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Multilingualism on the current territory of Austria has existed for a long period of time. Roughly since the 6th and 7th centuries, Slavs have settled in Central Europe, including much of present-day Austria. The subsequent expansion of the Magyars, as well as the Bavarianisation of the area, separated the northern and southern Slavs. For the former Habsburg state, we must reckon with eleven main languages in addition to numerous smaller ones. Moreover, already the main languages represented several widely divergent languages: German; two Romance tongues, Italian and Romanian; a range of Slavic languages from all the three branches of that family – western, eastern, and southern; and Hungarian from the Finno-Ugric group. Regarding the multilingual setting in the Habsburg state and its repercussions to this day, this paper outlines the basic assumptions, the methodological toolkit as well as the main general findings of our research projects on language contact in this area which have been running since 2016 as part of the special research programme (SFB) \"German in Austria. Variation – Contact – Perception\". We conclude with possible implications for further linguistic research in multilingual historical contexts and some links to contemporary phenomena.

This article examines perceptions of and attitudes towards the use of non-German languages in Austrian schools from the perspective of students and teachers. By differentiating between teachers, students with exclusively German L1 and students with a non-German L1, different perspectives on code-switching in group work situations are examined. For this purpose, data was collected via online questionnaires, semi-structured interviews and focus group discussions between students. The results show that switching to another language in group work settings is perceived as inappropriate, in particular by those students who have no competence in a language other than German. Moreover, they associate switching with poorer performance in class and interpret the use of a language other than German in class to be antagonistic or talking behind the back of people who do not speak that language (“gossiping”). In contrast, – and contrary to the assumption that they evaluate language switches in the classroom more negatively due to stricter normative views – teachers show a consistently more positive perception of code switching behaviour and its multilingual speakers. It can be concluded from the findings that multilingualism in the school context and its overall benefits should not only be addressed in teacher training, but that it would also be useful to raise students’ awareness of multilingual practices.

Undisputedly, Slavic languages have had a considerable influence on German and the attitudes towards multilingualism in Austria. This article portrays theoretical reflections, new findings and innovative methodological approaches to the reconstruction of historical language contact between Slavic languages and Austrian varieties of German. These approaches were jointly developed within the task cluster on language contact of the Austrian special research programme \"German in Austria. Variation – Contact – Perception\". In this context, the implications of historical and recent Slavic-German multilingualism on German in Austria are of special interest. The paper concludes with an overview of preliminary research results, methodological lessons learnt and considerations for further sociolinguistic research in historical contexts.

This paper examines the relationship between accommodation processes and social norms in varietal choice within tertiary education in Austria. The investigation consists of (a) a content analysis of metalinguistic statements in semi-structured interviews and (b) a variable rule analysis of actual language variation in university lectures. The findings show that there are norms prescribing that listeners must have at least be able to comprehend a particular variety, whereas accommodation to actual language use does not appear to be required to the same extent. However, the norms depend strongly on group membership: while there is a norm prescribing the use of the standard variety in the presence of speakers of German as a foreign language, there is no such norm for Austrians vis-à-vis people from Germany, although speakers from both groups may lack the ability to understand the respective nonstandard varieties. This difference can be explained by the sociocultural context and differing language attitudes.

Major life events (MLEs) in the educational domain such as graduating school or beginning a new degree set an important course for each individual’s life. However, the impact of such MLEs on patterns of individual-level language change across the lifespan, and how their impact may vary among individuals, is far from clear. In this article, we thus demonstrate the variation in patterns of individual-level perceived linguistic change affected by educational MLEs (i. e., graduating school, beginning a new degree, graduating university) among 181 Austrian participants with first language German. Our goal is to both quantitatively and qualitatively investigate which constellation of individual differences in event experiences and other psychosocial factors are associated with differences in reported individual-level linguistic change following educational MLEs. Bayesian modeling indicated that gender and proficiency in nonstandard varieties were particularly predictive of individual-level linguistic change. Qualitative analysis revealed a blended operation of socio-affective and language biography-related factors being associated with educational MLE-related change in the sociolinguistic repertoire.

