³ÉÈË´óƬ

Language diversity in Europe: Language variation, tolerance and identity. This research seminar, hosted by the Department of European Languages and Linguistics, on linguistic diversity in Europe focuses on the German language. An identity-forming function of linguistic variation is discussed on the basis of various intra-linguistic examples. Different dimensions of variance will be considered: Firstly, the spatial variance by contrasting different standard varieties of German and German dialects, secondly, the political dimension using the example of the East German (GDR) language, and thirdly, the social dimension, as it manifests itself in lexical variance, as it is being debated in the ongoing linguistic-pragmatic discourse in Germany.