spublicationintotheusageofAlemannicinAlsace,butdonotciteit.Rash(1998)alsocoversthe

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sociolinguisticenvironmentthroughoutSwitzerlandinrelationtovariablessuchasgeneration,sex, and national identity, suggesting that a stable system of diglossia comprising localAlemannicdialectsandaSwissStandardGermanlinguafrancahasbeenpresentsinceatleast1791,whenitwasdiscussedinthewritingsofphilosopherChristophMeiners(Rash1998:265).

Fishman(1967)notablyspecificallydescribesthespeakersofSwissGerman(acommonandunified term for theAlemannicdialects spoken in Switzerland) andStandardGermanasbilingualwithdiglossia,implyingafoundationalassessmentofStandardGermanandAlemannicasseparate languages. Theboundarybetweendialectsand languages is, of course, a blurredoneatbest,whichcanbeinfluencedbylinguistic,political,orsocioculturalfactors.Forthesakeof definingdiglossia, aphenomenon thatbydefinition applies to a single speech community,meaning they likelyhaveunity inpoliticalandsocioculturaldistinctions, thedefinitionseemsbestcharacterisedbylinguisticfeaturesalone.Thatis,intermsofdiglossia,thelackofmutualintelligibilitybetweenStandardGermanandAlemannicwouldgivejustificationforspeakersofbothtobeconsideredbilingual,thoughforotherpurposes,suchasanationalcensuswherethegovernmentisinvestigatingspeakersofforeignlanguages,thisdefinitionmaywellnolongerbeuseful.

For the sake of simplicity in definition, all three cases (Switzerland, Germany, andFrance) will be considered as diglossia with bilingualism after Fishman (1967), though thedifferent implications of the different nature of the bilingualism in the different speechcommunities,suchastheclosergeneticrelationshipbetweenAlemannicandStandardGermanwhencomparedtoAlemannicandFrench,willbediscussedinChapter5.

1.2.4 RESEARCHQUESTIONSANDSCOPETherehasbeen little sociolinguistic research intomore recentdevelopments inAlemannic inGermany. There are, as such, three opportunities that present themselves in the currentresearch situation, filling a gap in research in German sociolinguistics and subsequentbroadeningoftheresearchtobemorewidelyapplicableinworldsociolinguistics:

1) adetailedsociolinguisticanalysisofLowerAlemannic-speakingGermany2) a comparison of the conclusions drawn in (1) with similar research previously

publishedoncloselyrelateddialectsinSwitzerlandandFrance3) asubsequentanalysisofpossibledrivingfactorsbehindanyshiftinusagethatmayhave

occurred in Germany since Leopold (1959) and a comparison with influences inSwitzerlandandFranceThiscomparisonwouldallowanassessmentofsociolinguisticdivergenceintheborder

region rather than dialectal divergence (the latter having been investigated in detail bySchrambke (1997)), with the specific advantage of the elimination of the linguistic variable.Such an approach would allow an examination of the sociolinguistic aspects of usage andattitudestowardsAlemannicinthethreedifferentcountriesandthecausesforanydivergence.

The plausible scope of such a sociolinguistic analysis is very wide, though previoussimilar analyses have focussed on two primary areas: usage and attitudes (Dubois 1997;Harrison2016;LimandAnsaldo2006;Mesthrieetal.2009;Petzell2012).Thisallowsforasortoftwo-tieredanalysis,inwhichresearcherscanseeboththesurfaceusage,thatistheresultofdecisions(consciousorotherwise)beingmadebyspeakersaboutwhichlanguageorlanguageformtheywilluse,aswellasasinglespeaker’sattitudesandmindsetsurroundingthelanguage,showingtheinfluencesontheusagedecisionmade.

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The social variables or demographics that ought to be collected in this study can beascertainedfrominvestigatingwhatvariableshaveprovenrelevantandinfluentialinpreviousresearchintosociolinguisticsandmorespecificallysocialdialectology.

Asdiscussedabove, Fischer (1958)wasoneof, if not the first researcher to attributelanguagevariationwithinagrouptoextra-linguistic factorsasopposed tounpredictableFreeVariation.HefoundthatthespeechofasampleofchildreninNewEnglandwasconditionedbysex,class,personality,andmood(intheemotionalsenseratherthanthelinguisticsense).Labov(1963),inhisfoundationalworkontheMartha’sVineyardspeechcommunity,identifiedageasa further influence on sociolinguistic variation in a community (and therefore as a tool toidentifylanguagechange),whilehisfamousstudyonNewYorkEnglishfurtheridentifiedsocialclassasaninfluencingfactor(Labov1966).

The varied usage of language, and in this case specifically the usage in a bilingualenvironment not dissimilar from that in South Baden, as conditioned by domains of use ineverydaylifewashighlightedinalandmarkstudyoflanguagechoiceandlanguageshiftintheAustrian-Hungarian border town of Oberwart by Susan Gal (Gal 1979). Gal noted differentdistributions between the high prestige Germanand low prestigeHungarian indifferent agegroups, with older generations using the low prestige form more widely, and youngergenerations limiting its use to more personal situations. This, among other observations,suggested that the prestige had shifted with time, and that German had gained popularity,reflectedbyitsgreateruseintheyoungergenerations.Galalsosuggeststhatthisstemsfromahistorical class divide between the nobility in Oberwart, who traditionally spoke exclusivelyGerman,andthelowerclasses,whospokeHungarian.

SinceitsintroductionbyLaveandWenger(1991),thecommunityofpracticehasgrowntobeacommonframeworkfortheanalysisofthesharedlinguisticidentityinagroupunifiedbytheir joint participation in a common goal or shared enterprise (Davies 2005). This initiallyreferred to the environmentof a trade,with specific attention to the roleof apprentices inatrade-basedcommunityofpractice(LaveandWenger1991),thoughcanbefurtherexpandedtocoverwidercommunityactivities thatarenotnecessarilyoccupational, suchaschoirs,bands,andhuntinggroups. It ispossibleinthecaseofthisstudythatthesecommunitiesofpractice,suchashuntingclubs,musicalensembles,andwalkinggroupswouldprovideaplatformforthetransferralofAlemannic,or for itspreservation. In thesecommunitiesofpractise, itmightbetheprimary languageof communication, even if it is that isnot the case in thewider speechcommunity. An individual’s occupation is also a possible platform, not necessarily for initialteachingandlearningofAlemannic,butinfluencingitspreservationorloss.Asacommunityofpractice,differentoccupationsmayhaveinfluencesonanindividual’susageofAlemanniconadaily basis. Even if there is no clear influence on an individual’s use of Alemannic, theirmembershipofcertaincommunitiesmayhaveaninfluenceatalowerlevelontheirinterestinthe preservation of the dialect, or their impetus to use it in their wider lives outside thecommunitysetting.

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2 METHODOLOGY

2.1 PREAMBLEThis research was originally planned to constitute a round of face-to-face interviews in theSouthernBlackForest,assessingusageandattitudesthroughsemi-structuredinterviewsoveratwo-week field trip. Participants were going to be contacted through existent communitycontacts aswell as through cold-contacting community leaders such asmayors, priests, andleaders of community organisations. The global COVID-19 pandemic, however, meant thatinternationaltravelwouldnotbefeasiblefortheforeseeablefuture,andtheprojecthadtoberedesignedandethicsapplicationrewrittenforaCOVID-safe,onlineplatform.

2.2 PRELIMINARYCONTACTPriortobeginningtheprocessofsurveydevelopmentandethicalconsiderationsandapproval,itwasimportanttoassessthegeneralfeasibilityofthestudy:wouldtheproposedparticipantsbeabletocompleteonlinesurveys,wouldasufficientnumberofproposedparticipantsbeabletobefound,whatroutesintothecommunitycouldbeestablished,andsoon.Initialcontactwasmadewithapreviouscontactwho lives in theregionbutdoesnotqualify forparticipation inthestudy.Thiscontactwasabletoconfirmthat:

a) Internetaccesswasstableandregularthroughoutmoreruralareasintheregion,andb) The general level of computer literacy in the population (namely older community

members)washighenoughfortheaccessandcompletionofasurveyonline.Thiscontactwasalsoabletoemailacquaintancesandgainpermissionfromthemtobe

contacted in regards to this study. Through this method, we were put in touch with thepresident of a local community organisation for the use of Lower Alemannic dialects. ThisMuttersprache-Gesellschaft (de)/Muettersproch-Gsellschaft (al)(‘mother tongue organisation’)waspreparedtoactasacommunitypointofentry,andwouldpromotethestudy.

2.3 DESIGNOFSTUDYThedesignofthestudywasstronglyinfluencedbyanumberoffactorsoftheonlineformat.Theshift towards online-only interaction alongwith time zone differences created an impetus tomoveawayfromone-on-oneinterviewsasacentrepieceforthestudy,leadingtothedecisiontorun an online survey as a more time-flexible and less time-consuming alternative. Thisquestionnairesubsequentlybecametheprimarymodeofstudy,withtheoriginalinterviewplancomplementingthesurvey.

Giventhatdataforthestudyhadtobecollectedremotely,twomodesofdatacollectionweredecidedon:

1. A survey delivered in an online format,whichwould bemore easily distributed to alargenumberofpossiblerespondentsandcouldbecompletedbyrespondentsattheirownpaceandwithintheirownschedulesinthelocaltimezone;and

2. Follow-up,targeted,semi-structuredinterviewsconductedwithasmallsubsetofsurveyrespondents over Zoom or by email, which would allow more specific and in-depthdiscussion of topics covered in the survey, and to address any factors of the state ofAlemannicintheregionmissedbythesurvey.

An initial estimate of 50 participants was arrived after consultations with researchers andcommunitygroupsinordertofindabalancebetweenfeasibilityoffindingparticipantsandthe

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statisticalsignificanceorrepresentativenessofthesamplesize.Inthisbalance,alargersamplesizewouldbestatisticallymorerepresentativeoftheregionbutwouldbehardertoachieve.

Thisgoalof50participantsendedupbeingdoubled,asisdiscussedbelow.

2.4 SURVEYThesurveysoughttoestablishaprofileofAlemannicusagecoveringthefollowingareas:

a) ProficiencyoftheinformantsinAlemannic,b) Alemannicspeakers’useofthevarietyacrossdifferentdomains,andc) Theattitudestowardsthevarietyinthecommunity.

An initialandprimaryconsiderationwasassuch theneed foreaseofcompletionandeaseofdistribution.Asasurvey,participationwouldbeself-guidedandself-motivated,meaningthatinorder tomaximiseparticipationandminimise impactonparticipants’ lives, thesurveywouldneedtobedesignedtobeeasytocomplete.

Thiseaseofcompletionwasachievedbyminimizingopenendedquestions,andinsteadusingpredominantlymultiplechoicequestionswithsomeshortanswers,andhavingoptionalopen ended “comments” sections in case the given options did not cover the respondent’sdesiredresponse.Thisallowedbothforeaseofcompletionandminimisedtherequiredwritingfromrespondents,aswellasapreservationofthespecificityofthedatathroughthecommentssections.

2.4.1 CONTENT2.4.1.1 ProficiencyQuestionsIn her study of Louisiana French Creole, Dubois (1997) introduces a framework in order tocodifyandmeasureproficiencyinareproducibleformat.Participantswereaskedtojudgetheirabilitytousethelanguageinquestion(LouisianaFrenchinDubois(1997))ineachofasetoften scenarios, ranging in complexity from “I can count to ten” to “I can givemyopiniononacontroversialsubject(abortion,religion,pollution,nuclearsafety)withnativespeakers”(p.51).Basedontheirresponses,Duboiswasabletogroupparticipantsintofourlevelsofproficiency:ablein10/10scenarios,ablein7/10scenarios,ablein4-5/10,andablein0/10.

With minor adaptations, this framework, subsequently referred to as the DialectProficiency Index (DPI), was used in the survey to facilitate more consistent judgements ofdialect proficiency in a self-reporting environment. Given that there would not be anopportunitytospeakface-to-facewithallparticipantsinthedialect,bothduetothenatureofasurvey and themore central lackof dialectproficiency in the researcher, thismethodallowsparticipants to self-report while limiting the inconsistencies that would arise if participantsweresimplyaskedtoratetheirproficiencyoutoftenwithoutastandardisedreference.

The wording of some of the situations was slightly adapted, namely, examples ofcontroversial topics were removed to avoid projecting any particular political cultural bias.Otherexampleswereaddedtoclarifystatements,however,wheretheywerenotseentoholdanybiasorculturalimplications(e.g.listingexamplesofbiographicalinformation).Afulllistofthe ten statements and translations is attached with the full survey in Appendix I: SurveyQuestionsError!Referencesourcenotfound..

2.4.1.2 LanguageUseandAttitudesQuestionsIn order to build a demographic profile of a respondent, and of the cohort of respondentsoverall,asiskeytoillustratingthewho,whereandwhenofAlemannicinGermany,thesurvey

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had toaskpersonalquestions,coveringareasofage,education level,andcultural identity. Indoingso, carehad tobe taken to ensure that thequestionswerephrased in such away thatpossible offence or discomfort was avoided. In many cultures, German included, askingsomeone’sageisconsideredrudeoruncomfortablypersonal.Whilesomeofthissenseislikelyremoved by the nature of the survey as formal research rather than small-talk, alternativewordingwasused tobetter fitwithinsocialnorms.Forexample, respondentswereasked fortheirbirthyearratherthantheirage.

Inadditiontoavoidingdiscomfort,itwasimportanttonotmake,orappeartomake,anyjudgementsaboutrespondentsandtheirdemographics.Questionsabouteducationareatriskofthis,duetothepossibleimbalancebetweentheeducationlevelofresearchersandrespondents.Inordertoavoidanyappearanceofjudgement,thequestiononaccesstoformaleducationwasphrasedtoavoiditbeingunderstoodas“didyouchooseeducation”:Didyouhavethechancetoattend formal education when you were young? Similar precautions were takenwhen askingabout the respondent’s highest level of education, as well as when modifying the DialectProficiencyIndexasdiscussedabove.

Languageusepromptsallowedrespondentstomark‘Yes’or‘No’toaseriesofpossiblesituations in theirday-to-day life inwhich theymightuseAlemannic.These includedvariouspartsofthecommunity,suchaschurchorthemarket,differentagegroups,andpeoplehigheror lower inthesocialhierarchy,suchasanemployeroranassistant.AttitudeswereassessedthroughtheuseofaLikertscale,inwhichrespondentscouldmarkastatementaboutAlemannicfrom “Strongly Disagree” to “Strongly Agree”. These prompts covered areas such as therespondent’sownsatisfactionwith theirAlemannicproficiency, therespondent’sopinionsonthe transmission of Alemannic to children, and the relationship between Alemannic and aregionalidentity.ThefullsurveyandtranslationisattachedinAppendixI:SurveyQuestions.

