Enregistering pluricentric German

Full text

Peter Auer
Enregistering pluricentric German
Abstract: The notion of pluricentric languages as introduced by Heinz Kloss and made
popular by Michael Clyne and (for German) by Ulrich Ammon is usually defined with
reference to the codified standard varieties of a language which are said to differ in
the various states in which the language is used. According to this definition standard
German doubtlessly is a pluricentric language. However, as shown in this paper, the
number of Teutonisms is huge, but there are only comparatively few Austriacisms and
Heleviticisms since most of the candidate features are also found in the southern part
of Germany. This raises the interesting question of how Austrian and Swiss standard
German become enregistered (Agha) as distinct varieties. The paper discusses several
examples of how this is done.
Keywords. German, pluricentricity, enregisterment, Swiss German, Austrian German
1 Introduction
A pluricentric language is typically defined as one which has more than one norma-
tively installed national standard variety. When applied to German, this definition
leads to the rather uncontroversial conclusion that German is a pluricentric language.
In this paper I raise the question of whether such a simple definition is useful. I will
suggest that it neglects some of the more interesting questions. They become visible
once we look under the surface of definitional matters and ask what Standard German
(henceforth: StdG) means for speakers in Germany, Austria and Switzerland, i.e. once
we look into the ideological construction of (varieties of) StdG in public and private
discourse. I will use Agha’s notion (2003) of enregisterment to refer to these processes
and will show on the basis of some examples how certain linguistic features are en-
registered as part of Austrian, German and Swiss StdG – independent of their areal
distribution.
According to Geeraerts, Kristiansen, and Peirsman (2010: 9), cognitive sociolin-
guistics is centrally concerned with the “study the meaning of variation, i.e. the way
in which language users make sense of linguistic variation, the way in which linguis-
tic variation is meaningful to them”. This also implies that linguistic variation can be
meaningful in different ways to different people, since the same linguistic facts can be
perceived differently. In this sense, the following remarks are a part of cognitive so-
ciolinguistics. I am interested in the way in which individual variable features within
German are constructed as belonging together, as being part of one variety which, as
an ideological construct, is exclusively linked to one German-speaking nation and per-
ceived as typical of it (irrespective of the factual distribution of the variable). It will be

18 Peter Auer
argued that this type of “enregisterment” lies at the heart of present-day constructions
of German as a pluricentric language.
2 What are pluricentric languages?
The term “pluricentric languages” is probably due to William Stewart, an American so-
ciolinguist who used it in an article published in 1968 (but circulated earlier) on bilin-
gual repertoires. Heinz Kloss made the term popular in his 1967 article on “Abstand
Languages and Ausbau Languages”. In this influential paper, Kloss (1967) juxtaposes
Ausbau languages (standardised literary languages) and variants of a pluricentric lan-
guage: in the absence of a clear linguistic Abstand (structural differences), pairs of
languages can oscillate between these two possibilities, as his example of Romanian
vs. Moldavian illustrates.
Both for Stewart (1968) and for Kloss (1967), the term “pluricentric” was not re-
stricted to languages with more than one standard variety used in different nation-
states. Their examples include Serbo-Croatian (with Serbian and Croatian variants of
the standard language which were both, at that time, used in the same nation-state),
and even Nynorsk and Bokmål in Norway (which are also standard varieties of the
same nation). However, in the 1978 edition of Die Entwicklung neuer germanischer Kul-
tursprachen seit 1800 (the first edition from 1952 does not yet mention the term), Kloss
restricts the focus to national standard varieties:
Particularly standard languages are frequently pluricentric, i.e. they show several variants of
equal standing (gleichberechtigte Spielarten ), if they are the official and administrative languages
of several larger, independent states, such as Portuguese in Portugal and Brazil, German in the
Federal Republic, the Democratic Republic, Switzerland, Austria, Dutch in the Dutch Kingdom
(“Dutch”) and in Belgium (“Flemish”)” (Kloss 1978: 67, translation P.A.)
In the more recent literature, the term is usually restricted to this meaning. For in-
stance, Clyne (1984: 1) defines a pluricentric language as one “with several national
varieties, each with its own norm”, and in The German Language in a Changing Eu-
rope he calls a pluricentric language “one with several interacting centres, each
providing a national variety with at least some of its own (codified) norms” (Clyne
1995: 20).
A somewhat more cautious view is taken by Ammon (1995: 97) in his monumental
Die deutsche Sprache in Deutschland, Österreich und der Schweiz.Hismoreneutralpo-
sition is that “in the case of more centres (more than one) one speaks of a pluricentric
language” (translation P.A.). These “centres” are not always nations, however. For the
German language Ammon differentiates between national centres, state centres (the
GDR and the FRG were commonly considered to be two states within one nation, and
each, according to Ammon, represented a separate language centre), non-complete
national centres of a language (such as Switzerland, where German is the administra-

Enregistering pluricentric German 19
tive language only in the German-speaking part), and subnational centres (he men-
tions Bavaria).
Despite these differences, for all authors mentioned here, normativity of the vari-
ants of the standard is crucial. This means that pluricentricity is not defined on the
level of languageuse or the language representations of lay speakers. Rather, the stan-
dard as spoken in a languagearea (usually a nation-state) is considered to be the same
as in another area if there are no specific norms underlying whatever differences may
factually exist. Ideally, these norms are laid down in a codex, and the codification has
to be done in the state itself (“Binnenkodex” in the sense of Ammon), i.e. it is not
enough that the dictionaries of another (larger) state mention them as divergences.
For instance, accordingto this view, StdG as one of the three official languages in Lux-
embourg surely has its own characteristics (e.g., the amount of French loanwords is
much higher than in Germany), but it is only marginally codified, if at all. There seems
to be agreement that today (after the collapse of the GDR) there are maximally three
normative centres of German which meet this requirement: Germany, Switzerland and
Austria. As we shall see, even between these three centres of German, there are major
differences with respect to codification, since Germany is still the main codifier.
In addition to pluricentricity based on codified normative differences between the
variants of the standard language, Ammon (1995: 96) also discusses weaker forms of
normativity which are not based on a codex. For instance, the norms of a national
standard variety may be enforced by language experts (linguists, philologists) or by
“norm authorities” such as teachers, or they may even be based on “model texts”
written by journalists or writers. This leads Ammon to distinguish between Vollzen-
tren (the three mentioned above) and Halbzentren of German (he mentions Liechten-
stein, Luxembourg, South Tyrol and East Belgium, i.e. the other countries or regions in
which German has the status of an official language). Such an extension of the notion
of pluricentricity has not been generally accepted, however. In the following, I will
therefore restrict my attention to the German standard language in Germany, Austria
and German-speaking Switzerland.
Finally, the notion of a “centre” (as in “pluri-centric”) deserves a comment. Kloss
(1978: 66) vaguely suggests that language centres are also “cultural ‘centres’ [quota-
tion marks in the original, P.A.], which are opposed to each other culturally and often
also politically” (translation P.A.). Ammon, on the contrary, defines linguistic centres
purely in terms of the standard norms they have developed. But in any case, the term
“centre” would seem to imply that there is a periphery as well, into which the centre
“radiates”.1This issue of radiation is seemingly avoided in the current discussion of
pluricentricity; it may therefore be more accurate to simply speak of the (two or more)
1The traditional use of the term “linguistic centre” in German dialectology(of which Kloss and Stewart
surely were aware) reflects this centre/periphery idea, in the sense that a linguistic centre is taken to
exert some kind of influence on an area (usually the area around it, i.e. the periphery). Cf., for instance,

