Formen, Verwendungen und Funktionen von Sprachvariation

Abstract

Abstract In the German-speaking world, communication within institutions, in particular universities, is generally expected to be conducted in Standard German. This paper investigates whether this notion aligns with the perceptions and attitudes of lecturers at Viennese universities and children’s universities. The five major Viennese universities were, due to their broad catchment area resulting in a diverse (in terms of both geographic origin and linguistic background) teaching staff and student body, chosen for participant recruitment. The research question is addressed by empirically examining lecturers’ self-assessment of their usage of standard and regional varieties of German in the two different contexts of teaching, i. e. at universities and children’s universities, using an online questionnaire. The findings show that intra-individual variation is used by lecturers as a functional resource to create specific contexts and meanings during teaching. Across the whole investigation, teachers in the middle and oldest age groups perceived their use of language variation as more consistent than the younger group. Results indicate that the way lecturers speak at university significantly affects how they speak at children’s university. In conclusion, regarding different situational constellations and activities, a clear context-specific use of the whole variational spectrum can be observed.