2.4.2 STRUCTUREThefirstandforemostconsiderationwhenplanningthestructureofthesurveywasconformitywiththeNationalStatementonEthicalConductinHumanResearch(2007),asetofguidelinesestablished by the National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC), the AustralianResearchCouncil(ARC),andUniversitiesAustraliaasabasicframeworkfortheundertakingofethical research with humans. The Participant Information Statement (PIS) covers keyinformationregardingthecontentsofthestudyandtheparticipants’interactionwithit.Foranin-person interview, this information as standard would be given in printed form for theparticipanttokeep.Duetotheonlinenatureofthesurvey,however,thiscouldnotbedoneinthe standard format.While all the information of the PIS could have been displayed on theopeningpageofthesurvey,thedocumentwasfourA4pagesandtoolongtodisplayonasinglewebpage without being overwhelming for the reader, and would in turn unnecessarilydiscourage participation. Participants would also not be able to save the PIS for personalreference.Assuch,abriefsummaryofthestudyfromtheintroductiontothePISwasdisplayedontheopeningpage,alongwithabriefdescriptionofwhyreadingthePISwasimportant,andthePISitselfasanattachment.ThismeantthatthefullinformationofthePISwasavailabletoparticipantsinbothaformtheycouldsave,andonethatwasmoreeasilyaccessibleforreadingandnavigating.

Thesecondkeypartof informedconsent,after theprovisionofinformationdiscussedabove, is the clear confirmation of consent. This is typically acquired in writing through astandardform.MuchlikethePIS,theonlineformatpreventedconsentfrombeingcollectedin

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thestandardfashion,however,unlikethePIS,thenecessityofinteractionwiththeconsentformmeantthatthestandardformatcouldnotbesimplyattachedtothesurveyasthePISwas.TheNationalStatementgivesanumberofoptionsforcollectingconsentfrompotentialparticipants:

Consent may be expressed orally, inwriting or by some other means (forexample,returnofasurvey,orconductimplyingconsent),dependingon:

(a)thenature,complexityandlevelofriskoftheresearch;and(b)theparticipant’spersonalandculturalcircumstances.(NationalStatement,2007,paragraph2.2.5)

Notably here, the National Statement (2007) specifically suggests that, where suitable givenconditions(a)and(b),consentcanbegivenintheactofcompletingthesurveyitself.This,whileconvenient and far simpler thanany alternative for the respondent, comeswith anumberofcaveatstoensurethatrespondentsarestillsufficientlyinformedthatthisprocessisbeingused,aswellasexactlywhattheyareconsentingto.Withthelow-risknatureofthestudy,alongwithnocultural reasons thatsuchanapproachwouldnotbeviable,andhigher levelsof technicalliteracy,thismethodwasdeemedsuitable.

Despite the survey officially being anonymous or anonymised in terms of ethicalconsiderations, some contextually or directly identifiable informationwas collected. There istheunavoidableproblemthatevenanonymousdata,wherethereisenoughofit,couldbeusedto identify an individual. In addition to this, however, contact information was required forthosewhowished to volunteer for interviews, and contact informationwas also collected inordertosendasummaryofthestudy’sfindingswhererespondentsindicatedthattheywishedtoreceivethis.

Wherecontactinformationwascollected,itwasstoredseparatelyinordertomaintainanonymityintheresearchdataandensuretheprivacyofrespondents.Inordertofacilitatethis,andtoavoidconfusionregardingtheendofthesurvey,thesequestionswereplacedlastinthesurvey.

There are arguments both for and against placing demographics questions at thebeginningortheendofasurvey(Dobosh2006).Justificationsforincludingquestionsattheendof a survey include psychological motivations such as a sense of sunken costs and fatigueencouragingarespondenttoanswermoreinvasivedemographicquestions,whichtheymaynotbe so comfortable answering at the beginning of the survey. Placing the questions at thebeginningofasurvey,however,mayhelptoprimeorpreparerespondentsforthetopicofthesurvey,wherequestionsarelessinvasive.Thequestionsinthesurveyherearenotconsideredtobeparticularlyprivateor invasive, but somequestions, such as thehigher level questionsaboutwhat the respondent speaks andwhat they call their dialects (q. 8-9), both prime therespondenttothinkabouttheirdialectusage,andisusedtopopulatetherestofthesurvey.Assuch,thedemographicquestionswereplacedatthebeginningofthesurveyasanintroduction.

2.4.3 DISTRIBUTION2.4.3.1 PlatformUniversityguidelinesrecommendedthatthedatacollectedinthissurveywouldbeclassifiedas“Protected”, the middle tier of classification, meaning it contains personal and confidentialinformation and unpublished research data, but not data containing culturally sensitivematerial,orhealthinformation,amongotherthings.Assuch,theuniversity’sREDCapplatformwasthemostsuitableservicetobuildandhostthesurvey.Thesystemallowedforanumberof

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easeofuse features, suchasasingledistribution link,and theability tosaveprogresson thesurveyandcompleteitatalatertime.

2.4.3.2 PracticalDistributionRemarksThesurveywasdistributedthroughanumberofdifferentchannels.Theinitialplanwastousesolely previously established contacts (through family and friends in the region) and to usesnowballrecruitment(MilroyandGordon2003)togainacross-sectionoftheregion.Withthemove to the online survey format however, distribution was instead achieved with theassistanceoftheMuettersproch-Gsellschaft.Theorganisationwaswillingtoassistinadvertisingacross a number of platforms, namely their website, their newsletter, and in an Alemanniccolumn Lueginsland in the regional newspaper4 the Badische Zeitung. With access to themembershipoftheGsellschaft,morethantwicetheinitiallyexpectedresponseswerereceived,toatotalof105.

After a number ofweeks of the survey being open, new responses to the survey hadslowedsignificantlyandalargenumberofresponseshadbeenreceived,toapointwhereitwasdeemed suitable to close the survey and begin analysis. This was not done on any pre-determinedcriteria,butatthepointthatwefeltthefewextraresponseswemightgetwithtimewouldnotoutweigh the less timewewouldhave foranalysis.Uponclosing thesurvey, therewere a total of 101 completed and valid responses (some respondents did not fulfil therequirementsoflivingandhavinggrownupintheregion).

2.5 FOLLOW-UPINTERVIEWS

2.5.1 INTERVIEWDESIGNANDSCHEDULE Interviewswereundertakenasasecondarymodeofinvestigationinthestudy,beingconductedwithasmallnumberofsurveyrespondentswhovolunteeredtotakepartfurtherinthestudy.

Inordertostreamlinetheinterviewprocesswhilemaintainingthestructuralflexibilityof interviews,asemi-structuredformatwasselectedasthebestmethodof interviewing.Thisapproachusesanumberof lead-inquestions indifferentareas,whileavoidingasingle listofcompulsoryquestions(whichwouldessentiallynegatetheadvantagesofaninterviewoverthesurvey).

The interviewcomprised threemain topicormodules,adapted from(Seidman2006).The first module investigates the background of the interviewee’s relationship with theirAlemannicdialect, allowing the interviewer to frame the remainder of the interview and theinterviewee’sexperienceswithinthecontextoftheirgreaterlife.Thissectionfocusseslessonthe interviewee’s opinions or judgements, but rather on their recollection, asking ‘how’somethinghappenedratherthan‘why’.

The second investigates the interviewee’s “present lived experience” (Seidman 2006:18), investigatingtheircurrentrelationshipwithAlemannicinadescriptivesense,buildingonthe usage section of the survey. It also asked some questions regarding the interviewee’ssubjectiverelationshipwiththeirdialect,suchas“IfyoucouldonlychooseonetypeofGerman(AlemannicorStandard),whichtypewouldyouchoose?Why?”

4https://www.badische-zeitung.de/lueginsland-auschtralische-wunderfitz(accessed21/8/2020)

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The thirdmodule focusseson themeaning gained from the interviewee’s relationshipwithAlemannicandtheimpactthishashadontheiridentity,aswellastheiropinionsonthecurrentstateofthedialect,suchasits(lackof)useinschools.

Seidman(2006)presentedastructureoverthreeinterviews,whichwasherereducedtothreemodulesofasingle interview.Thesemoduleswere lessstrict in theirdomainsthan thethreeinterviewsdescribedbySeidman(2006),asmuchofthecontentsofhissecondinterviewwerecoveredbythesurvey;thesecondmodulediscussesbothsomecommentsontheircurrentrelationshipwith Alemannic descriptively, but also asks for their opinions surrounding theirdialectanditsplaceintheirlife.Thesetopicsarethenfurtherinvestigatedinthethirdmodule,which aims to explore the relationship between Alemannic and the interviewee on a widerscale.

Guidequestionstobegindiscussionwithinthesemoduleswereeitherwritten for thisstudyoradaptedfromLay(2004),astudyintothemotivationsoflanguagelearnersinTaipei,Taiwan.While Lay (2004)’s interview did not investigate the exact same topics as here, thefocusoninterviewees’experiencewithlanguagecreatesalevelofoverlapsuchthatanumberofquestionscouldbereadilyadapted.

The full layout of the structured interview with prompt questions can be found inAppendixII:InterviewStructure.

2.5.2 INTERVIEWEESELECTIONIntervieweeswereselected fromthepoolof respondentswhoopted inbasedonanumberofcriteria.Becausethenumberofinterviewsthatcouldfeasiblybeconductedwassmall(oneper10 survey responses to a maximum of five), it was decided to select interview candidatesmanuallyandbasedontheirsurveyresponses, rather thanatrandom. Initially,ashort-listofrespondentsthateithergaveanumberofextranotesintheirsurveythatsuggestedtheywerein a position to give further insights, or were in a demographic group that wasunderrepresented in the survey was created. From this shortlist, a final list of sevenrespondents to be contactedwas compiled to bebalanced for demographics, i.e., a spread ofages,educationlevel,participationincommunityactivities,andwhethertheygrewupinacityorinaruralsetting.

Thisallowedforacross-sectionofthedemographicsofthemaincohortofrespondentstobe interviewed,while ensuring thatparticularniche cases that couldhavebeenof specificinterest were not omitted. The balancing of demographics in the final list of intervieweesattemptedtoeliminatebiasthatmightariseorbeperceivedtohaveariseninanyresultantdataifallintervieweeswere,forexample,olderuniversitygraduateswhohadlivedalltheirlivesinFreiburg,theregion’slargestcity,asopposedtoayoungerpersonwhohadatradequalificationandlivedinasmallvillage.

Interviews were either conducted through audio-visual media, or through emailcorrespondences,wherein initial questionswere sent andanswered,and followupquestionsforsentinsubsequentemailsbasedoninitialresponses.

2.6 OVERVIEWOFANALYSISThere are a number of fundamental and well documented issues with a self-report-basedmethodology (Fielding 2006). By relying on respondents to report their own experience, theaccuracyofresultsreliesonmostcentrallytheirhonesty,butalsoatalevellessobvioustotherespondent,theaccuracyoftheirobservations.Whileitwouldbedifficulttogaininsightsintoa

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respondent’s attitudes towards the dialect without asking them to self-report (one couldtheoreticallyobservetheirbehaviourandmakeajudgementfromthat,thoughthatwouldthenbe beholden to the bias of the researcher), assessment of usage can be farmore accuratelyassessedthroughobservation.

Havingarespondentself-reportusagereliesontheaccuracyoftheirawarenessoftheirownusage,whichcanbeproblematiciftheconditionsoftheirusagearesocioculturalandcometotherespondentwithadegreeofinstinctiveness.Similarly,ifthereisawide-reachingculturalnormgoverningusageinacommunitywherediglossiaispresent,respondentsmaynotthinktoreportusagetheydeemnormalorexpected.Theymightalsoseektorelatewhattheyexpecttheresearcherwantstohear,ortopresentapositiveimageofthelanguagesituation.

A solution to this, as was introduced in Gal (1979)’s landmark study on a bilingualGerman/HungariancommunityinAustriaandhasbeenusedinmanystudiessince,isextensiveobservationofthecommunityinordertomeasureusageasithappensandasathirdparty,orfor respondents to note down their usage as they go throughout the day, to remove theinaccuraciesofself-reportingafterthefact.

Both of these methods, while far more robust in terms of data collected, encounterissues of feasibility for smaller studies, such as this one. Susan Gal spent a year in thecommunityinOberwartactingasacommunitymemberwhileobservingthisusage(Mesthrieetal. 2009: 195),which is unsuitable for an honours project. Asking respondents to self-reportthroughout the day for more objective and accurate data would also be too onerous onrespondents(at leastwithoutcompensation).Assuch, themethodologicalconcernswithself-reporting as outlined above cannot be solved in research for an honours project, but bymaintaining awareness of them, they can be taken into account where necessary duringanalysis.Additionally,respondentswerejudgedtohaverespondedsincerelytothesurvey.

Anothergeneralissueidentifiedwithself-reportinginlinguisticsisthatofdifficultyinidentifyingwhatiscorrectorincorrectinagivenlanguagevarietywhennotseeingitinactualusage.As the current study’s focus is an investigationof the language’susage rather than itsstructureorphonologyetc.,thisissueislessrelevant.

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3 STUDY–ALEMANNICINGERMANYThischapterwillpresenttheresultsofthestudyconducted into thepositionofAlemannic inGermany,lookingintodemographics,domainsofusage,alongwithattitudestowardsAlemannicanditsplaceinthecommunityoftheAlemannic-speakingpopulation.Thiscomprisesthefirstof the three research questions presented in Chapter 1.2.3. Later, in Chapters 4 and 5respectively,thediscussionsregardingthelattertworesearchquestions,thatis,acomparisonwithAlemannic inFrance andSwitzerlandandan investigationof the extra-linguistic factorsinfluencingthesesimilaritiesanddifferences,willbepresented.

3.1 OVERVIEWOFTHESURVEYRESULTSOverall,theresultsoftheinitialsurveysectionofthestudywereveryhomogenous,withall101respondents reporting similar experiences across the topics examined. As was discussed inChapter2,duetothenatureofthesurvey’sdistribution,thevastmajorityofrespondentsratedhighproficiencyinthedialectwithintheDialectProficiencyIndex(DPI),totheextentthatonly17.8%ofrespondentsreportedlowerthanthemaximumDPIof10,andtheoverallaverageofthecohortwas9.5.Oftherespondentswhoreportedlowerthantotalproficiency,theaverageDPIwasstill7.5,suggestingthatwithinthecohortofrespondents,eveninthosewhowouldnotreportacompleteleveloffluency,proficiencywasstillfairlyhigh.

Anumberofrespondents(8)specificallyreportedinadditiontotheDPImeasurementthattheyconsideredthedialect(mostbroadlyreferredtoasAlemannic)theirfirstlanguageormothertongue,andthattheyspeakitmorecomfortablythantheydoStandardGerman.

Theoverwhelmingtrendtowardshighproficiencyisaclearresultofaselectionbiasasaresultof theassociationwith theMuettersproch-Gsellschaft, in thatwhenaskingacommunitygroupinterestedinthepreservationofdialects,theirattitudesandusagewilllikelybeskewedto a more positive standpoint. Similarly, more publicly available information such as thenewspaper column were written in Alemannic, meaning that any new respondents gainedwouldhaveahighproficiencybyvirtueofbeingabletounderstandthecolumn.Thisbiaswillbeaddressedingreaterdetaillater.Thismeantthatconclusionsastothedemographicnatureofthedialect-speakingpopulationinSouthBadencouldnotdirectlybedrawn.