20 Peter Auer
national standard varieties of a language, instead of a pluricentric language. German
would then simply be a language with three national varieties (a straightforward ter-
minology favoured, for instance, by Riesel 1964). If, on the other hand, one takes the
centre/periphery issue seriously, questions such as the following need to be asked:
– Which standard variety do those German-speaking states orient to that are not
(full) centres themselves (such as Luxembourg, etc.)?
– Which standard variety do German learners who do not live in a German-speaking
country orient to?
– How do the standard varieties influence each other?
The answers are likely to lead to a gradient view of pluricentricity with Germany as
the strongest centre, followed by Austria and then Switzerland, based on the following
considerations:
– Luxembourg and Belgium orient to German StdG, while Austrian (and perhaps
Bavarian) StdG only serves as a point of orientation in South Tyrol, the Swiss stan-
dard only in Liechtenstein.
– The target variety of German as a foreign language (i.e. outside the German-
speaking area) is usually the standard of Germany; in some parts of Eastern Eu-
rope (particularly those which were part of the Habsburg empire, i.e. Ukraine, the
Czech Republic, Slovakia, Slovenia, Croatia, Hungary and Romania), the Austrian
variety of StdG competes with German StdG. Swiss StdG plays no role as a target
variety; in fact, even in the Italian- and French-speaking parts of Switzerland, it is
often German StdG which is learnt, not Swiss StdG.
– German StdG has some influence on the Austrian and Swiss standards, but not
vice versa; the Austrian and the Swiss variants do not influence each other.
In short, if the notion of a centre is taken seriously, the three standard varieties of Ger-
man are not “of equal standing” (Kloss), but are hierarchically ordered. Clyne (1995:
21–2) speaks of “asymmetrical pluricentricity”, and he notes correctly that Germany’s
position as a dominant centre is also reflected in the speakers’ attitudes. Thus, Ger-
mans tend to “dismiss national variation as trivial”, and to “confuse ‘national vari-
ation’ with ‘regional variation’ (…) without understanding the function, status and
symbolic character of the ‘national varieties”’ (Clyne 1995: 22).
Bach’s definition of the “Sprache des politischen Mittelpunkts oder des Kulturzentrums” (Bach 1950:
89) or of “städtische Zentren” (Bach 1950: 91).

Enregistering pluricentric German 21
3 Evidence for the pluricentricity of German on the level
of language norms
It is relatively easy to show that there are three different norms of StdG valid in
Germany, Austria and German-speaking Switzerland (a detailed description of these
norms is given in Ammon 1995). More difficult is the question of codification, which
depends on the definition of a codex. Since a state-enforced codex only exists for or-
thography in the German-speaking countries, and since the differences between the
three nations in this area are minor,2the relevance of the codices is questionable. The
only areas apart from orthography in which national differences are codified to a cer-
tain degree (by private institutions, not the state) are the lexicon and phonetics. Dic-
tionariesproducedinGermanysuchastheDuden Universalwörterbuch or the Duden –
Das große Wörterbuch der deutschen Sprache are also sold on the Austrian and Swiss
market; therefore, they usually mark Austrian and Swiss peculiarities as such (a case
of exo-normativity), while those words that are only in use in Germany are not speci-
fied. These dictionaries claim validity for the whole German languagearea. Today, the
tendency is to include Swiss and Austrian variants more comprehensively, and partly
also to mark the words that are only used in Germany. In Switzerland, there are addi-
tionally some dictionaries that list the Swiss StdG peculiarities, such as Kurt Meyer’s
2006 Schweizer Wörterbuch,theSchweizer Schülerduden (Sturm et al. 2001) and Unser
Wortschatz – Schweizer Wörterbuch der deutschen Sprache (Bigler et al. 1987); these are
of limited use in schools. Much more relevant is the Austrian Österreichisches Wörter-
buch, whose various editions since 1951 reflect the ideological debates surrounding
the divergence of Austrian StdG from German StdG. All these publications reflect the
imbalance between the German norm and the Austrian and Swiss norms. Recently, the
Variantenwörterbuch des Deutschen (2004) made an explicit attempt to be more bal-
anced. It is a joint venture of linguists in all German-speaking countries, and gives a
comprehensive view of the lexical differences within standard German (not only be-
tween Switzerland, Austria and Germany, but also within the German standard, and
in Luxembourg, South Tyrol, and Belgium).
Apart from the lexicon, differences between the three national standard vari-
eties are highly noticeable on the phonetic level. German standardpronunciation has
been codified for a long time by the so-called Siebs (viz. Theodor Siebs, Deutsche
Aussprache) and other pronunciation dictionaries. Swiss German pronunciation was
codified by Hofmüller-Schenk in 1995, Austrian standard German phonetics by Muhr
in 2007. Still, it is here that the normative nature of the differences between the three
countries is perhaps most readily felt. For instance, the phonetics of news anchormen
2The only major difference is the missing letter <ß> in Switzerland, which is replaced by <ss>, while
in Austria and Germany, the distinction between <ß> and <s> after long vowels indicates a voicing
distinction.

