Colloque

The Berlin speech community after the fall of the wall: varieties in contact; communication in conflict

Norbert Dittmar

Membre a labase

Norbert Dittmar

Résumé du colloque

The Berlin speech community has been divided after the Second World War in an eastern and a western part for more than 40 years. What effect did this division of contact, culture and language have on the urban dialect and the vernacular within the city and the surrounding areas? In a first step basic social, historical and geographical information about the dialect area of Brandenburg and the urban dialect of Berlin are presented. The Sprachinsel (linguistic island) Westberlin has been alienated by west German norms (coming outside of Berlin), west German migrants to Westberlin and Turks immigrating for reasons of labour. The consequences of these changes were a process of dedialectalization of the western part. In contrast, the eastern part conserved the Berlin dialect spoken before and during the Second World War by closed native networks, tolerant attitudes towards the dialect and strong immunization against Saxon speech varieties which underwent the Eastberlin speech community. The dialect got a function of solidarity by which people delineated themselves from Saxon dialect. The urban vernacular had therefore prestige. After reunification, the speech norms in Westberlin are prestigious in the whole area within and around Berlin. The western linguistic market (via its representation in Westberlin) sets up the prestige norms for the city and the Land Brandenburg. These norms come into conflict with deep dialectal and linguistic habits being maintained in GDR for about 45 years. The reasons for the on-going changes in Eastberlin in the last five years are changes in linguistic attitudes. On the basis of interviews and narratives with East- and Westberliners and taking into account some hundred questionnaires which have been filled out by people from East- and Westberlin, I will try to give an outline of the changes in attitudes which come about the eastern community and will change basic norms.