This study investigates the influence of different socio-demographic, regional and linguistic variables on autochthonous rural Austrian speakers’ productions of comparatives and superlatives in two experimental settings (aiming at standard versus nonstandard registers of individual speech repertoires). Effects of setting, of the distance from the city of Vienna as well as of various linguistic variables were found. Age group turned out to be the most important socio-demographic variable. Diese Studie untersucht den Einfluss verschiedener soziodemographischer, regionaler und linguistischer Variablen auf die Produktion von Komparativen und Superlativen von Adjektiven bei autochthonen SprecherInnen aus ländlichen Regionen Österreichs in zwei experimentellen Settings (Intendiertes Standarddeutsch vs. Intendierter Ortsdialekt). Es wurden Effekte des Settings, der Entfernung von Wien und verschiedener linguistischer Variablen gefunden. Die Altersgruppe stellte sich dabei als wichtigste soziodemographische Variable heraus.

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.

Der Diminutivgebrauch von Erwachsenen aus ländlichen Regionen Österreichs wird anhand von mündlichen Übersetzungsaufgaben in zwei Settings (Dialekt Standard, Standard Dialekt) untersucht. Man findet 1⁄3 Diminutivverweigerung trotz Vorgabe von Diminutivstimuli und weniger als 10 % Diminutivhinzufügungen ohne Vorgabe von Diminutivstimuli. Ein Vergleich mit freien Gesprächsdaten zeigt, dass Methodenvielfalt sinnvoll ist, um verschiedene Aspekte des Schnittstellenphänomens der Diminutivbildung zu beleuchten. We investigate diminutive use in adults from rural regions of Austria based on oral translation tasks in two settings (dialect standard, standard dialect). Results show 1⁄3 of diminutive refusal despite diminutive stimuli and less than 10 % of diminutive addition without diminutive stimuli. A comparison with free conversations shows that mixed-method approaches are useful to investigate different aspects of the interface phenomenon of diminutive formation.

Horizontale sowie vertikale Variation adnominaler Possessivkonstruktionen in ländlichen Gebieten Österreichs werden im vorliegenden Beitrag auf Basis eines Korpus bestehend aus „freieren“ und „kontrollierteren“ Daten untersucht. Wie erwartet, zeigt sich, dass die Wahl der Konstruktionsvarianten maßgeblich durch sprachinterne sowie sprachexterne Parameter gesteuert wird. Unter anderem erweisen sich Substantivklasse, Situation sowie Region als entscheidende Faktoren für die Variation. This paper investigates horizontal as well as vertical variation of adnominal possessive constructions in rural areas in Austria. The analyses are based on a corpus consisting of (more) “free” and (more) “controlled” data. As expected, intra- as well as extralinguistic parameters control the choice of construction variants. Among other factors, the nominal realisation of the possessor, the situational context and the region turn out to be decisive factors of variation.

Horizontale sowie vertikale Variation adnominaler Possessivkonstruktionen in ländlichen Gebieten Österreichs werden im vorliegenden Beitrag auf Basis eines Korpus bestehend aus „freieren“ und „kontrollierteren“ Daten untersucht. Wie erwartet, zeigt sich, dass die Wahl der Konstruktionsvarianten maßgeblich durch sprachinterne sowie sprachexterne Parameter gesteuert wird. Unter anderem erweisen sich Substantivklasse, Situation sowie Region als entscheidende Faktoren für die Variation. This paper investigates horizontal as well as vertical variation of adnominal possessive constructions in rural areas in Austria. The analyses are based on a corpus consisting of (more) “free” and (more) “controlled” data. As expected, intra- as well as extralinguistic parameters control the choice of construction variants. Among other factors, the nominal realisation of the possessor, the situational context and the region turn out to be decisive factors of variation.