22 Peter Auer
and -women in the national news broadcasts have to follow the phonetic norms of Aus-
tria, Switzerland or Germany; thus, while a news presenter in Bavaria may be accept-
able to the public if s/he uses the – north-German – codified, i.e. orthoepic – phonetic
norm of Germany (and not Bavarian standard German phonetics), no news presenter
in Switzerland or Austria would.
An interesting case which reflects the same normative pressure, although to a
lesser degree than the news on national television, is the dubbing of TV publicity spots
produced in Germany for use on Austrian television according to the Austrian norm.
Dubbing is not consistently done, but it is not infrequent either. Note that the situation
in Switzerland is different: here, foreign TV spots are either not dubbed at all or they
are translated into Swiss dialect. An example may be useful to show that minor pho-
netic differences between Austrian and German StdG phonetics can be salient enough
to make a TV spot unsuitable (in the eyes of the producers) for the Austrian audience.
It is a spot for the candy “Nimm 2”, recently shown in Germany and Austria. The spot
contains the following dialogue between three mothers (who, together with their chil-
dren, are the target group of the product):3
FIRST MOTHER weich und gefüllt? Da bin ich mal gespannt.
Soft and filled? I’m curious.
SECOND MOTHER das is irgendwie schön fruchtig und schön saftig
Somehow this is really fruity and really juicy
FIRST MOTHER lecker
tasty
THIRD MOTHER das is typisch Nimm 2, ja, Vitamine, und naschen.
That’s typical Nimm 2, right, vitamins, and snacking.
CHILD ich hab Zitrone
Igotlemon
SECOND MOTHER du hast Zitrone?
You’ve got lem on?
In both versions, the off-voice which frames this dialogue uses German standard pho-
netics (the voice of authority?), but the mothers’ voices (not that of the child!) were
dubbed for broadcast in Austria. The text itself remained unaltered, although the
evaluative adjective lecker is often considered to be a Teutonism in Austria (in fact,
it is northern German standard). However, the phonetics changed. In particular, in
the Austrian version, the fricative realization of the final consonant in fruchti [ç] and
safti [ç] was replaced by a stop [k], the offglide of the diphthong in zwei is markedly
lower and the onglide centralized and nasalized, the fortis stops in typisch are lenited
3The clips can be seen on YouTube (last access July 2011), cf. http://www.youtube.com/
watch?v=SmniXTmNJbE for the German version and http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z0LON2G3
wPw&feature=watch_response for the Austrian one.

Enregistering pluricentric German 23
and spoken without aspiration, and the centralized, rounded short /i/ in nimm in
the German version is replaced by an unrounded, non-centralized, somewhat tensed
vowel. All these are clearly features of the Austrian standard norm. With the excep-
tion of the monophthongization of the diphthong /ai/ (which is an innovation of the
Vienna city dialect), they are also used in Bavaria and/or southern Germany, but have
no normative status there.
Adaptations to the national standard variety can also be seen in the Swissmedia.
Bickel and Schmidtlin (2004: 105) report that radio and TV moderators in Switzerland
see to it that their Swiss German can still be recognized (cf. Hove 2002). They also ob-
serve that for use in Swiss newspapers, texts written by German news agencies are
adapted lexically when they contain items not used in Switzerland. Note that this is
not a matter of intelligibility, but of identity: most “Germany-only” words are known
to the readers in Switzerland (while the opposite is not always the case); they would,
however, betray the news texts’ external provenance and therefore damage the credi-
bility of the Swiss news.
4Normsandusage
Up to now, we have seen that, according to a norm-based definition, German has three
distinct national standard varieties. If we were to stop here, however (as most of the
literature on the topic in German sociolinguistics does), we would miss the important
facts. Norms are the product of social processes in which certain language features
assume normative status while others do not. I suggest using Agha’s notion of enreg-
isterment to capture these processes and I will show in the next sections that the en-
registerment of a Swiss standard follows very different paths than the enregisterment
of an Austrian standard, let alone that of the German standard.
Before we look into these processes on the basis of some examples, it should be
pointed out that there is a major difference between German and other pluricentric
languages such as Portuguese, Spanish and English. Whereas the pluricentricity of
Portuguese, Spanish and English is a heritage of the colonial past of Portugal, Spain
and England, it is due in the German-speaking nations to the fact that they have shared
a contiguous language space for around 1,000 years. No major4new varieties have
emerged as a consequence of overseas migration or colonialization.
The modern standard variants of German cover an area in which dialect continua
have existed over a long time, while the national standard language(s) is (are) rel-
4In some German-speaking overseas settlements new varieties of colloquial German have developed
(see e.g. Auer (2005) on Southern Brazilian German – “Hunsrückisch”). However, in none of these
settlements has a distinct standard variety emerged; rather, the aim of all German language teaching
and acquisition was to reach the German standard norm as used in Germany.

24 Peter Auer
atively young. In particular, the national border between Switzerland and Germany
cross-cuts an old Alemannic dialect continuum and the national border between Ger-
many and Austria cross-cuts a Bavarian dialect continuum (in a small part in the
western-most state of Austria, i.e. Vorarlberg, it also crosses the Alemannic dialect
continuum). These dialect continua have in the second half of the last century tended
to dissolve at the national political borders, a process which in itself merits detailed
consideration (cf. Auer, in press). However, since the dialects were the substrate of
the varieties of standard German spoken in the respective areas at least until the mid-
19th century, many of the variants which today are considered distinctive elements of
the Austrian or Swiss German standard varieties are also found in the standard va-
rieties used in the southern parts of Germany. The difference is that in Austria and
Switzerland, they may constitute the only norm, while in Germany, they are merely
alternants of the norm (lexicon) or even violations of it (phonetics, some parts of
syntax).
Let us call linguistic features that only occur in the language space of Germany,
Austria or German-speaking Switzerland (in the whole or a subarea of the nation
space) Teutonisms,Austriacisms and Helvetisms, respectively. Once we start to look
into standard use (instead of standard norms), the basis of Austrian and Swiss StdG
becomes precarious in the sense that clear Austriacisms and Helvetisms are not all
that frequent. On the other hand, there are a huge number of Teutonisms, but these
variants often are used in a part of Germany only, mostly following a north/south di-
vide, with the southern German alternants being identical to those in Austria and/or
Switzerland.
In the following I will give some examples of this precariousness using data from
two geographical investigations on colloquial standard German, the Wortatlas der
deutschen Umgangssprachen (Eichhoff 1977–2000) and the Atlas der deutschen Allt-
agssprache (AdA) published online at the University of Augsburg under the direction
of Stephan Elspaß and Robert Möller since 2001. Both are based on questionnaires ad-
ministered by mail or online. In addition to variation in the standard language they
also cover some regional variants which must be considered dialectal; they were dis-
regarded in the following discussion.
Austriacisms and Helvetisms are restricted by and large to the following three
groups of words:
– Administrative terms. They clearly originate from official, mainly written, bureau-
cratic language. For instance, a written test at school is called a Schularbeit in
Austria, and only in Austria, while it is called Klassenarbeit in most of Germany
with the exception of the state (Land ) of Bavaria in which the term Schulaufgabe is
prevalent. These terms are the ones used by the school authorities and, of course,
the students also stick to them. Particularly in Switzerland, the official language
can diverge considerably from Germany and Austria. Public notes such as Fehlbare
Automobilisten werden gebüßt (‘transgressions by car-drivers will be prosecuted’)
or in the tramway Fahrgäste ohne Billet zahlen 50 Franken für die Umtriebe (‘pas-