That said, by comparing the demographics of the data collected with generaldemographics from the region, conclusions can be drawnabout the demographicmakeup ofrespondents in contrast to thewider population.Again,while there is no guarantee that therespondentsarerepresentativeofdialectspeakersasawhole,theyarerepresentativeofattheveryleastasubsetoftheGsellschaft’smembershipthatisinterestedenoughintheiruseofthedialect to takepart in the study.Evenwith this limitedviewof the representativenessof thedatapoolcollected,theanystatisticallysignificantsimilaritiesordifferencesbetweenthedatapoolandthewiderregionwouldstillbemeaningfulforanassessmentofthedemographicsofpeoplewithahigherinterestinthedialect.

For this comparison, data were collected from the Baden-Württemberg stategovernment statistics department (Statistisches Landesamt)5. The statistics departmentpublishesdataonagedistribution,educationlevel,employmentetc.eitheratastatelevel,oronamuchmorefine-grainedlevelofdetail.

5https://www.statistik-bw.de/

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Atagenerallevel,therewasahighdegreeofagreementacrossthemajorityofquestionsregarding respondents’ attitudes towardsAlemannic in their everyday lives. Eight out of theninestatementshadanagreementrateofover50%(thatis,overhalfofthecohortrespondedthat they agreed or strongly agreed with these statements), while five of these eight hadagreementratesofover70%. Therewasnocorrelation identifiedbetweenanydemographicfeaturesandattitudes,thoughsomecorrelationwasidentifiedbetweenrespondents’responsestocertainattitudestatements.

ThemajorityofrespondentsalsoeitherindicatedthattheywoulduseAlemannicacrossthedomainslistedonthesurvey,orspecificallystatedthattheywoulduseitwhereverpossible.Some respondents, however, did indicate marginally more limited usage, broadly speakingfollowing a pattern in the decline of their usage. That is, usage of Alemannic was morecommonlyavoidedincertainareasthanothers.

3.2 OVERVIEWOFTHEINTERVIEWSInterviewswereconductedoveranumberofdifferentplatforms,dependingonwhatwasmostcomfortable and accessible for the interviewee. While it would have been optimal to useaudio/visual platforms for all interviews, time zone differences, as well as lower levels oftechnological literacythanwereinitiallyexpected,madethischallenging.Assuch,whilesomeinterviewswerestillconductedoverZoom,otherwereconductedasynchronouslyviaE-MailorFacebook. In these asynchronous cases, the initial questionswere sent to the interviewee aspart of the initial enquiry as to their interest in taking part, and the interviewees providedwrittenresponsestothequestions.Followupquestionswerethensentwherefurtherquestionsarose,orwherequestionsarose fromresponsesgivenby the interviewees in thesurvey.Thisprocess continued where further questions arose in their subsequent responses. Thisasynchronous approach greatly limited the rapport or trust that could be built between theinterviewerandthe interviewee,as theconversationwasmuchmore limited tothe topicandmore formal thanwhen the interviewswere conducted on Zoom in real time. Similarly, thewordingofquestionscouldnotberestructuredorclarifiedwheresomethingeitherhadalreadybeendiscussedby the interviewee, orwasunclear to them. Itwasalsomuchharder to elicitanecdotesorstoriesfromintervieweesovertheasynchronousplatforms.Theflexibilityoftime,however, did allow questions to be more in-depth and thought through than follow-upquestionsintheliveinterviews.Thisbenefitwaslargelyovershadowedbytheaforementionedissues,butunfortunatelytheseinterviewsprovedunavoidableduetothelogisticalchallengesoftimingandtechnology.

3.3 DEMOGRAPHICSCOMPARISONThe dramatic bias in the results towards high proficiency speakers is a clear result of themethodological bias discussed in Section 3.1, and as such, the demographic spread ofrespondentstothisstudycannotinisolationdemonstrateanytrendsintheusageofAlemannicincomparisontothewiderpopulation.Thedata,canhowever,beregardedasarepresentationofthedemographicmakeupoftheAlemannic-speakingpopulationinSouthBaden,which,whencomparedtodemographicmeasurementsofthepopulationasawhole,coulddemonstratesometrends.

ThisdataisavailablefromtovaryinglevelsofspecificityfromtheBaden-WürttembergStatistischesLandesamtasdescribedabove.Some summariesareonlyavailableata full statelevel,whileothersareavailable forspecificadministrativeareasacrossanumberof levelsof

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government,namelyatthestatelevel,bythefourhighlevelRegierungsbezirke(governmentaldistricts), one of two regional levels Regionverbände (regional associations) or Landkreise(districts),orthelocalGemeinde(municipalities).

ThesurveyregionmostcloselycoveredtheSüdlicherOberrhein(SouthernUpperRhine)andHochrhein-Bodensee(HighRhine-LakeConstance)Regionverbände.Theagedata for thesetworegionscorrelatedtoadegreeof98.9%(Pearson’sCorrelationCoefficient),andassuch,forthe sake of simplicity, only the age distribution of the Südlicher Oberrhein was used forcomparison, along with the age distribution of the survey data and the state-level data. Thestate-level data was added as an extra reference for the general population in case it wasdifferenttotheregionalleveldata,thoughthisprovedtonotbethecase.

In the threedatasources,agesweregrouped into10-yearagebrackets, starting from20-29yearsold(thebracketoftheyoungestsurveyrespondent),andextendingto80-89yearsold(theagebracketoftheoldestrespondent).Inordertoscalethesethreesourcestoasimilarrange, each age bracketwas calculated as the percentage of the total population in the datasource.Withthedatasourcesscaledtoapercentagemeasurementasopposedtorawnumbers(which, given their different scopes, had wildly different ranges), they could be accuratelycomparedtodeterminesimilaritiesordifferences.ThiscomparisonisshowninFigure3.1.

Figure3.1:Agedistributionofsurveyrespondents,comparedtoagedistributionsofthegeneralpopulation

fromregionalandstatedemographicdata

FromthedatashowninFigure3.1,namelythesimilaritybetweenthestateandregionaldata,along with the aforementioned close correlation between the Südlicher Oberrhein andHochrhein-Bodenseeregions, it isclear that there isnomeaningfuldifferencebetweentheagedistributions in the general population. Of far greater note, however, is the clear differencebetweentheagedistributionofthegeneralpopulationmeasuresandthedistributionofsurveyrespondents. While there is an overall similarity between the trends of slightly higherproportions of older people, the difference is far stronger in the survey data. Figure 3.2highlightsthismoreclearly,showingonlythedifferencebetweensurveydataandtheregionalagedistribution.While inbothcases, therewasahigherproportionofolderpeople, thisleanwasmuchstrongerinthesurveydata,withthe60-69agebracketmakingupabout23%ofthe

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surveydata, comparedto about15.5%regionally, for adifferenceof almost8%betweenthetwomeasures.

Figure3.2:Overandunderrepresentationofagegroupsinthesurveyrespondentscomparedtooverall

regionaldata

Assuming that the data collected is a representative cross-section of the Alemannic-speakingpopulationinSouthBaden,thissuggeststhattheyoungergenerationsareeithera)speakingthedialectless,orb)lessinterestedinpreservationthanoldergenerations,byvirtueofnottakingpart in the surveyornotbeingmembersof theMuettersproch-Gsellschaft,when compared toolder generations.Regardless, thissuggests adiachronic shift in thepositionofAlemannic inSouthBaden,withitsusagedeclininginthelast30years.

Unfortunately, it isnotpossible toquantify thisdeclinewith thedataacquired, in thesame sense that it is not possible to measure what proportion of the population speakAlemannic. That is, it can be seen above that the Alemannic-speaking community is likelyproportionallyskewedtowardsoldergenerations,butwhatproportionthiscommunitymakesupofthegeneralpopulationcannotbedetermined.

Theinterviewprocess,however,didallowsomeobservationsonthewiderdistributionofAlemannicinthegeneralpopulationtobemade,aswellasonitsusageincitiescomparedtosmaller towns. One interviewee in the 20-29 age bracket who grew up in a smaller town(Interviewee A) felt that, even though it would have been unusual or unprofessional to useAlemannicintheworkplace,mostoftheirco-workerswouldbeabletospeakit.Theyfeltthat,eventhoughtherewerefeweropportunitiesforyoungerpeopletospeakAlemannic,namelyintheworkplaceoratuniversity,theywouldstillhavedecentlevelsofproficiency,assumingtheywerefromanAlemannic-speakingregion.IntervieweeBisasecondintervieweefromthesameagebracket,butwhocamefromFreiburg,themaincityintheregion.TheintervieweenotablycannotspeakanyAlemannic.IntervieweeBreportedthat,southofFreiburgintheUpperRhinecorridortoBasel,youngpeopledostillspeakAlemannic“athomeorwiththeirgrandparents,orwith their friend circles at home”. In Freiburg, however, this is not the case, where theintervieweereportedthatyoungpeoplemuchmorerarelyuseitineverydaylife.

An older interviewee in the 70-79 age bracket from outside a mid-sized town(Interviewee C) reported that they felt their town was still a “dialectal or colloquial city”(IntervieweeC),and thatwhilemostpeople(theysuggestafigureof80%fortheirvillageontheoutskirtsofthemaintown)therewouldspeakAlemannic,thatmightnotbethecaseinthe

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university cities such as Freiburg. This seems to agree with the experiences reported byIntervieweesAandB,thatinalargeruniversitycitysuchasFreiburgtherearelowerratesofAlemannicproficiencythaninsmallertownsandvillages.

Ofthesurveyrespondents,16%reportedhavinggrownupinacity(Freiburg,Konstanz,Villingen-Schwenningen, Offenburg, or Lörrach, all with a population of around or above50,000). This,when compared to the general demographics, inwhich approximately40% ofpeopleliveinthesecities(comparedtothetotalpopulationoftheRegierungsbezirkFreiburg),suggestsalso thatAlemannic speakersmore commonly come fromsmaller townsor villages,and thatAlemannic is less common in the region’smajor cities,asshown inFigure3.3(a). Infact,29%ofthepopulationoftheRegierungsbezirkFreiburgliveinthecityofFreiburgitself,which is the largest city in the regionby a largemargin.Despite this, only7%of the surveyrespondentsreportedhavinggrownupthere.Whilethisisahigherpercentagethanmostothertowns, as there are many small towns only reported once or twice, the proportion ofrespondentswhogrewupoutsidethecityisstillmuchhigherthanitwouldbeiftheAlemannic-speakingpopulationwasevenlyspreadthroughouttheregion.ThisdisparityisshowninFigure3.3(b).

Figure3.3:Comparisonbetweenthedistributionofpopulationbetween(a)ruralvscity,and(b)Freiburgvs

outsideFreiburginthegeneralpopulationandthesurveycohort.

3.4 USAGESurveyrespondentswerepresentedwith fourteenstatementsofsituationsintheirdaily livestheymightormightnotuseAlemannic,towhichtheywereaskedtorespondwitheitherYesorNo.Thesepromptsweregroupedintothreesections:locations,age,andstatus.ThefullsetofpromptsareavailableinAppendixI:SurveyQuestions.

Analysis of responses to these prompts was either done by Pearson CorrelationCoefficient calculations, manual calculations of percentages, or manual observation usingconditionalformatting.ThisanalysiswasallundertakenusingMicrosoftExcel.ForthePearsonCorrelation Coefficient calculations, numerical data was needed. As such, the “Yes” and “No”responses were converted into 1 and 2 respectively, allowing the formula to interpret theresponses.Correlationcoefficientsofabove0.5(50%)weretakentobesignificant.

Overall, general levels of usage were very high across all areas. 61% of respondentsanswered“Yes” toall14prompts, indicated thattheywoulduseAlemannicacrosstheirdailylivesinanycontext.Itshouldbenotedthatthesepromptswerelimitedtosituationswheretherespondent’s conversation partner also spoke Alemannic. As such,while a respondentmight

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havereportedbeingpreparedtouseAlemannicinalldomainsoftheireverydaylife,iftheydonotinteractwithmanyotherAlemannicspeakers,theiractualusageofthedialectmayprovetobesubstantiallylower.Veryfewproficientparticipantsreportedanythinglessthan50%oftheprompts; while 61% of respondents reported “Yes” to all 14 prompts, 93% of respondentsreported“Yes”toatleasthalfoftheprompts.Thisrapiddrop-offisshowninFigure3.4.

Figure3.4:Numberofrespondentswhoreportedagivennumberofsituationsinwhichtheywoulduse

Alemannic

WherearespondentreportedthattheydidnotuseAlemannicineverydomainofeverydaylife,therewasapatternastowheretheyweremorelikelytoavoidusingit.Ifarespondentreportedonly13domains,theonedomaintheywouldnotuseAlemannicwasconsistentlyeitherwithanemployer or a stranger. This was followed by further formal situations such as the widerworkplace,andthenshopassistantsandpublicservants.ThisisreminiscentoftheimplicationscaledescribedbyGal(1979),wherebyspeakerswhousetheLvarietyinfewersituationscanbepredictedtoavoiditinthesamesituations,followingaregularpatternofdomainsavoidedaslevelofavoidanceincreases.

Noclearcorrelationbetweenageandamountofusagewasidentified,withacorrelationcoefficientofonly0.15whentheagebracketsandnumbersof“Yes”responsesofrespondentswerecompared.However,thereappearstobesomecorrelationbetweenamountofusageandwhetherornottherespondentisretired.Ofthesurveycohort,31%respondentsreportedthattheywereretired,ofwhich74%reportedwidespreadusageofAlemannic(answered“Yes”toall14prompts).Ofthenon-retirees,however,only54%reportedasimilarlevelofusage,whilethe remaining46%reportedat least one situationwhere theywouldnot feel comfortableorwouldnotbepreparedtospeakAlemannic.Figure3.5showsthisimbalance.

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Figure3.5:Thesurveycohortsplitbyretirementstatusandusagelevel(usageacrossallareasvsusage

acrosssomeareas).NotethecomparativelysmallsegmentofRetiredLowUsage.

Theleastcommonreportedenvironmentforusagewaswithemployers,whichstillhadarateof“Yes” responses of 69%. This was further reflected in the interviews undertaken. As notedabove,IntervieweeAfeltthat,eventhoughtheyandanumberoftheirco-workerscouldspeakAlemannic, itwouldbeunprofessional,or,attheveryleast,strangetodosointheworkplace.They also reported that they felt itmightprove challenging touseAlemannic there, as therewouldbeanamountoffield-specificvocabularythatdoesn’tnecessarilyexistinAlemannic.Asaresult, it is usual forworkplace interactions tobe conducted entirely in StandardGerman. Inaddition to this, Interviewee A reported an expectation that, when they retired in howevermany years, theywould likely use Alemannicmuchmore exclusively. This reflects the trendmentionedabove, inwhich retireesweremore likely touseAlemannicacross alldomainsofeverydaylife.

SpeakingwithstrangersonthestreetwasanotherdomainthatwasoftenreportedasasituationwheretheuseofAlemannicwouldbemorecommonlyavoided.Furtherinsightsintothiswere also gained from the interviews;aspreviouslymentioned, IntervieweeC suggestedthat,intheirvillage,some80%ofthepopulationwouldspeakAlemannic,butthatthiswouldn’tbe thecase inlargercities.Assuch, it isunderstandable thatonewouldbe lessable tospeakAlemannicwithstrangersinalargercity,whereoneislessabletobeconfidentthatotherswillspeakit.Itdifficulttodeterminewithconfidenceifthisisreflectedbythedata;ofthesubsetofrespondents who grew up in cities, 28% reported that they would not use Alemannic withstrangers. In respondentswhogrewup in smaller towns, however, 23%reported this.Whilethis seems to agreewith theobservationsof IntervieweeC, thedifference is not enormouslystrong.

