Austrian Standard German: A national variety of German?

Questions about the status of Austrian German have been the subject of lively debate among linguists and non-linguists for several decades, with some rejecting the notion of a distinct Austrian Standard German completely (e.g. Wolf, 1994). In this talk I will, however, argue that Austrian Standard German (ASG) can be distinguished historically, politically and linguistically from German Standard German (GSG) and non-standard varieties, and that it should thus be considered a distinct national variety in the context of a pluricentric language (Clyne 1995, Ammon 2000). First, I will discuss the (still contested) status of German as a pluricentric and plurinational language (Clyne 1995, Ammon 2000, Wiesinger 2000) and the role of ASG in that framework (Černá 2014). While GSG is the dominant and supra-nationally more prestigious variety, ASG is an accepted standard in Austria, codified in dictionaries and grammars and used in all official domains, the media and formal speech styles (Wiesinger 1988, Ammon 1996, Muhr 2001). Historically, Austrian written standards have also developed independently from German written standards until the 18th century and then continued to diverge from GSG by incorporating dialectal features and borrowings (Wiesinger 1988). I will also highlight some of the most salient differences between ASG and GSG in the domains of phonology (Lipold 1988, Wiesinger 1988, Muhr 2001), morphology (Tatzreiter 1988, Russ 1994) and lexicon (Ebner 2008), which further support the notion that ASG is a distinct variety.