Enregistering pluricentric German 25
sengers without a ticket will pay 50 SFr for the inconveniences’) are hardly com-
prehensible to Germans and Austrians outside their specific context.5
– Words offoreign origin. Due to the language purism movement in the late19th and
early 20th century in Germany, many words of Latin, Greek and French etymology
were replaced by German counterparts; in Austria, and particularly in Switzer-
land, the older, non-native words have often survived, at least as alternants. For
instance, Automobilist ‘car driver’, is a Helvetism (cf. Austrian/German StdG, but
also non-administrative Swiss German StdG: Autofahrer), as is Billet (‘ticket’, Ger-
man, Austrian StdG: Fahrkarte, Fahrausweis)andSwissStdGVelo ‘bicycle’ (Ger-
man StdG (Fahr)rad, Austrian StdG Rad ; cf. Eichhoff 3,17).
– Words for food. This applies, in particular, to Austrian standard German. Ex-
amples are Austrian StdG (Schweins-)Stelze for ‘pork knuckle’ (German StdG
Schweinshaxe, Eisbein; cf. Eichhoff 4, 35) or Faschiertes for ‘minced meat’ (German
and Swiss StdG Gehacktes, Hackfleisch, Schabefleisch, Hack; cf. Eichhoff 4, 34).
In by far the more frequent case, however, there are several competing lexical variants
in German StdG, one of which (often the southern form) is the only variant used in
Switzerland and/or Austria (although the others are usually known and understood).
These words are therefore Teutonisms, but the corresponding words used in Switzer-
land and/or Austria are not Helvetisms or Austriacisms. Usually this is a consequence
of the dialectal differences within Germany, in combination with the dialectal simi-
larities between Southern Germany and German-speaking Switzerland and Austria.
Again, the numerous examples can be classified in four groups according to the geo-
graphical constellation which they represent.
Group 1: South/north distinction. In the north of the German-speaking area, other
lexical variants are used than in the south, but the distribution does not correlate with
the borders of the Länder (states). For instance, the more we go south, the more the
northern German Zahnschmerzen ‘tooth ache’ (northern) gives way to Zahnweh (cf.
Eichhoff 3, 3), klug/schlau ‘clever’ gives way to gescheit (south; cf. Eichhoff 3, 35), or
Anspitzer to Spitzer ‘sharpener’ (cf. Elspaß and Möller 2006). The north/south divide is
not the same for every pair; for instance, Anspitzer is more restricted to the very north
(roughly the Low German area), while Zahnschmerzen extends much further south (cf.
Figures 1 and 2).
5Some explanations:
fehlbar: the meaning ‘guilty of a transgression’ is unknown in Germany andAustria, where the adjec-
tive is only used as the antonym of unfehlbar (‘infallible’);
gebüsst warden: ‘to be fined’ is unknown in Germany and Austria, where the verb büßen only means
‘to atone for’ and cannot be used transitively. As a consequence, a traffic ticket is called Buße only in
Switzerland;
umtriebe: ‘administrative expenses’ is unknown in Germany and Austria, where the noun only means
‘machinations’.

26 Peter Auer
Fig. 1: Geographical distribution of Zahnschmerzen (northern) vs. Zahnweh (southern,
‘toothache’) according to Eichhoff 3, 3
Group 2: In rare cases we find an east/west division (sometimes in addition to a
south/north divide). An example is the word for ‘dessert’. The Austrian form (Nach-
speise) is also used in Bavaria, the Swiss form (Dessert) in some parts of Baden (in the
very west of Germany); the former GDR, i.e. the Northeast in this case had its own
variant (Ko mpott ), and the Northwest uses Nachtisch (Eichhoff 4, 33; cf. Figure 3).
Kompott and Nachtisch are Teutonisms, but Dessert and Nachspeise are not Helveti-
cisms/Austracisms. The word for ‘roll’ is another example: Semmel is used in Austria
and Bavaria, Weck/en and variants in the west, from Switzerland up to the Moselle-
Franconian area (Eichhoff 2, 59; cf. Figure 7 below).

Enregistering pluricentric German 27
Fig. 2: Geographical distribution of Anspitzer (northern) vs. Spitzer (southern, ‘sharpener’) ac-
cording to Elspaß and Möller (2006)
Group 3: Surprisingly, in a good number of cases, Austrian StdG shares a lexical vari-
ant with the north of Germany, while Switzerland goes with the southern part of Ger-
many. Examples are the word for cabinet maker (see Eichhoff 1, 20) which is Tischler
in Austria and northern/eastern Germany, but Schreiner in Switzerland and the rest
of Germany, or the word for ‘cheek’ which is Backe in most of Germany and Switzer-
land, but Wange in Austria and, competing with Backe, also in northern and eastern
Germany (Eichhoff 3, 1).
Group 4: Very rarely, Swiss StdG patterns coincide with northern German StdG. This
applies, e.g., to the word for ‘mosquito’: Swiss and German StdG use Mücke,while
Austria has a clear Austriacism, i.e. Gelse, and Southern Germany as well as parts of
theMiddleGermanareauseSchnake (cf. Eichhoff 2, 101).
Grammar shows a similar picture. There are some few Austriacisms and Hel-
vetisms, most of which refer to lexically-stored grammatical information. Examples
are gender differences (cf. das Plastik – neuter – in Austria and Germany vs. der
Plastik – masculine – in Switzerland, cf. Eichhoff 2, 77) or the presence vs. absence
of the compound marker (Fugenelement) [s] (which is used in more words in Aus-
tria than in Switzerland and Germany, cf. Fabriksbesitzer vs. Fabrikbesitzer ‘factory
owner’,Aufnahms
prüfung vs. Aufnahmeprüfung ‘entrance exam’, cf. the respective
AdA maps). Much more often, however, the Swiss and Austrian forms concur with the

28 Peter Auer
Fig. 3: Geographical distribution of Nachtisch (Northwest) vs. Nachspeise (Southeast) vs.
Dessert (Southwest) vs. Kompott (Northeast, ‘dessert’) according to Eichhoff 4, 33
southern German StdG forms. For instance, the use of the definite article with per-
sonal names is often considered to be typical of Austria (Riesel 1964: 14), but it is also
dominant all over Switzerland and in the south and the middle of Germany; only the
northernmost part of Germany does not use this construction (and even there it seems
to be spreading, cf. Eichhoff 4, 76; cf. Figure 5). Another example often mentioned as
an Austriacism and/or Helvetism is the formation of the perfect tense with the auxil-
iary sein instead of haben (ich habe gesessen/bin gesessen ‘I was sitting/I sat’), which
once more is general Upper German (cf. Eichhoff map 2, 125 and corresponding AdA
maps in Elspaß and Möller 2006).