Tosumupthusfar,itappearsthatAlemannicspeakersusetheirdialectquitebroadlyineverydaylife,butthatthereareanumberoffactorsthatinfluencehowwidelythisisapplicable.Whilenostrongcorrelationwithagewasspecificallyidentified,atendencyforretireestouseAlemannicmorewidelywasobserved,aswasatendencyforspeakersfromoutsidetheregion’smajorcities(thoughthiswaspredominantlynotedqualitatively).Similarly,thedomainswhereAlemannicisleastlikelytobeusedincludetheworkplace,whereco-workersmightnotbelocaland there is jargon used that only exists in Standard German, andwith strangers, especiallywhereitislesslikelythattheyspeakAlemannic.Itseemsassuch,thattheusageofAlemannicbyitsspeakersisgovernedpredominantlybypossibility,thatis,ifitislikelyorknownthatanindividual’sconversationpartnerhasalevelofproficiencyinAlemannic,andifAlemannichas

Unretired High Usage

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the vocabulary necessary for the conversation topic, they will use it. Otherwise, StandardGermanwillbeused.

3.5 ATTITUDESTheattitudesofrespondentstowardsthecurrentstateofAlemannicandtheirusageofitwasmeasured through a set of nine or ten statements, towhich respondentswere asked to ratetheiragreementonaLikertscaleoffiveoptions,rangingfrom“StronglyDisagree”to“StronglyAgree”. These ratingswere then converted to numerical values from one to five, in order tocompletesimilarmathematicalanalysesasdescribedwithregardstotheusageabove.

It does not come as a surprise, given the selection bias, that respondents generallyspeaking had favourable attitudes towards Alemannic in their everyday lives. All but onestatement had greater than 50% of respondents respondingwith either “Agree” or “StronglyAgree”,asisshowninFigure3.6.Asidefromthisgeneralpositivity,fewcorrelationscouldbefoundbetweeneitherattitudesanddemographics,orbetweenresponsestothevariousattitudestatements.

Figure3.6:Divisionofeachattitudesstatementbetweenthefivepossibleresponses

Prior to the survey section on attitudes, respondents were asked whether or not they hadchildren.Thiswasinordertoshowthemappropriatequestionsregardingtheintergenerationaltransmission of Alemannic; thosewho did not have childrenwere asked if theywould teachAlemannictotheirchildren,whilethosewhodidwereaskedbothiftheypreviouslyhad,aswellasiftheystillwouldtoday.

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I could use(dialect)formally.

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to mychildren.

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(dialect) playsa role in that

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as people whodo.

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Strongly Disagree Disagree Neutral Agree Strongly Agree

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Correlationwasmeasuredbothbetweenresponsestothestatementsandrespondents’ageandproficiencylevel.Nocorrelationwasidentifiedbetweenageandproficiency,andanyoftheattitudestatements.Thissuggests that, regardlessofageandproficiency level,Alemannicspeakershaveagenerallyhighopinionoftheirdialectwithregardstoitsroleintheirlifeandidentity, as well as a level of support for its preservation. It also suggests that none of thespecificstatementsweremoreorlesslikelytoapplytoacertaingroup.

Despite the low correlation between who was giving each what response to eachstatement,therewasaremarkablelevelofsimilaritybetweenthedistributionsofresponsesforeachstatement.Whilethehigherresponses(NeutraltoStronglyAgree)werefairlymixed,inthesense that itwasnot thesamesetofpeopleresponding thesamewaytoeachstatement, thelower responses seemed to be from a set of people who responded with lower levels ofagreementtoallstatements.

One statement, however, was substantially more controversial. Statement (g) askedrespondentsiftheyfeltthatcommunitymemberswhodidnotspeakAlemannichadlessclaimoveror right to the local identity than thosewhodid speak it (SeeFigure3.6 for theprecisewording of the question in English). This statement directly followed two statementsestablishingthehowtherespondentfelttheirhometownandAlemannicplayedaroleintheiridentity.Whilebothoftheprecedingstatementswere,broadlyspeaking,agreedon(78%and86%agreementrespectively),statement(g)hadonly26%agreement,while22%wereneutraland52%disagreed.ThissuggeststhatthemajorityofAlemannicspeakers(byasmallmargin)feelboththattheirhometownanduseofAlemannicplaypartoftheiridentity,butatthesametime that this doesnot constitute a requirement for personal associationwith the region. Offurther interest here, however, is the fairly drastic split in responses. Amajority of 52% ofrespondents hold this stance, and the other 48% either agree with the statement, or hold aneutralopiniononthestatement.Further,thereappearstobeasmalltendencyforAlemannic-speakersfromcitiestoagreewiththisstatementtoagreaterdegree:33%ofrespondentsfromcitiesreportedagreement(stronglyorotherwise)withthestatement,while,ontheotherhand,only25%ofrespondentsfromtownsandvillagesreportedagreement.Thiscouldreflectthatinlargercities,thelowlevelofAlemannicproficiencysurroundingAlemannicspeakersinlifehasencouraged them to consider Alemannic more important in their own identity. Measuringaverageresponsestrength,however,seemstominimisethistrend,withanaverageratingof2.5(where1is“StronglyDisagree”,3is“Neutral”,and5is“StronglyAgree”)inrespondentsfrommoreruralareas,comparedto2.6inrespondentsfromcities.Thisseemstosuggestthat,whilethereisahigherlevelofagreementwiththestatementincities,thedisagreementisconverselyalsostronger,bringingtheaveragebackdown.

As previously mentioned, there was some amount of internal correlation within theattitudestatements.Forexample,respondentswhoreportedthattheiridentitywastiedtotheirhometown also reported that Alemannic played a large role in this identity (correlationcoefficient 0.66). Similarly, respondents who reported that they either had or would teachAlemannic to their children also reported that Alemannic played a role in their identity(correlationcoefficient0.62).

Reports from interviewees agreed with the conclusions drawn from the survey,especially with regard to the place of Alemannic in speakers’ identities. One intervieweereported that they felt Alemannic was a connection to their home, and subsequently theiridentity.GiventhatAlemannicisasectionofadialectcontinuum,thereisdialectalvariationonaverysmallgeographicscale,fromvillagetovillage.Accordingtothisinterviewee,theyfeltthat

25

their personal form of Alemannic tied them not only to the South Baden region, but to theirhometown.TheytoldastoryofatimetheywereonaworktripinnorthernGermany,whereastranger overheard their Alemannic and recognised it. In the subsequent conversation, aconnection that the interviewee felt only occurred because of their shared knowledge ofAlemannic, it turned out the stranger was from a village very near to the interviewee’shometown.

Much like its usage, the attitudesheldbyAlemannic speakers towards their languageare generally very favourable. They tend to support its continued transmission to youngergenerations,andfeelthatitformspartoftheiridentitybytyingthemtotheirhometown.TherespondentshadaveryevenmixofopinionsonwhetherornottheyfeltthattheirknowledgeofAlemannic entitled them to any exclusivityof access to this local identity.Despite theoverallagreement, there were a small number of respondents to all statements (other than thecontroversial(g))whodidnotagreewiththemajority,thoughtheredidnotappeartobeanydemographicpatternsintheserespondents.

3.6 SUMMARYFrom the data collected in the survey and the interviews, along with comparisons to widerdemographicdata,anumberofconclusionscanbedrawn:

1. TheAlemannic-speakingpopulationis,onaverage,olderthanthegeneralpopulation2. Alemannic is more commonly learnt and used in smaller towns and villages than in

cities3. Alemannicisusedbyitsspeakerswhereverpossibleineverydaylife

a. Its use is only avoided when other might not speak it or when necessaryvocabularyexistsonlyinStandardGerman

4. Alemannicspeakersseetheirlanguageasapartoftheiridentitya. This identity isclosely tied to the individual’shometownandthegeographical

identifiabilityoftheformsofAlemannicb. There are mixed opinions about whether or not Alemannic proficiency is a

requirementforclaimtoregionalidentity5. Alemannic speakers generally support the transmission of their language to new

generationsa. This support is tied to their sense of identity with the dialect and their

hometownThese conclusions carry a number of implications. The aging Alemannic-speaking

demographicsuggeststhat,althoughthecommunitycurrentlysupportsthetransmissionofthelanguage,therehasbeenadeclineinitstransmissionoverthepastfewgenerations.Thatsaid,some of the age distribution could also be explained by the fewer opportunities to useAlemannicpresentedtoyoungerpeople;notonlyistherealargeamountoftechnicallanguagecovered inuniversities, limiting theuseofAlemannic,butuniversitiesarerestricted to largercitieswith smaller Alemannic-speaking populations, further limiting the use of the language.There is also a possible self-sustaining loop of declining usage surrounding the usage ofAlemannicincities.Thatis,Alemannicspeakersusethelanguagewheretheircounterpartalsolikelyspeaksit,sothelesslikelyit isthatastrangerwillspeakAlemannic,thelesslikelyit isthat an individual will use it. As the likelihood of an Alemannic-speaker using the languagedrops,sotoodoesa)thelikelihoodthatanotherAlemannicspeakerwillbeawarethattheycanspeakitandb)thelikelihoodthatitwillbepassedontotheirchildren,asitnotusedintheir

26

everyday life. Both of these events decrease the likelihood that a stranger would speakAlemannic, or that an Alemannic-speaker would recognise that a stranger could speakAlemannic,creatingacycleofdecreasingusage.Thisprocesswouldrequirethestartinglevelofusage tobe fairly low in the firstplace, limiting ittocities,whereusagehasbeenreportedininterviewstobelow.

AsimilarpatternofusageintheAlemanniccommunityinBadenwasfoundbyBister-Broosen(1996),thoughwithamorelimitedscopeintermsofthedomainsofusethanwhathasbeen identified in the current study 25 years later. She suggests that this followsa ‘“typical”patternofdialectloss’(Bister-Broosen1996:153),thoughmakesnocommentonthesubjectiveattitudesoftheAlemannic-speakingpopulationinBaden.

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4 OVERVIEWOFALEMANNICINFRANCEANDSWITZERLANDInordertofurtherinvestigatetheimplicationsofthefindingsinChapter3,andtoexpandtheminto amore widely applicable case study, it is useful to examine previous research into theusage of and attitudes towards Alemannic in the other major Alemannic-speaking regions:Alsace, France, and German-speaking Switzerland, and to compare and contrast thesedescriptionsofdialectusage,asperresearchquestion(2)outlinedinChapter1.2.3.Assuch,thischapterwillprovidebriefintroductoryoverviewsoftheregionsinquestiontobetterappreciatethe sociohistorical and political contexts of the countries, andwill summarise the usage andattitudestowardsAlemannicinthesetworegionsinothercountries.Chapter5willexaminethepossiblecausesofanydivergenceorconvergenceidentifiedhere.

4.1 ALSACE

4.1.1 REGIONALOVERVIEWAlsaceisahistoricregionsituatedinfarnorth-easternFrance,comprisingalargesectionoftheborderregionbetweenFranceandGermany.Throughouthistory,theregionhaschangedhandsbetweenGermanandFrenchpowersnumeroustimes,thoughhistoricallyalargeproportionofits inhabitants have been Alemannic-speaking. The local form of Alemannic, today notablydifferentiatedfromAlemannicinGermanybyitsFrenchloanwordsandinfluences, isreferredtoasAlsatian(Elsässisch(al,de),Alsacien(fr))(Harrison2016).

Alsace is predominantly a flat region, lying on the plain of the Rhine river, the riverformingtheFrench/Germanbordertotheregion’seast.

Figure4.1:TheFrenchdepartmentsofHaut-RhinandBas-Rhinarehighlightedinblue

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Administratively, the region is split between twodepartmentsHaut-Rhin (Upper Rhine) andBas-Rhin(LowerRhine).The termsupperand lowerhererefer to theirposition inrelationtothe flow of the Rhine River,meaning Bas-Rhin sits directly to the north of Haut-Rhin. Thesedepartments,themiddleofthreelevelsofregionalgovernmentinFrance,currentlyfallunderthenewlycreatedGrandEstregion.Theyare,however,settogainspecialstatusasthenewlyformedEuropeanCollectivity ofAlsace from the beginningof 2021.Thepolitics surroundingthesechangeswillbediscussedfurtherinChapter5.

TheeconomicandpoliticalcentreofAlsaceisthecityofStrasbourg,locatedintheBas-Rhin department. Strasbourg, being home to the European Parliament headquarters, and, assuch,toanumberofotherinternationalinstitutions,isapoliticalcentreonaEuropeanscale,aswellasbeingthecapitaloftheGrandEstregion.ThecityalsoformsacentreofthetransnationalStrasbourg-Ortenaumetropolitanarea,anareawitha totalpopulationof justshyof1million(Eurodistrict2017).

The capital of theHaut-Rhindepartment is the cityofColmar, though the largest city(andsecondlargest inAlsace) isMulhouse.Aside fromasmaller internationalairportoutsideStrasbourg,muchofAlsace,especiallytheHaut-Rhin,aswellastheSwisscityofBaselandtheGerman city of Freiburg, are served by the transnationally administered Basel-Mulhouse-FreiburgairportoutsideMulhouse(UniondesAéroportsFrançais2018).

AlsaceisoneofthewealthiestregionsinFrancepercapita.In2017,ithadFrance’sthirdhighestGDPpercapita,comprising2.6%ofthetotalnationalGDP(Palen2019).TheGrandEstregionhasahigherlevelofindustrialisationthantheaverageinFrance,especiallyintheareasurrounding Colmar in Haut-Rhin (Manné and Vuillier-Deviller 2020). This higher level ofindustrialisation (though by nomeans is the region totally industrialised) is reflected in thePeugeot factory in Mulhouse, as well as the city’s two industrial museums, the Cité del’AutomobileandtheCitéduTrain.OthermajoremployersintheregionincludebusinessandgovernmentinStrasbourg,alongwithwinegrowingandbeerbrewing(Ray2017).

4.1.2 DIALECTSITUATION4.1.2.1 UsageIn2012 theOffice for theLanguage andCultureofAlsace6 (OLCA) conducted a studyon thevitalityandusageofAlsatianinAlsaceatthetime.Thestudycomprisedatelephonesurveyto801peopleovertheageof18,balancedforgender,ageandprofession,aswellasgeographicalfeaturessuchasregionandsizeoftown.

The study reported that 43% of the population still had high levels of proficiency inAlsatian, while 32% could speak or understand it to varying degrees, with 25% having noproficiency in the language (OLCA 2012). The same report found that older generations hadmuchhigherlevelsofproficiencythanyoungergenerations,asillustratedbyFigure4.2.

6L'OfficepourlaLangueet lesCulturesd'AlsaceetdeMoselle(fr),DasAmtfürSpracheundKulturimElsass(de),ElsassischesSprochàmt(al)

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Figure4.2:Alsatian-speakingproportionofeachagegroup(adaptedfromOLCA2012:8)

Only12%ofpeoplefrom18-29canspeakAlsatian,while74%ofpeople60andoverreportedproficiency in the language.Therateatwhichproficiencydroppedoffhasslowed inyoungerpeople; there is a difference of 30% between the proportion of speakers in the 45-59 agebracket and the30-44, however there is onlyadifferenceof 12%betweenthe youngest twobrackets.

