Regionalsprachliche Grenzen im Hörerurteil

Abstract

This study deals with the perception of areal language structures by linguistic laypersons and is thus to be located in the field of perceptual dialectology. The central object of perceptual linguistic studies are listeners’ judgments, understood in the broadest sense as linguistic knowledge-based comments about language, speakers, or linguistic phenomena. Although per­ceputal dialectology has increasingly become a main topic in German linguistics in recent years, the spatial distribution areas of modern German regional languages are known in very few cases. The area under investigation in this study is the East Franconian-North Bavarian transi­tional area around the city of Nuremburg. Linguistically, this is a mixed area with elements of the East Franconian and the North Bavarian dialects. In the public perception, however, this area is usually perceived as belonging to (East) Franconian, which is reinforced by its political affiliation with the administrative district of Middle Franconia. By means of a perception test and a mental map task, the language border between East Franconian and North Baviarian is scrutinized from the perspective of linguistic laypersons. The results of both tests show that the two neighboring regional language systems are con­ceputalized as distinct entities and are perceptually distinct even in the supraregionally orientated, near-standard ways of speech. The results also prove that perceptual tests are a reliable method for exploring regional language borders from the listeners’ point of view and allow valid statements about the dynamics of regional language areas.