Enregistering pluricentric German 29
Fig. 4: Geographical distribution of Tischler (Austria and North of Germany) vs. Schreiner (rest)
according to Eichhoff 1, 20
Of course, these findings are not surprising, given the dialectal similarities between
southern Germany and Austria/Switzerland.6The important point is that the defini-
6More surprising are the considerable number of lexical concurrences between northern Germany
and Austria, which are probably due to the fact that until 1919,Austria actively contributed to the emer-
gence of a common German standard language. The standard variety spoken by the upper classes in
Vienna was by no means seen as separate from that in the German Reich (cf. Ammon 1995: 117–128),
and it is possible that the forms used in neighbouring Bavaria were regarded as provincial and there-
fore rejected in favour of those used in Prussia.

30 Peter Auer
Fig. 5: Geographical distribution of the use of the definite article with proper nouns (only in the
north of Germany) according to Eichhoff 4, 76
tion of an Austrian (and Swiss) Standard German norm cannot be solidly based on
objective differences in standard language use in these countries and Germany as a
whole. Since the German norm is often divided between northern and southern vari-
ants, it frequently includes the Austrian and Swiss forms. This brings us to the central
point: the enregisterment of an Austrian and Swiss standard German cannot be based
on categorical differences in language use (since there are too few Austriacisms and
Helvetisms), but only by opposing the Swiss and Austrian forms to the northern Ger-
man standard (a subset of the German standard forms), thus ignoring variation within

Enregistering pluricentric German 31
German StdG. How this is done will be the focus of the next section. We will also see
that the enregisterment of Swiss standard German is not the same as the enregister-
ment of Austrian standard German.
5 The enregisterment German, Swiss and Austrian varieties
of StdG
Agha (2003, 2007) coined the term enregisterment inordertodescribethe“processes
whereby distinct forms of speech come to be socially recognized (or enregistered) as
indexical of speaker attributes by a population of language users”; his example is the
British standard pronunciation (RP). Johnstone and colleagues (e.g. Johnstone, An-
drus, and Danielsson 2006) have used the same theory to account for the ideological
formation of regional ways of speaking (here, Pittsburghese). Agha’s starting point
is the conviction that the formation of “registers” is more revealing than the regis-
ters themselves. Applied to our topic, this means that we should be less interested in
the German language in the structural-positivistic sense (as much of the literature on
plurilingualism is), or object differences between language varieties, or more or less
diverging grammars or phonetics; rather, we should focus on “models of language use
that are disseminated along identifiable trajectories in social space” (Agha 2007: 38),
i.e. interactional, micro-level processes of typification through which constellations
of language forms (registers) are imbued with social meaning through their associa-
tion with (again typified) groups of speakers. Agha speaks of role alignment to cap-
ture this specific reflexivity between social types and linguistic form groups. Such role
alignment can occur in face-to-face communication and in the media, through styl-
ized and non-stylized displays and ascriptions of socially relevant membership cate-
gories, but there is good reason to believe that for any investigation of the enregister-
ment of national standard varieties, it will be crucial to look into the dissemination of
models of language use across groups of speakers by means of “discursive artifacts”
(Agha) such as oral narratives, printed cartoons, newspapers, magazines, novels, etc.
Of course, these representations would not have a lasting effect on the ideological con-
struction of national standard varieties if they were not copied or at least approximated
by “real” speakers in “real” encounters who position themselves in a social space by
choosing one constellation of linguistic variant over another. There is, then, a complex
interplay between individuals whose acts of identity involve the selection of certain
speech forms, and medial and other discursive productions of stereotypes of varieties
and their typical speakers. A good example of this interplay of media and everyday
language usage comes from Switzerland. Swiss German preschool children acquire
Standard German from TV, fairy tale CDs, computer games, etc.; this standard Ger-
man often has distinct StdG traits (as most of these media are produced in Germany;
cf. Suter Tufekovic 2008: 116). These medial representations do not enregister nega-
tive attitudes towards StdG in general, nor its German version in particular. However,

32 Peter Auer
when the children enter school, they are confronted with the teachers’ different dis-
cursive constructions of the same registers (of StdG), which change their attitude and
their linguistic practices. They now learn that only dialect is the normatively approved
way of speaking in everyday life in Switzerland. At the same time, their StdG – and in
particular German StdG – is devaluated and as a consequence disappears from active
language use (Sieber and Sitta 1994).
Processes of enregisterment produce social values attached to language forms. In
the case of the standard varieties of a pluricentric language, these social values have
two dimensions. On one dimension (the internal one) they encode (as all standard
languages do) at least a subgroup of the following features: respect, formality, com-
plexity, correctness, stiffness, arrogance, high social status, intelligence, ambition,
modernity, etc. which are partly metonymically transferred from their typical speak-
ers to the language varieties. On another dimension (the external one) they encode
national identity against the alterity of the other language centres of the same lan-
guage. A crucial point about the three German standard varieties is that the second
dimension is mapped upon the first in the sense that German StdG, when construed
(enregistered) from an Austrian or Swiss perspective, has all the (negative and positive)
features (Austrian/Swiss) standard German also has when opposed to the dialects or
regional dialects. In this sense, German StdG becomes an ultra-standard.Theinverse
also holds (although it cannot be discussed here in detail for reasons of space): from
a German perspective, the Austrian and Swiss variants of the standard have all the
features of non-standard, dialectal ways of speaking (registers), such as being cute,
cosy, dumb, inarticulate, backward, expressing solidarity, etc., i.e. they are treated
(become registered) as quasi-dialects. Swiss standard German speakers in particular
report again and again (cf., e.g., Koller 1999) that they are complimented in northern
Germany for their intelligible dialect when speaking Swiss StdG.
Let us look at two examples of the enregisterment of German StdG from an Aus-
trian and Swiss perspective. Enregisterment means that certain features of German
StdG are picked out (are made salient) and are construed as co-occurring, but also that
social meaning is construed for these forms by their association with typified speakers.
The first example (Figure 6) is a cartoon from the early 1990s.7AperhapsTurk-
ish seasonal worker who is employed during the tourist season in Austria receives
language lessons from an Austrian. The Austrian, who speaks some kind of mixture
of (Tyrolian?) dialect and standard, teaches the guest worker two different registers
which are easily identified as Austrian and German StdG. The Austrian forms are pre-
sented as the ones to be used “normally”, while the German forms are to be used with
the German tourists.
7Taken from: Materialien zur österreichischen Landeskunde Vol. 1, edited by the Bundesministerium
für Unterricht und Kunst, Wien 1992, p. 36; the original purpose and publication of the cartoon is un-
known to me.

