Processes of horizontal and vertical convergence in present day Germany

Abstract

0. Introduction This paper attempts to give a brief account of the major processes of convergence in the German language area, processes which may be called horizontal (if they affect the inter-dialectal dimension) or vertical (if they affect the standard-dialect dimension). The first section presents some preliminary thoughts on convergence and divergence in social dialectology, while section two outlines four developments in the German language area (focussing on the situation in Germany and Austria).