Multilingualism, Language Attitudes and Their Socioeconomic Reflection¶
Short Description: This module collects data on language profiles and language attitudes. First, it specifies the respondents repertoire regarding languages (i.e. mother tongues, languages spoken at home, and other languages) and dialects (i.e. own dialect, regional accent, parents dialect). Second, it gathers attitudes on languages and regional dialects.
Methodological Details: Data for this module was collected both during the regular SOEP-IS interviews as well as via an online survey. In the interview, participants were asked “How likeable is the following German dialect?”, followed by 12 dialects (including the dialect of the participant). The interview included further questions on speaking dialects or other languages. Furthermore, participants were asked how connected they felt to Germany and to their country of birth. Finally, for each state of Germany, participants had to report whether they had ever lived there for at least 6 months. The online survey included the „Attitudes Towards Languages“ scale (AtoL) as well as several questions measuring attitudes towards various language-related topics (e.g., gender-neutral language, language classes in school, change in the German language).
Available Papers:
Adler, Astrid, and Albrecht Plewnia. 2019. Die Macht der großen Zahlen. Aktuelle Spracheinstellungen in Deutschland. In Ludwig Eichinger, and Albrecht Plewnia (eds.), Neues vom heutigen Deutsch: Empirisch – methodisch – theoretisch (Jahrbuch des Instituts für Deutsche Sprache 2018), 141-162. Berlin, Boston: De Gruyter. (https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110622591-008);
Adler, Astrid. 2019. Language discrimination in Germany: when evaluation influences objective counting. Journal of Language and Discrimination 3 (2), 232-253. (https://doi.org/10.1558/jld.39952); Adler, Astrid. 2019. Sprachstatistik in Deutschland. Deutsche Sprache (3), 197-219. (https://doi.org/10.37307/j.1868-775X.2019.03.02)