Enregistering pluricentric German 33
Fig. 6: A cartoon which enregisters German and Austrian StdG from an Austrian point of view
Ali learns German
This is a Semml (roll).
From December to April and over the summer,
this is a Brötchen (roll).
This is a Knedl (dumpling).
And during the season, this is a Kloss (dumpling).
Repeat.
And those out there in the fat Mercedes
are Piefke (Germans). But during the season,
they are “our dear guests”.
The cartoon very explicitly builds up a linguistic contrast between Semmel/Brötchen
and Knödel/Kloss (German orthography:Kloß ), which through the cartoon become en-
registered as Austrian and German standard respectively, and are then mapped onto
the social categories Piefke vs. unsere lieben geschte ‘our dear guests’ (the terms de-
note the same group of people, depending on whether they are being talked about be-
hind their back or being addressed as tourists). The word Piefke is a derogatory term
for Germans which is generally known in Austria.8The linguistic form chosen in the
8It goes back to a 19th century cartoon figure portraying the typical German petit bourgeois, later a
low-ranking soldier in the Prussian army. This cartoon figure was invented in Berlin, and transferred to
Vienna after the 1866 military defeat of Austria in the Austrian/Prussian war as a negative stereotype
of the Prussian (soldier). From there it became generalized to the German in general (cf. Godeysen
2010). The success of this expression in Austria may partly be due to the phonetics of the name: the
two voiceless stops in syllable-initial position can be pronounced with sufficient aspiratory force to

34 Peter Auer
Fig. 7: Geographical distribution of Semmel (southeast) vs. Brötchen (north) according to the
Atlas der deutschen Alltagssprache (AdA)
cartoon for ‘our dear guests’ (unsere lieben geschte) alludes to a partly hypercorrect,
partly dialectally interfered form of Austrian standard German as used by a speaker
who does not usually speak standard German and makes an effort to approximate the
“ultra-standard” of Germany (cf. the closed instead of StdG open /e/ and the palatal-
ized /s/ before /t/ in geschte, both marked by divergent orthography, i.e. from Gäste).
Which linguistic variants are enregistered here? A look at the AdA map (cf. Fig-
ure 7) for Semmel/Brötchen reveals that their geographical spread follows the familiar
conform to the cliché of militaristic Prussian Kasernenton ; in addition, the -ke ending, unknown in
Austrian, made the name sound sufficiently alien (Piefke is a nativized form of Polish piwko ‘beer’.)

Enregistering pluricentric German 35
pattern discussed in the previous section:9both Kloß and Brötchen are Teutonisms,
but they are only used in the more northern parts of Germany. Knödel and Semmel,on
the contrary, are not Austriacisms, since they are used outside Austria as well. Both
therefore seem to be ill-suited for the German vs. the Austrian way of speaking stan-
dard. But this is exactly what enregisterment is all about: the cartoon achieves the
transformation from language use to language norms. Irrespective of how Germans
speak in reality, their variety of German becomes normatively enregistered as one in
which rolls are called Brötchen, and dumplings are called Klöße.Thefactthatmany
Germans do not use these words, but rather the alternants which are now part of the
Austrian standard register, is irrelevant. But the cartoon does more: it also provides
meaning through role alignment: the German words are not only used by German
tourists, these Germans are tourists who drive a Mercedes. They are economically su-
perior to the Austrians, but behave in such a way that they are thoroughly disliked. The
cartoon also enregisters Austrian StdG as a variety which contains the words Semmel,
Knödel, and the expression unsere lieben geschte, and aligns it with the hypocritical
Austrian who profits from tourism by exploiting seasonal workers from Turkey.
Variants Semmel –Brötchen
Knedl –Kloss
↓↓
Register Austrian StdG German StdG
↑↑
Users ‘we’ ‘they’
Piefke = ‘our dear guests’
Let us now look at an example for the enregisterment of Swiss StdG. The following con-
versational exchange is transcribed from a famous Swiss German cabaret act (Cabaret
Rotstift, “Am Skilift”). Four men are queuing at a ski lift, obviously in the Swiss Alps.
First in line is an American, second a German, then two Swiss. While the American
simply enjoys the view, the German continuously complains about having to wait due
to “bad organization”, and he permanently stresses that this wouldn’t happen in Ger-
many. (The country is not mentioned explicitly, though – he only speaks of bei uns
draußen ‘out there in our place’) The second Swiss responds to the German’s continu-
ous complaints with a kind of excuse; this is formulated in Swiss StdG (the only occur-
rence of this variety in the whole sketch). When the German does not stop complaining
about Switzerland and praising his home country, the first Swiss also intervenes in a
much more witty way, this time not in Swiss StdG, but in Swiss dialect. The extract
thus contains enregistered German StdG (lines 01–08, 12–25, 27), Swiss StdG (lines 9,
10, 13) and Swiss German dialect (lines 26, 28).
9Knödel/Kloß has not been investigated geographically yet, but doubtlessly Knödel is used in the
southeast of Germany as well.

36 Peter Auer
01 German: <<fast>hÖrn_se ma mann was hab ich von ner wunderbaren AUSsicht
02 wenn die orrganisaTJON im eimer is;>
Listen man what do I care about the wonderful view if the organization is on the fritz;
03 na det is doch alles SCHEIbenhonig mann.
this really is all sugar crap man.
04 i- i-ich steh jetz schon über eine STUNde hier vorm skilift un ich komm nich HOCH;
I I’ve been standing here more than an hour in front of this lift and can’t get up;
05 (–) nich hier fehlt_s doch an der orrganisaTJON;
(–) see=this is lacking in organisation;
06 rrruck zuck zack ZACK!
flash flash chop chop!
07 2nd Swiss: sie
You? ((i.e. ‘listen’))
08 German: wie bitte?
Beg your pardon?
09 2nd Swiss: <<very slowly> sie; (–) sie müssen sich nicht AUFregen! >
You ; you do n’t ha ve to ge t upse t !
10 es hat doch an einem SO schönen morgen eNORM vie[le leute.
on such a beautiful morning there are of course loads of people.
11 1st Swiss: [ja eNORM ja ja
12 German [ach was ( )
Oh come on
13 2nd Swiss: sonscht (–) sonscht geht des allweg VIEL schneller!
at other times (–) at other times it is (of course) MUCH faster!
14 German: ach wat! gehen se mal WEG [mann
Come on! leave me alone man
15 1st Swiss: [ja ja
16 German: schlampeRREI is das.
disgrace this is.
17 ne=die schwiezer ham doch keine ahnung von orrganisTJON.
see= the Swiss have no idea about organisation.
18 sowas konnte10 beiunsdraußennichvor.
this wouldn’t happen out there in our place.
19 ne=da KLAPPT das mit den wartezeiten;
right=there there’s no problem with waiting time;
20 da LÄUFT das wie am [schnÜrchen==also MANN dann]
everything runs like clockwork there. okay man then
21 1st Swiss: [((taps the German’s arm repeatedly to get hisattention))
22 German: «lowers voice, addressing 1st Swiss> nicht immer ANpicken.>
stop poking
23 1st Swiss: [ja, ( )
24 German: [<<louder again> also MANN da solln se mal unsre BERGbahnen sehn mann;>
okay man you should see our mountain railways man.
25 bei uns da geht alles ruck ZUCK zack ZACK
with us everything goes flash flash chop chop
10 Presumably a speech error or a hyperform: in StdG, a conjunctive is required (either: sowas könnte
bei uns draußen nicht vorkommen or sowas käme bei uns draußen nicht vor ).