Geographically,there isahigherrateofusagereported in thenortherndepartmentofAlsace,Bas-Rhin(Unterelsàss(al)),thaninthesouthernHaut-Rhin(Owerelsàss(al)),with46%and38%of theregionalpopulationsrespectively.Proficiency isalsoreportedtobehigher insmalltownsthaninlargetowns,witharateof54%insmalltowns,comparedtoonly21%inlargetownsorcities7(OLCA2012),asillustratedinFigure4.3.Thestudyalsoreportsthat95%ofspeakerslearntthelanguagethroughtheirfamily,whilesmallnumbersreportedlearningthelanguagethroughschoolorfromneighboursorfriends.

7 The source uses the French commune, an administrative district typically encompassing a singlesettlementregardlessofsize,ratherthandistinguishingtowns,villages,orcities.

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Figure4.3:Alsatian-speakingproportionoftownsbypopulation(adaptedfromOLCA2012:9)

4.1.2.2 AttitudesHarrison (2016) investigates the relationship of Alsatian and Standard German in schools inAlsace, contrasting theattitudesofparentsof childrenenrolled in various schools.The studysurveystwotypesofschoolsacrossthreeregions.ABCMschools,comparedtostandardpublicschoolsinthestudy,arespecial‘associativeschools’8runbytheAssociationpourlebilinguismedèslaclassedematernelle(Associationforbilingualismfrompre-school),ofwhichthereareatotal of 10 acrossAlsace andMoselle.These schools, importantly, teachbilingually inFrenchandStandardGerman,withAlsatian takingamore informal role in the classroom. Schools ofthesetypesfromStrasbourg,thelargestcityoftheregionandcentreofgovernment,alongwithtwosmallertowns,SaverneandHaguenau,werecomparedontopicssuchastheimportanceofAlsatiananditsroleinschooling.

ThestudyreportsthatparentsacrossallschoolsfeltthatAlsatianisstill importantforregionalculture(average89.8%agreement), thoughagreementwashighest inABCMschoolsand lowest inpublic schools in Strasbourg.Aparallel to thequestion asked in the surveyonSouthBadeninthisthesis,parentswerealsoaskedwhethertheyfeltthatAlsatianproficiencywasnecessary for feelingAlsatian.Anoverallaverageof 67.7%of respondentsdidnot thinkthat language proficiency was a requirement for association with the Alsatian identity. ThissentimentwashighestintheABCMschoolsinStrasbourgandSaverne,whilebeinglowestintheABCMschoolinHaguenau.

TheOLCAstudyalsoaskedanumberofquestionsregarding theattitudesofAlsatianstowards the language, with general results being broadly positive. There was, however, aconsistenttrendforrespondentsinthe18-29agebrackettoratethelanguagelesshighly.Thisappeared to varyingdegrees across each prompt; the percentage of agreementwas only2%higher in young people than overallwhen asked if it was embarrassing to have an AlsatianaccentinFrench(34%vs36%),whereastherewasadifferenceof11%betweenyoungpeopleand overall when commenting on whether or not proficiency in Alsatian was a professionalasset(79%agreementvs68%).

8Écolesassociatives,translationfromHarrison(2016:284),are“anetworkofprivateregionallanguageschools”thatexistacrossFranceandteachregionallanguagessuchasBasque,Catalan,andhereAlsatian.

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ThesesurveyssuggestanoverallpositiveattitudetowardstheuseandpreservationofAlsatian,whichreflectsthehistoryandcomplexityoftheAlsatianidentityasseparatetothatofboth France and Germany. The long-lasting regionalist movement, which has seen recentpoliticalsuccessinthegreaterautonomytobegrantedtoAlsacefromthebeginningof2021,islikelyamajorforcebehindthispositivity,andwillbediscussedindetailinChapter5.

4.2 SWITZERLAND

4.2.1 REGIONALOVERVIEWSwitzerlandisanofficiallymultilingualnation,withfourlanguagesholdingpositionasofficiallanguages;German,French,Italian,andRomansch.Thisdoesnotmean,however,thatthesefourlanguages are spokenequally throughout the country.German is the soleofficial language incentral,northern,andeasternSwitzerland,andoneofmultipleofficiallanguagesinCantonsonthe border region (see Figure 4.4). Despite the officially multilingual status of Switzerland,German is spoken by over 60% of the population, while French, Italian and Romansch arespokenby23%,8%and0.5%ofthepopulationrespectively(BundesamtfürStatistik2020).

Figure4.4:SwissCantonswithonlyGermanasanofficiallanguage,indicatedwithblue,andcantonswith

Germanasanofficiallanguagealongsideotherlanguage(s),indicatedwithorange

The languagesspoken inSwitzerland for themostpartreflect languagesspoken inborderingcountries. That is, with the exception of Romansch, spoken endemically in the canton ofGraubünden in South-Eastern Switzerland, the languages of Switzerland reflect the majoritylanguage of (approximately) the nearest foreign country. This multilingualism is in part a

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reflectionofthenation’shistoryasaconfederationofhistoricallyindependentstatesthatgrewoveraperiodofseveralhundredyears(Fahrni1997).

Switzerland initially formed, at least in legend, as an alliance in the late 13th centurybetween three rural localities, Uri, Schwyz (whencemodern Swiss), andUnterwalden, in anattempt to exercise greater independence and autonomy fromHapsburg rule (Fahrni 1997).Over time this union grew and spread,withmore regionalpowers joining. The neutrality ofSwitzerland stems from this history of independence and sentiments of autonomy, andwasrecognisedinitscurrentformaftertheCongressofViennain1815,whenNapoleonicruleintheCantonswasendedandtheconfederationrevertedtoitshistorical,highlyfeudalstructure.Thecontemporaryfederalstate,however,didnotcomeaboutuntilmajorpoliticalunrestledtothecreation and implementation of a new constitution creating a more powerful federalgovernment and providing more equal governmental representation, as well as providing aunifiedcurrency,andfreedomofmovementwithintheconfederation(Fahrni1997).

Switzerland, predominantly in the country’s southern half, is dominated by the SwissAlps, among thehighestmountains inEurope.The range ispredominantlyGerman-speaking,with the Italian-speaking regions on the southern side, and Romansch communities spreadthroughtheeast.NorthoftheAlpsliestheSwissPlateau,runningfromtheSouth-WestaroundGenevatotheNorth-EastandLakeConstance(visiblerunningthroughtheuppercentralpartofthecountryinFigure4.4).TheFrench-speakingregions,broadly,coverthefarwesternpartofthisplateau,theJuraMountainsvisibleonthenorthernsectionoftheborderwithFrance,andthefarwesternsectionoftheSwissAlps,alsoontheborderwithFrance.

Withthiswidevariationinlandscapes,rangingfromthegenerallyflatbuthillyplateautothedeepvalleysoftheAlps,thereisadenseamountofdialectalvariationintheAlemannicused throughout German-speaking Switzerland. Colloquially, Alemannic spoken in German-speaking Switzerland is referred to as Swiss German (Schweizerdeutsch (de), Schwiizerdütsch(al) amongother variations), asdifferentiated fromSwiss StandardGerman. Linguistically, asdiscussed in Chapter 1.2, the Alemannic varieties in Switzerland are grouped into threesubgroups, Lower Alemannic, spoken around the tri-border area under investigation here,HigherAlemannic,spokenthroughouttheSwissPlateauandthenorthernskirtsoftheAlps,andHighestAlemannic,spokendeeperinthevalleysoftheAlps(Russ1990a).

4.2.2 DIALECTSITUATIONThelinguisticsituationinGerman-speakingSwitzerlandisarchetypallydiglossic,andhasbeenstablysoforatleastthepast50years.Fishman(1967)givestherelationshipbetweenStandardGermanandAlemannic inSwitzerlandasanexampleofasociety inwhichbothdiglossiaandbilingualism occur, suggesting that the two varieties (classified by Fishman as separatelanguages through this classification) have established domains of use and functions, whereStandardGermanistheHvarietyandAlemannictheL.Thisdiglossicsituationdoesnotexist,however,forasmallsubsetofthepopulation,butratherisuniversalacrossthepopulationofGerman-speakingSwitzerland.

Alemannicdialects areused inGerman-speakingSwitzerland inallday-to-day spokencommunication regardless of the status or age of a speaker’s conversation partner, whileStandard German is used primarily for written communication. With the rise of internetcommunication and instantmessaging, and the rise in written informal language it brought,written Alemannic is growing in usage in younger people (Siebenhaar 2006). There are,

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however,somesituationswheretheuseofStandardGermaniseitherexpectedorspecificallymandated.

ThestatusofAlemannicandtheextenttowhichitisusedincontemporarySwitzerlandcan be immediately seen in the citizenship requirements for German-speaking Switzerland.Siebenhaar andWyler (1998) state that citizenship in the Canton of Zürich is, among otherthings,conditionalonanindividual’sabilitytounderstandandspeakAlemannictosomeextent.They also note that this requirement can be waivedwhere a candidate otherwisemeets allcriteriaforcitizenship.Whileit is,assuch,perhapsseenaslessimportantthanproficiencyinSwissStandardGerman,itisstillclearlyasalientenoughpartofGerman-speakingSwitzerland’slanguageuseastoaffordsucharequirement.

In federal government, theuseof StandardGermanoverAlemannic is arequirement;andimportantgovernmentannouncementssuchastheresultsofvotes(Switzerlandisadirectdemocracy as opposed to a representative democracy), are announced in Standard GermanalongwithFrench(SiebenhaarandWyler1998).Cantonalparliamentsareinconsistentintheirlanguage requirements. Of the officially multilingual cantons, all except Bern require HighGerman to be spoken. In Bern, Alemannic has a much higher status socially, and as such,German-speakingmembersof theparliament speakAlemannic.Themonolingual cantons aresimilarly divided – larger cantons tend to require Standard Germanwhile smaller ones tendallowAlemannic(SiebenhaarandWyler1998).SiebenhaarandWyler(1998)alsoreportthatprivatemediatendstouseAlemannicforbroadcastswithalocalscopebutStandardGermanfornational broadcasts (writtenmedia is all in Standard German). Public broadcasts, at least in1998, were split between Standard German official announcements and news, and morediscursivebroadcastinginAlemannic,butSiebenhaarandWyler(1998)reportatrendtowardsgreateruseofAlemannicinthemedia.Nationalcoverageremains,forreasonsofintelligibilityandclarity,inStandardGerman.AsAlemannicisspokeninthehome,childrentypicallydonotbegintolearnStandardGermanuntilschool,thefirstyearorsoofwhichistaughtinAlemannicbeforetransitioningtoStandardGermanfortherestoftheeducationsystem.

4.3 CROSS-BORDERCOMPARISONTable 4.1 shows the main similarities and differences between the usage situations ofAlemannicinthethreecountrieswhereitispredominantlyspoken.

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Table4.1:SummaryofsimilaritiesanddifferencesinusageofAlemannicinthethreecountries

SouthBaden,Germany Alsace,France

German-speakingSwitzerland

DiglossiainAlemannic-speakingpopulation(GSGerman/Alemannic)

DiglossiainAlemannic-speakingpopulation(SFrench/Alemannic)

Diglossiainwholepopulation(SSGerman/Alemannic)

Schooling Alemannicnotusedinschooloruniversity

StandardGermantaughtasaforeignlanguage,bilingualprivateschoolsteachinStandardFrench,StandardGermanandsomeAlsatian

Alemanniconlyusedinearliestyearsofschooling

SpeakerDemographics

Spokenby(unmeasured)subsetofthepopulation

Spokenfluentlyby43%ofthepopulation

Spokenbythewholepopulation

Spokenmoreinoldergenerations

Spokenmoreinoldergenerations

Spokenlessincities Spokenlessincities

It is immediately clear that there are a number of similarities betweenAlemannic in

Germany and France, while Switzerland is largely divergent. In both Germany and France,Alemannicisonlyspokenbyasubsetofthepopulation.InFrance,thisis43%ofthepopulation,whileinGermanythisstudywasunabletoprovideaprecisenumber. ThedistributionofthisAlemannic-speakingpopulationwithin the general regionalpopulation is also very similar inFrance and Germany. In both cases, older generations speak Alemannic more than youngergenerations.While thisdecline in usage seems tohave slowed in the youngest generation inFrance,itisdifficulttosayforsureifthisisacontinuingtrend.Ontheotherhand,nosuchtrendappears to be present in Germany at all, with the youngest age bracket being the mostunderrepresented in theAlemannic-speaking cohort. In addition, both countries showhigherlevelsofAlemannicproficiencyinsmallertownsandvillages,withmuchlowerlevelsinmajorcities.WhileattitudestowardsAlemannicwerehighinbothFranceandGermany,andbothfeltthat Alemannic formed a part of their identity while for the most part maintaining thatAlemannic proficiency was not a necessary part of the region identity, these feelings ofexclusivityofidentitywerehigherinGermancitiesthaninruralareas,butwerelowestincitiesinFrance.

These similarities are not seen in Switzerland for the clear reason that AlemannicproficiencyiswidespreadacrosstheentirenativepopulationofGerman-speakingSwitzerland,andassuchtheAlemannic-speakingpopulationandthegeneralpopulationarethesamecohort.

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This situation is drasticallydifferent to the fairly similar situation inFrance andGermany. ItshouldbenotedthatinSwitzerland,Alemannicproficiencyisnotconsistentlyarequirementfornaturalisation (though it sometimes is (Rash 1998)), so non-German-speaking Swiss orimmigrantstoSwitzerlandwillnotnecessarilyspeakAlemannic.

In none of the three countries does Alemannic have anymajor role in schooling. Allschooling in Germany is in Standard German, with Alemannic only existing outside theclassroomandathome. Swiss schools conduct the vastmajorityof teaching and learning inStandardGerman,however,asAlemannicistheprimarylanguageofhomelife,studentsintheirfirst year of schooling will not necessarily speak Standard German, so school begins inAlemannic. Some schools in France offer bilingual education, primarily offering StandardGerman, but with some Alemannic in younger years. The following chapters will take thesesimilaritiesanddifferences andassesswhatdifferences in social orpolitical environments inthecountrieshavecausedthissociolinguisticvariation.

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5 EXTERNALINFLUENCESONALEMANNIC5.1 SOUTHBADEN,GERMANY

5.1.1 DEVELOPMENTOFWRITTENSTANDARDGERMANThevariousfactorsleadingtothesociolinguisticstateofAlemannicinGermany,asinvestigatedinChapter3havebeenmentionedinpassing,butafullerdiscussionanddescriptionisinorder,to better compare it to the external influences on the dialects in Alsace and Switzerland. Amajor,ifnottheprimarycauseoftheshiftawayfromtheSpokenAlemannic/WrittenStandardsituationtodayseeninSwitzerlandandtosomeextentintheAlemannic-speakingpopulationsinGermanyandFrance,wasmajorpopulationmovementandchangethroughoutGermany,andespeciallymovementintoGermany’sSouth-West.

