Conceptualization of German from an Austrian perspective

Abstract

This contribution presents insights from a nation-wide Austrian survey on how Austrian school teachers and students conceptualize German. The results indicate that German is conceptualized in a pluricentric manner by most teachers and students in Austrian schools, with the notion of Austrian Standard German as a distinct standard variety of the German language, particularly among Austrian language norm authorities. In light of this, the differences and commonalities between the pluricentricity and pluriareality models are discussed, and a method for integrating both is presented, illustrating what each of the models imply, how they complement each other, and how terminological issues could be solved.