Enregistering pluricentric German 37
26 1st Swiss: [los emal, los emal ((louder)) verzähl emol ä chli von dim umfall du öh?
Listen listen, why don’t you tell us a little about your accident uh?
[((taps the German’s arm repeatedly]
27 German: was_n für_n UNfall mann; ich hatte noch nie einen UNfall.
what accident man; I never had an accident.
28 1st Swiss: <<louder, towards audience> ja wottsch doch nöd behaupte sigsch mit so-n-ere
schnurre-n-uf d-wält cho du äh>
You don’t mean to say youwere born with a gob like that uh?
In the German’s voice a whole group of linguistic variables is enregistered and asso-
ciated with a certain social type. Phonetics/phonology, voice quality, vocabulary and
idiomaticity play an important role. Without going into details, the following features
are easily identified:
– fast and loud delivery
– overarticulation (lengthening) of /R/ (as in the words orrgansiaTION –l.02.05,
17 – and schlampeRREI, l. 16)
– variable deletion of syllable-final /t/ as in un ich komm nich HOCH instead of und
ich komm nicht HOCH (l. 4)
– clitizations (e.g., se for sie –l1,14,24.–,was_n für_n Unfall for was denn für ein
Unfall,l.21)
– inconsistently, StdG /s/ in the syllable coda is realized as /t/ (det, wat,cf.lines3,
14; however, cf. final /s/ in lines 16, 18, 19, 20)
– idiomatic expressions such as im Eimer sein,ruck zuck,zack zack,gehn se mal weg
–vocabulary:Scheibenhonig (an old-fashioned euphemism for ‘shit’)
– the adverb/verbal particle hoch instead of rauf, hinauf (in ich komm nicht hoch
‘I can’t get up’, line 4)
– the use of mann, nich and ne as tags, here also used as turn openers (cf. lines 05,
17, 19, 24)
– realization of all nuclear stresses by an HL-ton (i.e. a pitch protrusion which is
followed by a fall; not marked in the transcript).
Several of these features suggest that the comedian wants to put on a Berlin voice (cf.
particularly the use of substandard det/wat, a stereotypical Berlin feature), i.e. Berlin
is taken as representative of Germany. More precisely, voice qualityand prosody, pho-
netic overarticulation and perhaps some syntactic constructions such as the topical-
ized Schlamperei is das without a determiner before the fronted noun bring in a flavour
of pre-war Germany, notably of the Kasernenton (‘barracks speech’) associated with
the Prussian military. This makes the enregistered social type a ‘Prussian’ of old style.
But many features (such as hoch as a directional adverbial, the question tag ne,final
t-deletion and clitization) are merely North German spoken standard. Irrespective of
their factual sociolinguistic and geographical distribution, all these features are en-
registered as the German standard register in this comedy sketch. In addition, as in
the Austrian example, a social type is being aligned with this variety: in the present

38 Peter Auer
case, the German is typified as impatient, impolite, arrogant and nationalistic. He is
loud and dominant, and makes it difficult for the Swiss speakers to get a turn.
The register put on stage here is of course an intentional exaggeration and styliza-
tion; every Swiss listener will know that this is not really how Germans speak. How-
ever, enregisterment is not about real life. It is about the construction of normative
schemes of how people ‘like us’ or people ‘like them’ are, according to which real per-
sons can be categorized even if they only comply with few features of the stereotype.
In addition to enregistering a German standard variety, the sketch also enregisters
Swiss StdG (in lines 9, 10, 13). Structurally, it is performed as maximally different from
the German standard variety:
– slow delivery
– Swiss standard intonation, in particularly LH nuclear tones, i.e. the stress is re-
alized by a low tone on the accented syllable and a pitch rise in the subsequent
ones
– lento pronunciation, i.e. lack of clitization and deletions (cf. nich t in 09, ei nem in
10)
– the construction es hat …instead of es gibt…‘there is’, which is typical of the south-
western part of the German language area (not only in Switzerland, cf. Eichhoff
Vol . 2 ).
The social stereotype of the Swiss who uses Swiss standard German (and which is en-
registered together with this variety) is that of a person who tries to diffuse the situa-
tion by offering an explanation, i.e. he responds in a rational and logical way: since
the weather is so beautiful, many people go skiing and therefore it is no wonder that
the lifts are exceptionally crowded. However, it is also that of a person who fails to
make himself heard: The German is not impressed by this intervention and continues
complaining.
At this point, the other Swiss person joins the interaction, and his way of dealing
with the German is very different (cf. lines 26, 28). Linguistically, he does not bother
to speak standard but uses his dialect. Pragmatically, he doesn’t bother to give an ex-
planation. Rather, he plays a trick on the German and treats his verbosity as a speech
defect that must be the result of an accident. The dialect-speaking Swiss wins out over
the arrogant German, while the standard-speaking Swiss did not; we learn that a real
Swiss speaks dialect, the language in which he feels at home and in which he can be
witty and clever. Swiss standard German, on the contrary, is no guarantee of success,
especially since most Swiss (like the persona performed in the sketch) do not master
it anyway: the standard German the first Swiss aims at still shows dialectal features
which the speaker cannot suppress even though he tries, i.e. the palatalization of /s/
in sonscht (std. sonst) and the dialectal adverb allweg ‘of course’, std. natürlich ).
What kind of ideological construction of the three varieties is achieved by this
sketch then? Although it is true that there exists a specific Swiss variety of the standard
language, the national identity of the Swiss is only related to this variety in a super-

