CEU Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2024
| Author | Pasewald, Charlotte |
|---|---|
| Title | Youth Language as Driver of Linguistic Change: The influence of Kiezdeutsch on Standard German |
| Summary | This thesis aims at understanding if and how Kiezdeutsch has influenced Standard German. Kiezdeutsch is a youth language that arose in the 90s within multiethnic urban areas in Germany. It has since been classified as a sociolect of its own right with unique systematic grammatical innovations. As youth languages have the potential to drive linguistic change by deviating from standard grammatical norms, Kiezdeutsch too could become a catalyst for the development of the German language. To investigate this, I analyzed nine different published examples of spoken or written German of varying degrees of formality and different media formats, to determine if linguistic characteristics of Kiezdeutsch can be found in mainstream German. The main takeaway is that the interferences of Kiezdeutsch are not consistent and frequent enough to assume a considerable influence on the standard variety beyond its situationally dependent and informal use in spoken conversation. Thus, its use remains contingent upon contextual, spatial, and speaker-specific factors, indicating a lack of significant development in its status as a multiethnic youth language and integration into the mainstream. |
| Supervisor | Wittenberg, Eva |
| Department | Undergraduate Studies BA |
| Full text | https://www.etd.ceu.edu/2024/pasewald_charlotte.pdf |
Visit the CEU Library.
© 2007-2021, Central European University