Stefan Dollinger will present an in-person research se minar on January 17th at 3:30.
Title
Th
e Pluricentricity Debate and the long reach of 19th-century linguistics: de
hegemonization as an urgent desideratum for a more equitable sociolinguisti
cs
Abstract
This talk retraces the interesting
parts of my thinking over the past decade. Starting with a cross-linguistic
comparison of the social situations of Canadian English and Austrian Germa
n\, it led me to identify silo-concepts in German dialectology that\, at fi
rst glance\, may seem alright (The Pluricentricity Debate\, Dollinger 2019a
). I used that insight and commenced research into the history of German di
alectology to suggest that relevant fields within German linguistics are fr
aught with a “One Standard German Axiom”\, i.e. that linguists are not “neu
trally” approaching what they call “German” and\, inadvertently\, discrimin
ate against younger standards of German (Austrian or Swiss German\, with So
uth Tyrolean German approaching its own standard form). After a dive into t
he archives (Dollinger 2024)\, I strongly suggested that legacy data\, e.g.
as used by the Marburg Sprachatlas or the Vienna Bavarian dictionary proje
cts\, which go back the height of pan-German (großdeutsch) thought\, ought
to be screened for lingering Nazi-bias before being analyzed as data today.
The pushback has been astonishing (Dollinger 2021\, Langer 2021)\, w ith a resolution not yet in sight. Meanwhile\, I became aware of a prominen t Canadian fascist linguist working on my own project in Canadian English ( Dictionary of Canadianisms on Historical Principles\, DCHP-2). This linguis t\, Charles B. Crate\, was one the “Big Six” of CanE (Dollinger 2019b) and\ , as discovered in March 2024 (Lehrer 2024)\, in the 1930s the leader of th e “Canadian Union of Fascists”. This sad fact gave me an opportunity to sho w the German colleagues on my own data what I have in mind in terms of dehe gemonization and decolonization. The entanglement of linguistics with natio nalist and\, indeed\, fascist thought via linguistic concepts and presuppos itions (e.g. Watts 2011) is\, I try to show\, a profound problem today that cannot be solved by denialism. Such unexplored (indeed\, in the German cas e: denied\, Lameli 2022\, Lenz et al. 2021) disciplinary legacy massively a ffects how we construct standard varieties and languages and\, indirectly\, our view of non-standard varieties. It biases linguistic analyses in ways that make linguistic complicit in hegemonic thought\, which\, I think\, we cannot afford.
References
Dollinger\, Stefan. 2024. Eberhard Kranzmayer’s dovetailing with Nazism: his fascist years and the ‘One Standard German Axiom (OSGA)’. Discourse & Society. Publ. 7 Aug. 2 024. Online First. https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/0957926524 1259094
Dollinger\, Stefan. 2021a. Response pertaining to the “Statem ent” from 9 September 2021 by Alexandra N. Lenz\, Stephan Elspaß\, Gerhard Budin\, Stefan Michael Newerkla\, and Arne Ziegler. https://www.academia.ed u/62390449/ (14 Dec. 2022).
Dollinger\, Stefan. 2019a. The Pluricentr icity Debate: On Austrian German and Other Germanic Standard Varieties. Lon don: Routledge.
Dollinger\, Stefan. 2019b. Creating Canadian English: the Professor\, the Mountaineer\, and a National Variety of English. Cambr idge: Cambridge University Press.
Lameli\, Alfred. 2022. Denial in qu estion period in response to SD’s statement that “The Sprachatlas has been\ , from the beginning until WWII\, a openly pan-German project”. Methods in Dialectology and Language Diversity\, 4 Aug. 2022\, Mainz\, Germany.
Lehrer\, Andy. 2024. Email to Stefan Dollinger with historical proof of the identical identities of Crate the dictionary man and Crate the fascist.
Lenz\, Alexandra N. et al. 2021. Statement regarding Stefan Dollinger’s public talk “Österreichisches Deutsch oder Deutsch in Österreich? Über einen Problemfall\, seit 1848\, der Wissenschaftsgeschichte” https://www.yo utube.com/watch?v=IMf6pji_LfQ&t=3539s\, held on August 25\, 2021. Ascina.at talk. View Stefan Dollinger’s statement and a response at https://www.acad emia.edu/62390449/.
Watts\, Richard. 2011. Language Myths and the His tory of English. New York: Oxford University Press.
CATEGORIES:Featured Events LOCATION:Totem Field Studio - Seminar Room (121) GEO:49.256140;-123.249035 URL;VALUE=URI:https://linguistics.ubc.ca/events/event/stefan-dollinger-rese arch-seminar/ END:VEVENT BEGIN:VTIMEZONE TZID:America/Vancouver BEGIN:STANDARD TZOFFSETFROM:-0700 TZOFFSETTO:-0800 DTSTART:20241103T090000 TZNAME:PST END:STANDARD END:VTIMEZONE END:VCALENDAR