Dialects are commonly regarded as deviations from a standard. An alternative approach is to regard standard language itself a variety that displays regional features. This would explain why we do in fact find regional differences in “standard” utterances. So is there only one standard language? And how can we identify differences in regional and standard varieties?
In the DGfS PhD Forum, we shall take the relation of standard German and regional German varieties as a starting point to then address methodological issues in empirical studies. There will be three talks on three different levels of empirical work. These will range from the theory-based development of questionnaires to the formation of dialectal corpora and linguistic atlases. Finally, we will address the question how the elicited data on regional variation can be analysed and how the results can be processed and illustrated.
The focus on methodological issues makes the workshop interesting and profitable for all kinds of empirical researchers, not only for those linguists who are interested in German dialects.