This book reports on research based on Soukup's Ph.D. dissertation that integrates quantitative language-attitude survey methods with discourse analysis in order to find evidence for the use of nonstandard language as a strategic rhetorical tool. It also aims to expand our understanding of attitudes toward nonstandard German in Austria, an area that, as Soukup explains, is understudied. Specifically, the research consists of three stages; the first is a dialect perception study that aimed to ascertain which features are most salient to speakers as nonstandard Austrian German features. Secondly, Soukup conducted a verbal guise study that collected reactions to standard and nonstandard Austrian German. This allowed Soukup to establish listeners' opinion of these varieties. These two projects established what the salient features of nonstandard Austrian German were and the attitudes toward those features. Finally, Soukup examines the use of nonstandard Austrian German for rhetorical purposes via the analysis of participants' use of dialect in an Austrian political talk show called Offen gesagt. Soukup acknowledges the difficulties in studying the strategic use of language, that is, finding evidence for a strategic motivation on the part of the speaker and evidence for the successful uptake of that so-called strategic use. Soukup suggests that performance such as that on television talk shows provides appropriate data for studying strategic language use. Soukup motivates this use of data from television by drawing on Coupland's (Reference Coupland, Eckert and Rickford2001) notion of high performance, the use of language that is undoubtedly rhetorical due to the context of its use. With increasing scholarly interest in intraspeaker variation (e.g. Eckert & Rickford Reference Eckert and Rickford2001, Coupland Reference Coupland2007), this seems like a timely contribution.
Ch. 1 provides the background and justification for the interdisciplinary perspective and use of the various frameworks used in the data collection and analysis. These frameworks include speaker design (e.g. Coupland Reference Coupland2007), discourse analysis, and interactional sociolinguistics (e.g. Goffman Reference Goffman1959, Gumperz Reference Gumperz, Schiffrin, Tannen and Hamilton2001). Ch. 2 gives details on the variety of Austrian German under investigation and its relationship with ‘standard’ Austrian German. Soukup describes the difficulty in differentiating cleanly among the standard and regional varieties of Austrian German. Soukup defines a set of characteristics that distinguish broadly a standard (“Hochsprache”) and regional varieties (“Dialekte”) of Austrian German based on phonological, morphological, syntactic, and lexical features.
Ch. 3 describes the perceptual investigation of Austrian German, including a brief overview of language-attitude studies and the results of such studies in the Austrian context. In this stage of the research, forty-two native speakers listened to twelve excerpts selected from Offen gesagt and indicated words or phrases they believed to be Dialekt on a printed transcript of the speech. This experiment allowed Soukup to establish whether or not speakers are aware of Dialekt features and to establish what those features are, while also maintaining continuity of the television context. The results confirmed that the linguistic features identified by previous research discussed in Ch. 2 were, in fact, strong indicators of Dialekt for the listeners. Ch. 4 describes the attitudinal experiment. In order to assess the evaluations of the salient features outlined in Ch. 3, a voice guise (Lambert et al. Reference Lambert, Hodgson, Gardner and Fillenbaum1960) study was conducted. This study involved ratings by 242 Austrian students at universities in Upper Austria of two Hochsprache and two Dialekt speakers. The speakers read a text prepared by Soukup about genetically engineered food in order to mimic the context of the television program Offen gesagt. Listeners were asked to consider their ratings as feedback for the speakers, who were supposedly trainees in a communication seminar. The speakers were rated on twenty-two characteristics on a five point bipolar scale. Additionally, some open-ended questions about the guises and the respondents' feelings about nonstandard Austrian German were obtained. Nonstandard Austrian German speakers were rated high on social attractiveness traits (likeability, honesty, humor) while standard speakers were rated high on social status traits (intelligence, education, refinement). Additionally, the nonstandard Austrian German speakers were rated as more aggressive than the standard speakers.
Ch. 5 describes the analysis of speakers in one episode of Offen gesagt. This episode featured five guests and a host. Soukup identified shifts to nonstandard Austrian German defined by three adjacent words that contained any one of seven features (as identified in the previous studies). After ruling out idiosyncrasies, forty-three strings were identified. An analysis of the forty-three examples of discourse containing a shift was carried out to uncover any patterns. The results revealed two patterns of use of nonstandard Austrian German. First, seven of the forty-three shifts occurred in reported speech. Close examination of the reported speech examples suggest that the use of nonstandard Austrian German for reported speech served the purpose of projecting a negative attitude toward the original author of the quoted material. Second, eleven shifts occurred in interjections of short turns (which Soukup calls “one-liners”). The “one-liners” seem to be uttered in nonstandard Austrian German in order to establish an antagonistic position with regard to the interlocutor. Thus the perception of aggressiveness of nonstandard Austrian German found in the perception experiment seems to play a role for speakers in displaying aggression rhetorically.
This book has many strengths. The research results provide evidence for speakers' strategic use of dialect features, adding to our understanding of intraspeaker variation and the emerging literature on this type of variation. The results also contribute to our understanding of attitudes toward nonstandard varieties of Austrian German. Soukup's clarity of style and organization leads the reader easily through what is a very complex project that relies on an interdisciplinary set of methods. The thorough and comprehensive coverage of the disciplines that Soukup draws upon demonstrates for the reader the utility of interdisciplinary methods for the investigation of intraspeaker variation. Explanation of how these methods can be used to investigate intraspeaker variation (and the limitations thereof) is important for readers who wish to carry out similar research. The growing interest in intraspeaker variation such as style and authenticity signals a need for the creative use of interdisciplinary methods such as these and certainly calls for more sociolinguistic research to be carried out in this manner. These comprehensive descriptions make this book a great resource for those who are new to research on attitudes to language variation and research methodology (although some details may seem tedious for readers who are already familiar with that literature) and for those who are looking for ways to explore intraspeaker variation.