Enregistering pluricentric German 39
ficial way at best. Other than in Germany and in Austria, speaking a distinct form of
standard German is not a symbol of national unity and national belonging, i.e. being
able to speak standard German as such is quite irrelevant if one wants to show one’s
Swissness. What makes a Swiss a Swiss is the dialect. A Swiss who does not speak di-
alect will have a hard time proving he is Swiss – for a German, not speaking dialect is
no problem at all (many Germans nowadays do not), and for an Austrian, it is at least
less relevant than for a Swiss. Following the Swiss linguist Koller (1999: 146), we can
say that standard German is a national symbol in Germany, but not in Switzerland –
not even in its Swiss form. The reasons for this are linked to very different attitudes
towards the dialect and the standard on the first dimension mentioned above, i.e. the
social evaluation of the standard as “socially superior”, “more intelligent”, “more ed-
ucated”, etc. All these characteristics do not apply in Switzerland (although they do
in Germany and also to a certain extent in Austria). If one takes the argument to the
extreme, one might even say that standard German as a whole is a “foreign” (or rather:
second) language in the Swiss speakers’ experience. The difference between its Swiss
and its German variant is then only a matter of degrees. Consequently, debates about
national identity in Switzerland are mapped not onto the symbolical distinction be-
tween the German and the Swiss form of standard German (as they sometimes are in
Austria), but on the distinction between standard and (Swiss) dialect(s).
6Conclusions
The German language area has always been geographically divided into dialect areas,
with transitional zones between them. The process of the emergence of a superstruc-
ture on top of this regionally diversified linguistic landscape (i.e., the formation of a
“standard language”) took hundreds of years and reached the spoken language only
around 1900. As a consequence, many speakers of German up to the present day speak
a variety of the standard which shows traces of a dialectal substrate. In Germany, there
is evidence that theses traces have become rather subtle over the last decades, and that
an increasing number of speakers cannot be localized easily any longer when they
speak standard German (cf. Spiekermann 2008; Auer and Spiekermann 2012 with ev-
idence for this process in southwest Germany). However, there can be no doubt that
there are still numerous geographically distributed standard features left which jus-
tify positing regional ways of speaking standard German, i.e. regional standard vari-
eties (cf. Deppermann, in prep., for empirical evidence for the whole of the German-
speaking area).
It is not known whether these regional standards are (still) co-extensive with the
traditional dialect areas, whether they follow larger distributions (such as the Main
River as the dividing line, as Eichhoff 1997 argues) or whether they perhaps increas-
ingly are determined by the political borders of the Länder (states) of the Federal Re-
public of Germany (cf. Harnisch 2010 for an example). Surely, however, they are per-

40 Peter Auer
ceived in terms of a prototype structure for which the large cities serve as points of
orientation. Thus, the prototypical forms of “Bavarian”, “North German”, “Swabian
German”, “Austrian” or “Rhineland” standard German are cognitively identified with
“educated” speech in Munich, Hamburg, Stuttgart, Vienna, Berlin, etc. (It is only in
Switzerland that the spoken standard does not seem to be identified with one partic-
ular city.) In this sense, (standard) German is a (regionally) pluricentric variety.
The features that are criterial for these prototypical standard varieties are mainly
phonological and phonetic, but they include morphology, syntax, and lexicon as well.
While some of them are exclusive to one prototypical standard, most are objectively
shared by various regional standard varieties. The distribution of these features with
a larger reach often follows a south/north pattern, although east/west patterns can
also be observed (as the examples discussed in section 4 have shown). For the en-
registerment of the regional standard varieties (and hence their folk-dialectological
perception), however, some features are selected as salient, which may or may not be
(objectively) exclusive to the variety in question, and which may be in frequent use
or not. For instance, the coronalization of std. /ç/ ([Ç]) is enregistered as a feature of
the Rhineland standard, although it occurs in large parts of the Middle German dialect
area as a standard feature, including Upper Saxon in the very East. For frequency, take
as an example the realization of the syllable-initial cluster /st/ as [st] instead of [St]
which is exclusive to the north German standard, prototypically associated with the
city of Hamburg. It is highly salient, but used only rarely (by older middle-class speak-
ers) today (cf. Auer 1998).
While the regional pluricentricity of German is an undisputed fact, it remains be-
low the level of normativity: the regional standard varieties of German are not pre-
scribed, and a failure to use them is not sanctioned. In contrast, the main issue raised
in this paper, i.e. pluricentricity on the national level, centrally involves questions of
normativity of Austrian, Swiss and German varieties of StdG. Other than the old re-
gional pluricentricity of the German language area which follows from its dialectal
structure and translates more or less directly into dialectal substrates for regional stan-
dard varieties, this national pluricentricity is a new development of the post-war pe-
riod. It follows the ideology of European nation-building by positing that every nation
should have its own (standard) language. Note that this ideology was alien to Austria
before the First World War (i.e. during the Habsburg empire), and that Switzerland has
never subscribed to it during its history. During the last decades, however, this ideol-
ogy has become more popular, mainly in Austria.
I have tried to show that according to the norm-based definition of the term pluri-
centric prevalent in modern sociolinguistics, there can be no doubt that the German
language today is not only regionally, but also nationally pluricentric: there are nor-
mative differences between Austrian, Swiss and German StdG. However, I have also
argued that the more interesting question is how these three standard varieties are
enregistered. It was pointed out that this enregisterment has to deal with precarious
facts, given the internal variability of the standard within Germany (with its numerous

Enregistering pluricentric German 41
regional centres and their associated regional standards). The problem is that while it
is easy to find Teutonisms (forms only used in Germany, although not in all regions), it
is much more difficult to find Helvetisms or Austriacisms (forms only used in Switzer-
land or Austria), since there is almost always at least one regional standard in Ger-
many which shares the feature in question. (Only a small section of the vocabulary,
such as administrative terms and, in the case of Austria, terms for food, are true Hel-
vetisms/Austriacisms; cf. above) The solution for this problem is to eliminate standard
variation internal to Germany for the sake of constructing one feature as the German
feature which can then be opposed to the Swiss or Austrian form. This ideological elim-
ination of the competing variants in Germany is a good example of what Irvine and
Gal (2000: 38) have called erasure, together with “iconization” and “fractal recursiv-
ity” one of the three central processes of language ideology they discuss. Erasure is the
“the process in which ideology, in simplifying the sociolinguistic field, renders some
persons or activities (or sociolinguistic phenomena) invisible. Facts that are inconsis-
tent with the ideological scheme either go unnoticed or get explained away”.
A final point made in this paper is that the enregisterment of national varieties
of standard German has a different status in Germany, Austria and Switzerland. As
is typical for asymmetrical pluricentricity, the Austrian and the Swiss ideologies of
StdG imply a double stereotyping which is absent from the German standard ideol-
ogy. They not only oppose the national standard to the national non-standard regis-
ters and varieties, such as dialects or regiolects, but also to German StdG (while the
enregisterment of German StdG does not have this contrastive component). Finally, it
was pointed out that the enregisterment of a Swiss standard is much less relevant for
Swiss national identity (which is based on pluridialectality and plurilinguality) than
it is for Austria.
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