StandardGermanarosegraduallyafterthedevelopmentoftheprintingpressinthe15thcentury,thoughasanumberofsmaller,regionalwrittenvarieties.MartinLuther’sreformationacted as amajor push for the EastMiddle German print language to take precedence as thegeneral standard form in the Protestant northern regions, while the Catholic regions in thesouthmaintained anUpper German standard. It took until the late 18th century for the EastMiddleGermanstandardtobeselectedovertheCatholicstandardthroughoutGerman-speakingEurope(Mattheier2003).Byasimilartime,literacyinthegeneralpopulationhadgrowntothepoint that itwas commonplace for everyone touse the standardised language inwritingandtheir own dialect in speaking, and Standard German remained a strictly written, unspokenlanguageuntilmuchlater(Elspaß2002).

This remained almost exclusively the case until the middle of the 20th century; allwritingwasinthestandardisedform(thoughwithsomelocalidiosyncrasies;Elspaß2002),andallspokenlanguagewasinthelocalGermanicdialect.Whiletheselocaldialectswerenotalwaysmutually intelligible, especially not between northern and southern Germany, or betweenwesternGermanyandeasternAustria, lowratesofpopulationmovementmeant that thisdidnotcauseanyhindrancetoday-to-daycommunication(Mattheier2003).

5.1.2 DEVELOPMENTOFSPOKENSTANDARDGERMANAt the end of the Second World War, however, large German-speaking populations weredisplaced from the eastern parts of the German-speaking world with the major post-wargovernment changes (Leopold 1959). Throughout Germany, this meant that there weresuddenlysubstantialproportionsofregionalpopulationswhocouldnotspeakthelocaldialect.Whilethisalonewouldnotnecessarilyhavehadsuchastronginfluenceagainstthewidespreadeverydayusageoftheolddialects,theformationof“foreign”dialect-speakingenclaveswithintheWestGermanregionaldialectareaswasgreatlylimited,ifnottotallyprevented,bythefine-grainednatureof thispopulationmovement.Thatis,whole townsordialectcommunitiesdidnot leave,move, and settle together, butwere spread out individually or in small groups. Astheseenclavescouldnotform,communitiesofspeakersoftheoriginalandimmigrantdialects(ofwhich therewere typically awide variety) had tomix, and in need of a lingua franca tofacilitategeneralcommunication,StandardGermanbegantobeusedforspokenlanguageasamorewidelyunderstoodalternative to thedialects (Leopold1959).With its usage inschoolsandmorecommonlyinyoungpeople,theusageofStandardGermansteadilyincreasedoverthecomingdecades.

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TheimpactofanysubsequentmigrationonAlemannicishardtomeasure.Anecdotally,IntervieweeCreportedtheyfeltthatthemaininfluencehadcomefromthisfirstwave,andthatsubsequentwavesofguestworkersintotheregionfromSouthernandEasternEuropehadlessofaninfluenceonlocaldialects,asthelinguafrancahadalreadybeenestablished.Unlikeearliermigration events, these later immigration waves instead prompted the evolution ofmulticultural urban vernaculars (e.g. Kiezdeutsch in Berlin; Bork-Goldfield 2013) that aredevelopingintosystemsofdiglossiainsomeyoungerBerlinercommunities.

The ongoing decline of Alemannic in Germanywas likely further influenced by theseimmigration events, along with the current refugee crisis in Europe and the increase ininterregional and international communications with the rise of the internet. It is, however,possiblethatthedeclinetrajectorywasalreadyestablishedandwouldhavecontinuedasithasevenwithoutthesefurtherpopulationandcommunicationchanges.

5.2 ALSACE,FRANCE

5.2.1 HISTORICALSHIFTSAlsacehasalongandcomplicatedrelationshipwithFranceandGermany,havingchangedhandsanumberoftimesoverthelasttwocenturies,witheachnationattemptingtoclaimtheAlsatianpeopleastheirownateachstage.Since1945,theregionhasbeenundisputedFrenchterritory,however this was not the case in the years prior. The region was annexed by the GermanEmpirein1871fromtheKingdomofFrance,butwasreturnedtoanowrepublicanFranceafterGermany’sdefeatin1918.ThisremaineduntilitsoccupationintheSecondWorldWarbyNaziGermany,afterwhichitwasonceagainreturnedtoFrance.

The region historically had a strong class divide between the French-speaking upperclass,whocontrolledindustryandcultureintheregion,andanAlsatian-speakinglowerclass.MuchofthisFrench-speakingupperclasslefttheregionafterthe1871annexationoftheregionby the German Empire, though still remained to a great enough extent that theymaintainedsubstantial economic power in the region, allowing them to maintain ties to France (Fisher2010).

Attempts by the French government after 1918 to create a single, centralised andstandardised language across the nation were built out of an overall effort by the post-Revolution government to centralise power and standardise administration. Primary schoolsteaching in a standard French were established across the country in 1832 (at which timeAlsacewasunderFrenchcontrol),buttheschoolswereneithercompulsorynorfree.Assuch,they had little effect on the Alemannic-speaking working classes in Alsace, though they didtriggerthestartofamajordeclineintheusageofdialectsofFrenchacrossthecountry.Itwasnot until 1881-1882 that the government-sponsored primary schools became both free andsecular,bywhichtimeAlsacewasunderGermancontrol,andthereforedidnotseethischangewhich all but eliminated theuseof dialects of French inFrance, andmayhavehada similareffectontheuseofAlsatian(Rickard1989),weretheregionstillunderFrenchcontrol.

5.2.2 RISEOFFRENCHINALSACEA shift towards Standard French in Alsace only began in 1918 with the transferral of theterritorytoFrancefollowingtheGermandefeatinWWI.Atthetime,AlsatianspredominantlyspokeAlsatian,anAlemannicdialect,withStandardGermanbeingused in thepress, schools,andsomepartsofeverydaylifesuchascinemas,whereregionalvariationinAlsatiancreateda

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needfortheuseofStandardGermanasalinguafranca(Carrol2018).Priortothisshift,only6.1%oftheHaut-Rhinand3.8%oftheBas-RhinpopulationspokeFrench(Carrol2018).

Theseattemptsweregrounded in thenewfoundneed in thewakeof theFirstWorldWar todiminishanyGermanclaimtoAlsaceand integrate itspopulationintoFrance,bothofwhichwouldbeachievedbyminimisingtheusageofAlsatianintheregion.TheadministrationintroducedFrenchschooling,judiciary,press,andstreetsignageinordertoeffectthisshift.Thissudden shift, however, did not run as smoothly as the French administration had perhapshoped, but rather progressed slowly as the French proficiency of younger people increasedmuchfasterthanitdidinolderpeople,whowerebothlessphysicallycapableatlearninganewlanguageattheirage,aswellasnotinactiveeducation(Carrol2018).

By1931,Alsatianwasstillverymuchaliveintheregion,butthegrowthofFrenchhadbeensignificant: justoverhalf thepopulationspokeFrench tosomedegree,with5.6%beingmonolingual francophone. 43.9%however,were stillmonolingual inGerman/Alemannic.Thepresswas still overwhelmingly in German as well; in 1932 it was reported that 80% of thepopulationstillreadGermanpress.Aslateas1938,someFrenchnewspublicationswerestillbeingtranslatedintoGermanaslevelsofproficiencyinFrenchweretoolow(Carrol2018).

5.2.3 ALSATIANREGIONALISTAUTONOMYMOVEMENTPreviously its own region, the highest level of administrative division in France, Alsace wascombinedwith theregionsofLorraineandChampagne-Ardenne in2016 intoasingleregion,theGrandEst.Thismovewasveryunpopular inAlsace,with a2018poll reporting a rateofsupportof83%forthereinstitutionofAlsaceasaseparateregion(IFOP2018).Inresponsetothis public pushback on the union of the regions into the Grand Est, a vote passed Frenchparliament in August 2019 to grant Alsace a greater level of autonomy, by designating theregion theEuropeanCollectivityofAlsace(Collectivitéeuropéenned'Alsace (fr),D'EuropäischaGebiatskärwerschàft Elsàss (al)). The Collectivitywill come into existence at the beginning of2021,andwillbegrantedcontrolofthepowerscurrentlyheldbythetwodepartments,aswellasareassuchas tourism,cross-borderrelations,andmostrelevantlybilingualism(Nationalia2019;Ouest-France2018).Manygroups,suchastheregionalistpoliticalpartyUnserLand(OurLand, German),donot see thismoveas far enough, asAlsace isstill under the control of theGrandEstregion.

ThismovementcallingforautonomyinAlsaceisinnowaynew.Fisher(2010)discussesthe German and French authorities making similar mistakes when trying to integrate theAlsatian people after 1871 and 1918. Nationalists from both nations tried to force thepopulation toremoveanyculturaltiesto theothernation in favouroftheirown, “evenwhenAlsace was foreign territory” (p. 6). This led Alsatians to growweary of the control of bothFrance and Germany throughout the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Prior to the late 19thcentury, the regionalist movement was not nearly as widespread as it later grew to be, inreactiontotheattemptsofGermanyandFrancetonationaliseandintegratetheregion,asthispushagainstAlsacecausedtheculturalspecificitiesandregionalidentityoftheborderareatobeplacedinthepublicspotlight.

Itseemspossible,then,thatthisautonomymovementhasunderlyinglyworkedagainsttheeffortsoftheFrenchgovernmentthroughoutthe20thcenturytoshiftAlsatiancultureandlanguage away fromGermanyand to integrate itmore completely into France. OLCA (2012)makes no suggestion of any monolingual Alsatian speakers in France, and Bister-Broosen(1996) reports that 25 years ago, Alsatianwas limited in usage to the home, and even then

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predominantlywithparentsorgrandparentsratherthanwithsiblings.Additionally,althoughitisreportedthatalmosthalfofthepopulationstillhassomelevelofproficiencyinAlsatian,thisnumber isheavilyskewedtowards theoldergenerations,and isreported tohave fallen from61%in1997totheaforementioned43%in2012.Assuch,thegoalsoftheFrenchgovernmentwere, at least in terms of ensuring that French was the region’s majority language, wellachieved,butittookalmostacenturyfromwhenFrancegainedcontroloftheregionuntilOLCA(2012)forthisshifttobeachieved.

It is possible that the autonomy movement may have more recently had someresurgence, and further slowed this progression. The age distribution of Alsatian speakershighlightedinChapter4showsacontinuingfallinAlsatianusageinyoungpeople,buttherateoflosshasslowedbetweentheyoungestandsecond-youngestgenerations.Similarly,theABCMschoolsdiscussedinHarrison(2016)werefirstopenedin1991,andin1992,equalimmersionbilingual primary schools were opened in the public education system. Both of these schoolsystems,whilelikelyreflectingsupportinthepopulationatthetimefortheAlsatianregionalistmovement, predominantly use Standard German as the second language in bilingualenvironments,ratherthanAlsatian.Inthe2011-2012schoolyear, it isreportedthat10.5%ofAlsatianprimarystudentswereenrolledinsuchaprogram.WhiletheuseofAlsatianinschoolstodayisencouragedbyregionalauthorities,itisneithercompulsory,noraretherestandardisedframeworksforitsintroduction.KnowledgeofAlsatianisalsonotacriterionfortheselectionofbilingual teachers in thesepublicschools(Harrison2016).Assuch,while itwouldseemthat,combined with upcoming political changes, there is a strong level of support today for thishistorical regionalist movement, this support is reflected, at least in public education, byinstitutionalsupportforStandardGermanratherthanAlsatian.

As mentioned above, the creation of the European Collectivity of Alsace from thebeginning of 2021 will give the Alsatian government autonomous control of, among otherthings,policyregardingbilingualismintheregion.ThisincreasedcontrolwilllikelyhavesomeimpactontherelationshipbetweenFrench,Alsatian,andStandardGerman,butitisdifficulttopredict the exactnatureof this. If the governmentmaintains its current stanceof supportingStandard German as a second primary language in school, it seems more likely that thetrajectoryoftheusageofAlsatianwillcontinueasithasforthepastcentury,whereasifAlsatianismandated in some form in governmentpolicy, the slight shift seen towards an increaseofusage(orratheraslowedrateofloss)mightcontinue.

5.3 SWITZERLAND

5.3.1 ADOPTIONOFSTANDARDGERMANA central part of the relationship betweenAlemannic dialects in Switzerland and the nationitself is the relationship in the country between Alemannic and Swiss Standard German.Standard German is, as has beendiscussed,widely classified as a pluricentric language,withdifferentstandardvarietiesineachof thethree largestGerman-speakingcountries (Germany,Austria,andSwitzerland).

ThedevelopmentoradoptionofastandardformofGermandidnotbegininSwitzerlanduntil much later than it did in Germany. Martin Luther’s publication of the Bible in the 16thcenturybeganashiftfromwrittenlanguagebeingaclosereflectionofspokentoinsteadbeingmodelledonamorecentralvariety.Theshift inprintingtothewrittennormsofcourtsintheeastoftheGerman-speakingworldoccurredslowly,progressingfeaturebyfeatureandtownby

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town throughout the16th, 17th, and18th centuries.By thebeginningof the18th century then,writtenGerman(atleastintheofficialdomofprintersandchanceries)wasalmostidenticalwiththestandardformdevelopedinGermany(Rash1998).

The diglossia seen today was reported as early as 1919. Rash (1998) quotes EduardBlocher in a publication of the then newly formed Schweizerischer Verein für die deutscheSprache(SwissAssociationfortheGermanLanguage,SVDS)9,sayingthat“HighGermanisapartof our native language, it is one of the two forms of our language” (Rash 1998: 87, quotingBlocher 1919), and that a standardised written language was necessary in some parts ofeverydaylifeasalinguafrancainordertoavoidisolatingSwitzerlandfromitsneighbours.Itisworth taking into account the context andbiasofEduardBlocher inwriting this.Blocher, aspresident of the SVDS for the entire interwar period, believed inmaintaining the purity andusageofSwissStandardGermanagainst“overuse”ofAlemannicorincursionofforeign,namelyFrench,loanwords.Assuch,itispossiblethatheiseitheroverstatingthepresenceofStandardGermanineverydaySwisslife,orisoverstatingitsnecessity.

5.3.2 MAINTENANCEOFALEMANNICINSPEAKINGTheshiftfromawidespreaduseofAlemannictothesystemsofunstablediglossiaweseetodayinGermanyandFrancewaspunctuatedbymajor regional events that createdan impetus toshiftawayfromAlemannicineverydaylifeandtowardsthemorewidespreadformseentoday.InGermany,thiswasthepopulationshiftcreatinganeedforalinguafranca,whileinFrancethiswas the government change and the subsequent change in official language in the regioncreatingeconomicandsocialincentivetomoveawayfromAlemannic.Swisshistory,atleastinregards to Alemannic usage, seems noteworthy instead for its lack of these types of events.WhileSwitzerlandhas,atvariouspointsinitshistory,beenunderthecontrolofotherEuropeanpoliticalpowers,nonehavesoughtculturalandlinguisticintegrationinthesenseoftheFrenchefforts in Alsace in the 20th century. Similarly, Switzerland’s long-term neutrality has seen itmissoutontheinfluxofpost-warrefugeesandsubsequentGastarbeiterorshort-termmigrantworkers.

Discussions intonationalismandthenatureof thesentiment inamulti-lingual,multi-ethnic state such as Switzerland are contentious in the literature (Helbling and Stojanović2011).DoesthenationhoodofSwitzerlandextendtoallfourethnicorlinguisticgroupsinthestateasasingle,multi-ethnicunit,orshoulditinsteadbeconsideredamulti-nationalstatewithfour distinct national identities? In our case, this poses the question of where to draw theboundaries on the sense of national identity held by Swiss citizens in order to consider itsinfluencesonlanguageuseinthecountry.TheoutspokenopinionsofBlocher,discussedabove,seemto,inhiseffortstopromoteGermanasaprimary,ifnotsupreme,languageofSwitzerlandattheexclusionofFrench,separatethelinguisticpartoftheGerman-speakingnationalidentityfromtheothers.

Blocher’s stanceonGermanic supremacism isnot, however, limited to language.Rash(1998) notes that he saw German heritage as also inherently better than others, and whileconcedingthatfewinSwitzerlandcouldbeseentobepurelyGermanbytheearly20thcentury,claimedthat“theGermanportionofourbloodisthebestthatwehave”(Rash1998:94).Thisisa sentiment thatwas at the time (and unfortunately is again today) of course not limited toSwitzerland, but is reflective of the development and growth of Nazism throughout German-

9Apublicationwhichiswidelyreferenced,butonewhichIcannotfindmyself.

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speakingEurope.The impactof thisGermanicsupremacism isdifficult toassess in thewidercommunity,andafulldiscussionintothepresenceoftheideologiesoftheNazisinSwitzerlandwouldveerfaroutsidethescopeofthisresearch.Thatsaid,Blocherdidsupporttheseparationand maintenance of ‘purity’ between Alemannic and Standard German in Switzerland (Rash1998).

Ontheotherhand,Rash(1998:72)suggeststhatitwasanactivedesireintheGerman-speakingSwisspopulationtodistancethemselvesfromGermanyandtheNazisthatencouragedthe persistence of Alemannic as the general spoken language. She suggests that the negativeopinionsoftheNazisaroundtheworldcreatedanimpetusforGerman-speakingSwisstocarveoutalinguisticidentitythatfurtherseparatedthemfromGermanysuchthatthey,internallyandexternally, would not be either mistaken to be German, or seen as a German diasporacommunity. This created an active effort to maintain the use of Alemannic, typicallyunintelligible with Standard German when spoken, which, along with the lack of the majorevents seen in the other countries, allowed Alemannic tomaintain its vitality in contrast toFranceandGermany.

5.3.3 SUMMARYTheAlemannic-speakingregionsinGermany,France,andSwitzerlandhave,despitetheirclosegeographic proximity and linguistic relation, had very different histories. Divergences inpoliticalandsocialstructuresatanationallevelhadledtodifferentpathsinthemaintenanceorloss of Alemannic, with national borders, while not necessarily limiting interaction betweencommunitiesacrosstheborders,limitingthespreadoflanguageandimmigrationpolicy,whichcanbe seen in this chapter tohavehadamajor effect on theusageof andattitudes towardsAlemannic. The next chapter will summarise these findings into a more generalised set ofconclusions that could be applied to research into diglossia outside the Alemannic-speakingregionofEurope.

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6 CONCLUSION–EXTERNALINFLUENCESONDIGLOSSIAUsingacomparisonoftheexternalfactorsseentobedrivingthecross-borderdivergenceintheusageofAlemannicdialectsseenintheGerman/French/Swisstri-borderareaasacasestudy,some conclusions and predictions can be made about the nature of communities exhibitingdiglossia.Theseincludetheextra-linguisticforcesthatcanshapethepopulation’susageoftheHand L varieties, their attitudes towards the diglossic relationship, and how these factors caninfluencethestabilityofthediglossiainthelongterm.

These influences can be grouped into three main categories: major socio-politicalevents,governmentpolicy,andsocialandculturalattitudes.Ineachofthesecategories,wecanseeanumberoffactorsthatdohaveaninfluenceoverthestabilityofdiglossicenvironments,aswellassomethathaveseeminglylessimpactthanwhatmighthaveoriginallybeenexpected.

6.1 MAJORSOCIO-POLITICALEVENTSFirstly,itcanbeseenthatamajoreventsuchasaregimechangeortheannexationofaregionbyanewgovernmentdoesnot,inisolation,haveanynecessaryorinherentimpactonlanguageuse in a community.While this government changemight seek to actively promote, or evenenforce, such a shift, this active effort is necessary over an extended period of time to bringaboutanyculturalorlinguisticchange.WiththeFrenchgainofAlsacefollowingtheFirstWorldWar,thegovernmentsoughttoassimilateitsnewpopulationandremovetheGermanicaspectsoftheculture,includingthelanguage.Thiseffort,whilebeingrealisticallysuccessfulinshiftingthe majority language of the region to French, took multiple generations to take effectthroughoutthepopulation.Evenacenturylater,justoveronetenthoftheyoungestgenerationin Alsace speaks Alemannic. This shift, while undeniable, was not the inherent result of thegovernmentchange,butrathertheresultofsustainedandactiveinterventionintheregion.

Whilechangeingovernancedoesnotnecessarilyhaveanyinherentimpactondiglossia,majorpopulationshiftandchangedoes.Immigrationintoaregioncan,atalargeenoughscaleand in a certain nature, create major shifts in demographics and in the usage of languagevarietiesindiglossicenvironments.Thisperhapsdoesnotcomeasasurprise;ifalargeenoughwaveofimmigrationisseeninashorttimeperiod(orevenwithinasinglegeneration),andifthe new communitymembers speak a different language or language variety to the existentpopulation, the general languageused in the communitywill shift. This is exemplifiedby theshift seen inGermanyafter the SecondWorldWar,where speakersof otherGermandialectssettledinnewcommunities,meaningtheHvarietyhadtoactasalinguafranca.Akeypointinthispopulationshiftwasthefactthatthenewcommunitymemberswerenotallfromthesamelinguisticbackground,preventingaseparatecommunityof thenewvariety fromforming; thenew communitymembers shifted away from their original L varieties and used solely theHvariety in the region,while the existent communitymembersmaintained their L variety butused the shared H variety more widely in daily life and education (Leopold 1959). It isnoteworthy, and will be discussed further in Section 6.4, that the results of this study aspresentedinChapter3,withspecificregardstotheagedistributiondiscussion,suggestthatthisdeclineisstillongoing,despitethismajoreventbeingtriggeredcirca70yearsago.Theinverseto this is visible in Switzerland,whereno suchdemographic changeoccurred (andhas sincethen been prevented by cantonal immigration laws requiring, in some cases, knowledge ofAlemannic;Rash1998),andequallynosuchusageshiftcanbeseentohaveoccurredinthepastdecades.

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6.2 GOVERNMENTLANGUAGEPOLICYSimilarlytothechangeingovernancediscussedabove,itappearsthatlanguageineducationisnot an inherentlypositiveornegative factor in theongoing stability of a systemofdiglossia.That is, while education can and does act as a domain of usage for a certain variety, itscontributiontotheoverallvitalityofalanguageisaresultoftheopportunityforlanguageusageit provides; it acts as a reliable domain of usage, but does not appear to have any inherentfeatures that make it a different or specifically important domain when compared to otherdomainswhereusagemightbeexpectedormandated,suchastheworkplace,government,orinthemedia. As such, it appears that it is regular usage of a language in general, regardless ofdomain, that supports ongoing vitality, and that education is just one opportunity for usage.ThiscanbeseensimplyinthefactthatnoneofthethreecountriesinvestigateduseAlemannictoanymajordegreeintheirschoolsystems.WhileSwissschoolsuseAlemannicinthefirstyearasalanguagethroughwhichtointroduceStandardGerman,andsomeprivateFrenchschoolshave limited instruction in Alemannic, no country uses Alemannic as a central part of theirschoolsystem,andyettherearedrasticallydifferentlevelsofusageseeninallthreecountries.

Though,asabove,educationitselfisnotacompulsoryrequirementinthepreservationofalanguage’svitality,inthatitwouldactasacontributingpartofalanguage’soverallusage,thisoverallusagecanbeshifted,schoolsincluded,bygovernmentpolicyandintervention,andcan, at this larger scale, have major impacts on language use in the community. Theaforementioned strategy of the French government throughout the 20th century is solidevidence of this. The shift in dialect usage closely reflected a shift in government policysurroundingthejudiciary,thepress,andevenstreetsignage.TheofficialshiftfromAlsatiantoFrenchmeantthatpeopleworkingin,orassociatedwiththejudiciaryhadtolearnFrench,andknowledgeof Frenchbecamemore useful in everyday lifewith the changes to thepress andstreet signage. The impacts of this on the social attitudes in the region have already beendiscussed, but it is important to note again that these policy changes, despite eventuallybringingaboutmajorchange,tookdecadestoseeanyimpactandmultiplegenerationstoshiftthe main language of the region from Alsatian to French. On the other hand, policy inSwitzerlandthatsupportstheuseofAlemannicinthepressandinsomeCantonalGovernmentdebates and discussions reflects the continued stability of diglossia in the German-speakingcommunity(SiebenhaarandWyler1998).

6.3 SOCIALANDCULTURALATTITUDESTheimpactofsocialandculturalattitudesondialectusageishardertopreciselyquantify,andisoften intertwined with the other two areas. The positive attitudes towards Alsatian visiblethroughthelong-lastingAlsatianautonomymovementmaywellhaveslowedtheeffortsoftheFrenchgovernmenttoshift languageuse,butmorevisiblyandinamuchmorecontemporarysetting, the autonomy movement has given rise to the upcoming European Collectivitydesignation,whichwill give Alsace autonomous control of bilingualism in the region. In thissense,thepositiveattitudestowardsAlsatianhaveinfluencedtheabilityoftheregiontocontrollanguage policy, and, while it remains to be seen what the actual impact of this will be onAlsatian, it ishighlypossiblethattheculturesurroundingAlsatianwillcausepolicychangeasdiscussedabovethatwill,inturn,influencetheusageofAlsatian.Thisisofcourse,atleastuntil2021,ifnotlatertoseeintergenerationalimpacts,merelyinformedspeculation.

Similarly,positiveattitudestowardsAlemannicinGermanyandFrancehaveledtothecreation of community or education organisations with the goal of further preserving the

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dialect.Twoexamplesofthis,bothpreviouslydiscussed,are theMuettersproch-Gsellschaft inGermany,throughwhomthesurveywasdistributed,andtheABCMZweisprachigkeitschoolsinFrance,where some teaching in younger years isprovided inAlemannicandextra-curricularinteractionsuchasduringbreaksisencouragedtobe inAlemannic.Much like theabove, it isdifficulttomeasure,quantitativelyorotherwise,thesuccessoftheseorganisationsintheirgoalsofAlemannicpreservation,althoughtheirstrategiescanbecomparedtothosediscussedaboveas being effective or neutral in maintaining the L varieties. The Muettersproch-Gsellschaft10offers community activities and writing in Alemannic, as well as a platform for AlemannicspeakerstousethevarietywheretheymightotherwisenotbepartofanAlemannic-speakingcommunity(e.g.livinginacity).This,wecanpredict,wouldhelpmaintainlevelsofusageintheAlemannic-speaking population and would encourage higher levels of intergenerationaltransmission ofAlemannic by ensuring that it continues to be used on a regular basis by itsspeakers,thoughwouldnotnecessarilyincreaseusageinthewidercommunity.

ABCMZweisprachigkeitseekstosupportthevitalityofAlsatianbygivingit,alongwithStandard German, a role in the classroom. As hasbeen discussed, the time spent teaching inAlsatian is far less thanStandardGermanandFrench, and it doesnotappear that classroompresencewillnecessarilybringaboutanincreaseinvitality.Thatsaid,thecombinationofsomeclassroomuseandofcasualuseoutsideclassby teachersandstudents (Harrison2016)doesconstitute,forachild,asubstantialportionoftheirdailyinteraction,andcouldproveeffectivein supporting intergeneration transmission and subsequent retention of Alsatian whencombinedwithhomeuseofthelanguagevariety.ThechallengedfacedinAlsace,however,isthemixed opinions on the necessity or importance of Standard German over Alsatian, and ajustifiable sense of care to ensure that children receive a balance of cultural education ofAlsatian,thenecessaryeducationofFrench,aswellasthemoreinternationallyusefuleducationofGerman.

The influenceofattitudesondiglossiaanditsmaintenancehasalsobeendiscussed inSwitzerland,where anurge todistance themselves fromGermany in thewakeof the SecondWorldWar and the atrocities of theNaziparty ledGerman-speaking Swiss to seek tobuildamore distinct cultural identity as actively Swiss, as opposed to simply Germanswho lived inSwitzerland. This encouraged the German-speaking Swiss population to activelymove in theopposite direction to Germany linguistically, maintaining the widespread use of Alemannic.Again, it isdifficult tomeasurehowmuch influence thishad–wedonothaveaclearcontrolcase–butit ishighlylikelythat it,alongwithalackofothermajor forces,contributed tothestabilityofthediglossiaweseetoday.

6.4 THESTABILITYOFDIGLOSSIAANDTHEFUTUREOFALEMANNICTheseinfluencesleadustoanumberofwiderconclusionsaboutthenatureofdiglossiaandtheinteractionsithaswithexternalsocialfactors.11Primarily,andwhilethisisbynomeansnew(itwas, in fact, suggested to be the case in Ferguson 1959), we can see that diglossia is notinherently unstable. That said, the bilingualism needs to be widespread throughout thecommunity for this diglossia with bilingualism to remain stable. This can be viewed as abalance,wherebythereisatippingpointofusagebeingskewedtoonevarietyortheother(in

10www.alemannisch.de11While not used in this thesis, the framework of Ethnolinguistic Vitality (Giles et al. 1977)couldbesimilarlyusefulinthisanalysis.

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Germany and France the H variety), after which the bilingual population will begin to slidetowardsmonolingualisminthecommunity,andthediglossiawillnolongerbepresent.WecanimagineaspeakerofAlemannic inthisenvironment:While,whentheywereyoung,everyonearoundthemspokeAlemannic,todayit is lesscommon.It islesscommon,infact,tothepointthat our speaker cannotbe certainwhile out andabout that someone they interactwithwillspeakAlemannic(e.g.busdrivers, shopassistants).Asaresult, theymustdefault tospeakingStandard German where once they might have spoken Alemannic. In speaking StandardGerman,otherAlemannicspeakerswhoaresimilarlyoutandaboutwillalsoassumethat thefirstAlemannicspeakeronlyspeaksStandardGerman,creatingacycle inwhich theeverydayusageofAlemannicbyitsspeakersbeginstodeclineinasortofsnowballeffectafterthatinitialtippingpointorThresholdofStabilityisreached.

Shifts inusage canmanuallypusha community towardsor away from this threshold,suchastheexternalinfluencesaddressedabove,butitremainstobeseenifacommunitycanmove fromthisbeyondthis thresholdandbackintoastablediglossia.Asabove, it ispossiblethat such a shiftwill be seen in Alsace, depending on the decisionsmade by the new semi-autonomousgovernment,butsucheffectswillnotbemeasurableforyearsifnotdecades.

Withthisinmind,itispossibletomakesomepredictionsaboutthefutureofAlemannicdialects. In France and Germany, the steadily decreasing usage of Alemannic is likely tocontinue,andassuch, thediglossia,which isno longerpresent in thegeneralsocietyofbothregions,butratherinanAlemannic-speakingcommunitywithinthegeneralsociety,will likelyleakdomainsfromtheLvarietytotheHvariety.Thatis,theHvarietywillbeusedinsituationswheretheLvarietywaspreviouslyused.Bothcommunitieshaveseenrapiddeclinesinusageoverthepast50-60yearsandare,atleastinlargercities,wellpastthisThresholdofStability,andassuchwilldeclineinusageevenwithoutthepreviouslydiscussedexternalfactors.Largercities in South Baden such as Freiburg continue to see high levels of refugee immigration,pushing the community further past a stable diglossia and further weakening the vitality ofAlemannic in the communities. Society in South Baden as a whole, in all reality, no longerexhibitsdiglossia,butratherthesmallAlemannic-speakingcommunitywithintheregion,whichiscentredonruralareas,does.SmallertownsinbothcountrieshaveeitheronlyjustcrossedtheThreshold of Stability, or are yet to do so, at least in Germany due to lower levels ofimmigration.ThissuggeststhattheseareaswillseeaslowerdeclineinAlemannicusage,butitisdifficult topredict if thediglossiawithin thesecommunitieswill remainstableornot.ThispredictedgrowingdisparitybetweenthevitalityofAlemannicincitiesversussmallertownsisinfactalreadyvisible,reportedinChapter3asahighergenerallevelofAlemannicproficiencyinsmallertownsandruralareas.InFrance,itispossiblethatthedeclineofusageisslowingintheyoungestgeneration,asseeninChapter4.1.2,andmaywellcontinuetoslow.Thiswillbedependent on the decision made by the new Alsatian government between supporting thewidespread use of Standard German or Alsatian. In Switzerland, however, due to its verywidespread(andinsomecasesgovernmentsanctioned)usage,thereisnoreasontothattherewouldbe anydecline in theusageofAlemannic – aspredictedbyFerguson(1959), thehighratesofusageofAlemannic,andthewidespreadnatureofthediglossiameanthatitisfarfromtheThresholdofStabilityandis,barringanymajoreventstopushitonewayoranother,self-stable.

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APPENDIXI:SURVEYQUESTIONSWhere(dialect)isused,itisaplaceholderforthenameprovidedbytheparticipantinQuestion(9).Demographics:

1. Whatyearwereyouborn?InwelchemJahrsindSiegeboren?2. Areyouretired?(Y/N)SindSieimRuhestand?

2a.Y:Whatwasyouroccupationbeforeretirement?WaswarIhrBerufvorIhremRuhestand?

2b.N:Whatisyouroccupation?WasistIhrBeruf?3. Didyouhavethechancetoattendformalschoolingwhenyouwereyounger?HattenSie

dieChance,dieSchulezubesuchen,alsSiejungwaren?3a.Y:Whatisthehighestlevelofeducationyoureceivedorarecurrentlyundertaking?WelchesBildungsniveauhabenSieerreichtoderwelcheWeiterbildungführenSiegegenwärtigdurch?3b.N:Didyouhaveanyinformaleducation?HabenSieinformaleBildung

bekommen?HabenSieeineBildungaußerderSchulebekommen(z.B.Handwerkslehre)4. Wherewereyouborn?WosindSiegeboren?5. Wheredidyougrowup?WosindSieaufgewachsen?6. Wheredoyoucurrentlylive?WowohnenSiemomentan?7. Doyoutakepartinanycommunityhobbiesoractivities(e.g.WindBand,Hunting,etc.)?

NehmenSieanirgendeinemGemeinschaftshobbyodereinerAktivitätteil?(z.B.Blasorchester,Jagd,usw.)

DialectProficiencyIndex:

8. DoyouspeakanysortofGermanotherthanStandardGerman?SprechenSieirgeneinArtdesDeutschenaußerHochdeutsch?

9. WhatdoyoucallthissortofGerman?12WienennenSiediesenArtdesDeutschen?10. Doyouknowenough(dialect)tospeakonlyitinthesituationsgivenbelow,regardless

ofwhetherornotyouactuallywould?(Y/NMatrix)SprechenSiegenug(Dialekt),umihnnurindenuntenangegebenenSituationenzubenutzen,unabhängigdavon,obSiediestatsächlichtunwürdenodernicht?

• IcancounttotenIchkannbisZehnzählen

• IcannamethedaysoftheweekIchkanndieWochentagenennen

• IcangivethedateIchkanndasDatumgeben

• IcanorderamealinarestaurantIchkannEssenineinemRestaurantbestellen

• Icangivebiographicalinformation(dateofbirth,familyinformation,descriptionofyourstudies)IchkannbiografischeInformationengeben(Geburtsdatum,Famillieninformationen,BeschreibungdesStudiums)

12The term “Lower Alemannic” or its German equivalent Niederalemannisch aren’t used in

everyday speech, and opinions on which dialect one speaks or what it should be called are varied among speakers. In order to maintain clarity in the interview, the name given by the participant will be used throughout.

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• Icanspeaktopeopleinsocialsituations(forexample,church,meeting,party,wedding,funeral)IchkannmitLeuteninsozialenSituationensprechen(zumBeispielKirche,Versammlung,Party/Feier,Hochzeit,Beerdigung)

• IcandescribemyhobbiesindetailusingappropriatevocabularyIchkannmeineHobbysmiteinemangemessenenVokabularbeschreiben

• Icandescribemypresentemployment,mystudies,andmymainsocialactivitiesindetailpurelyin(Dialect)withpeoplewhospeakitIchkannmeineaktuelleArbeit,meineStudienundmeinegemeinschaftlichenAktivitätenauf(Dialekt)beschreiben,wennmeinGegenüberesauchspricht.

• IcandescribewhatIhopetoachieveinthenextfiveyearsusingfuturetenseverbspurelyin(Dialect)withpeoplewhospeakitIchkannzukunftsbezogeneAngaben(z.B.beschreiben,wasichgernindennächstenfünfJahrenerreichenwürde)ausschließlichauf(Dialekt)machen,wennmeinGegenüberesauchspricht.

• Icangivemyopiniononacontroversialsubjectpurelyin(Dialect)withpeoplewhospeakitIchkannmeineMeinungüberumstritteneThemennurauf(Dialekt)tiefgründigdiskutieren,wennmeinGegenüberesauchspricht.

Usage:

11. Wouldyoufeelcomfortablespeaking(dialect)withyourpeersinthefollowingplacesinyourdailylife?WürdenSiesichwohlfühlen,wennSiemitIhrenKollegenanfolgendenStelleninIhremtäglichenLeben(Dialekt)sprechen?Athome(Y/N)ZuhauseAtworkwithcolleagues(Y/N)BeiderArbeitmitKollegenAtchurchwiththecommunity(Y/N)inderKirchemitderGemeinschaftAtthemarket(Y/N)AufdemMarktPassingbyafriendinthestreet(Y/N)AufderStraßemiteinemFreundPassingbyastrangerinthestreet(Y/N)WennSieaneinemFremdenvorbeigehenOthers?Andere?Comments:Notizen:

12. Wouldyoufeelcomfortablespeaking(dialect)withpeople:WürdenSiesichwohlfühlen,

(Dialekt)mitLeutenzuspechen,dieauseiner:Fromanoldergenerationtoyou?(Y/N)älterenGenerationstammen?Fromayoungergeneration?(Y/N)jüngerenGenerationstammen?Comments:Notizen:

13. Wouldyoufeelcomfortablespeaking(dialect)withpeople:WürdenSiesichwohlfühlen,

(Dialekt)mitfolgendenPersonenzusprechen:Withcityortownofficials?(Y/N)Stadt-oderBürgerbeamteWithapriest?(Y/N)einemGeistlichen?Withanemployer?(Y/N)ArbeitgeberInnen?Withanemployee?(Y/N)ArbeitnehmerInnen?Withanassistant?(Y/N)einemAssistent?Witharetailworkerorserviceperson?(Y/N)VerkäuferInnenoderDienstleisterInnen?Other?Andere?Comments:Notizen:

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14. Doyouhavemuchcontactwith(dialect)intraditionalmedia(print/television)?(Y/N)HabenSievieleKontaktmit(Dialekt)intraditionellenMedien?(Zeitung,Fernsehen)

Doyouhavemuchcontactwith(dialect)insocialmedia(Facebookgroups,Twitter,Youtube)?(Y/N)HabenSievieleKontaktmit(Dialekt)beiSozialmedia?(Facebook,Twitter,Youtube)Comments:

Attitudes:ThissectionwilluseaLikertscalewithfiveselectionsrangingfromStronglyAgreetoStronglyDisagree.Somestatementsmarkedwith*willonlybeshowntoparticipantswithhighproficiencyasestablishedbyquestion(10).

15. Towhatextentdoyouagreewiththefollowingstatements?InwiefernstimmenSiedenfolgendenAussagenzu?

Icoulduse(dialect)formally.*Ichkönnte(dialekt)förmlichbenutzen.I’msatisfiedwithhowwellIspeakit.*IchbinzufriedenmitmeinemBeherrschungsgrad.Iwouldfeelcomfortablespeakingitoutsidemyusualplaces.*Ichwürdemichwohlfühlen,(Dialekt)auchinungewohntenSituationenundOrtenzusprechen.

(Iftheparticipant’sproficiencyislow)IthinkIwouldfeelcomfortablespeakingitifIcould.Ichdenke,ichwürdemichwohlfühlen,(Dialekt)inaußergewöhnlichenSituationenzusprechen,wennichkönnte.(Doyouhavechildren?HabenSieKinder?Y/N,forchoosingtheappropriatewordingofthenextstatement)

Y:Itaught(dialect)tomychildren.IchhabemeinenKindern(Dialekt)beigebracht.Iwouldstillteachittothemtoday.IchwürdeesIhnennochheutzutagebeibringen.

N:Iwouldteachittomychildren.IchwürdeesmeinenKindernbeibringen,wennichwelchehätte.

IfeelasthoughwhereIliveisanimportantpartofmyidentity.Ichmeine,dassmeinWohnorteinwichtigerTeilmeinerIdentitätist.Ifeelasthough(Dialect)playsaroleinthatidentity.Ichmeine,dass(Dialekt)eineRolleindieserIdentitätspielt.Ifeelasthoughpeoplewhodonotspeak(dialect)haveasmuchclaimtothelocalidentityaspeoplewhodo.Ichmeine,dassLeute,die(Dialekt)nichtsprechenkönnen,wenigerAnspruchaufdielokaleIdentitäthabenwieMenschen,dieesbeherrschen.IfeltthesamewaywhenIwasyounger.Ichfühlteebenso,alsichjüngerwar.Ithinkmyparentswouldhavesimilarresponsestome.Ichdenke,dassmeineElternähnlichegeantwortethätten.(Spaceforoptionalcomments)Other:

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16. Thisprojectcontainsanoptionalinterviewcomponent.Ifyouoptin,youmightbecontactedtoorganiseavideocallwiththeresearchers,inwhichtheywillaskyoufurtherquestionsaboutthetopicscoveredinthissurvey.Thiscomponentwilllikelytakehalfanhourandistotallyvoluntary.Yoursurveywillnotbetreatedanydifferentlyifyouchoosenottotakepart.Ifyouoptinnowyoumaychangeyourmindlateratanypoint,includingduringtheinterview.Doyouwishtooptintothisoptionalinterviewcomponent?(Y/N+Contactinformation)DiesesProjektbeinhalteteinenfreiwilligenInterviewteil.WennSiedafürzurVerfügungstehen,werdenSievielleichtkontaktiert,umeinenVideoanrufzuorganisieren,indemichIhnenweitereFragenüberdieThemendieserStudiestellenwerden.DieserTeilwirdvoraussichtlicheinehalbeStundedauernundistfreiwillig.IhrFragebogenwirdnichtandersbehandelt,wennSienichtamInterviewteilnehmenwollen.FallsSiejetzt"Ja"antworten,könnenSienochspäterIhreMeinungändern,auchwährenddesInterviews.WollenSiedieserfreiwilligenInterviewkomponentebeitreten?

17. Doyouwishtoreceiveasummaryoftheresultsofthisresearchwhenitiscompleted?Anycontactinformationyouprovideforthispurposewillbestoredseparatelyuntiltheresultsaresent,atwhichpointtheywillbedeleted.(Y/N+Contactinformation)WollenSieeineZusammenfassungderErgebnissederStudieerhalten,wennsiefertiggestelltist?JedeKontaktinformation,dieSiefürdieseRückmeldungangeben,wirdgetrenntgespeichert,bisdieErgebnissegesendetsind.Danachwirdsieentferntwerden.

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APPENDIXII:INTERVIEWSTRUCTUREBackgroundHowdidyoulearn(dialect)?WiehabenSie(Dialekt)gelernt?

Didalotofyourpeersalsospeakit?HabenvieleinIhremFreundeskreisihnauchgesprochen?

Whataboutotherpeoplearoundyou?UndwiesiehtesbeianderenLeuteninIhremLebenaus?

Haveyoueverusedthewrongdialectwithsomeonebyaccident?Whathappened?Didyougetintrouble?Howwouldthatgotoday?HabenSieeinmalimDialektmitjemandemgesprochen,derihnnichtbeherrscht?Wasistpassiert?HabenSieÄrgerbekommen?Waswürdeheutzutagepassieren?

DoyouthinktherewasanythinggoingoninGermansocietywhenyouweregrowingupthatmighthavechangedhowthepeoplearoundyouspoke?(eg.Migration,theinternet,refugees)DenkenSie,dassesirgendwasinDeutschlandgab,alsSiejungwaren,dasdieArtundWeise,wiedieMenschenumSieherumsprachen,veränderthabenkönnte(z.B.Migration,Internet,Flüchtlinge)

Otherquestionsaboutspecificresponsesgiveninthesurvey.

PresentLivedExperienceWhatdoyoulikeaboutyourdialect?WhataboutstandardGerman?WasgefälltIhnenanIhremDialekt?WasgefälltIhnenanHochdeutsch?

IfyoucouldonlychooseonetypeofGerman,whichtypewouldyouchoose?Why?WennSienureinArtdesDeutschenwählenkönnten,welchenwürdenSiewählen?Howhas(hometown)changedfromwhenyouwereyounger?WiehatsichIhreHeimatstadtimVergleichdazugeändert,alsSiejüngerwaren?

Doyouthinkthereareanydimensionsoftheusageof(dialect)thatyoudidn’tgetthechancetoreferenceinthesurvey?DenkenSie,dassesAspektederDialektnutzunggibt,woSieimFragebogenkeineChancehatten,diesezudiskutieren?

MeaningInthesurveyyouwereaskedifyouthoughtyourdialectplayedaroleinyouridentity.Aretherecertainareasofyourlifewherethisfeelslikeitismoreorlessthecase?ImFragebogenwurdenSiegefragt,obSiedenken,dassIhrDialekteineRolleinIhrerIdentitätsbildungspielt.GibtesspezifischeTeileIhresLeben,indenenesscheint,dassdiesmehroderwenigerderFallist?

WhoorwheredoyouthinkyouwouldbeiftodayyouonlyspokeStandardGerman?Wouldyourlifebedifferent?Inwhatways?WeroderwowärenSieIhrerMeinungnachheutzutage,wennSienurHochdeutschsprechenkönnten?WäreIhrLebenanders?Inwiefern?

Howdoyoufeelaboutthefactthat(dialect)is/isn’ttaughtinschools?WiedenkenSiedarüber,dassDialektenichtinSchulenunterrichtetwerden.