The study explores the extent to which linguistic globalisation and the ever increasing dominance of English shapes the perceptions of linguistic diversity in traditional sociolinguistic milieus. We set out to investigate the attitudes of 142 respondents from Vorarlberg, an Austrian province, towards their home dialects, High German, a local…

Language attitudes involve two sequential cognitive processes: "categorisation" and "stereotyping." Against this empirically underresearched postulate, this study illuminates the influence of self-reported accent identifications on speaker evaluations. Using the matched guise technique, attributions to three L1 varieties of…

The article summarises the results of pilot research about communicative practices among adolescents at bilingual schools in Austrian Carinthia. I present the findings by referencing Bourdieu's Theory of Practice, which I supplement when necessary with established concepts from sociolinguistics and social psychology. Bilingual schools are one of…

Examples of the Croats in the Burgenland and the Slovenes in Carinthia (Slavic minorities in Austria) are presented to illustrate the importance of comparing different multilingual communities to make a typologically relevant description of them to understand typological similarities and certain idiosyncratic characteristics. (Author/CB)

This paper treats methodological issues involved in assessing linguistic competence in the field, specifically in bilingual fieldwork situations. First, the various means of assessment of linguistic competence that have been described and/or used are listed and commented on. Then the authors explain the choice of assessment methods for fieldwork…

Examines life styles of the inhabitants of Sele, a village in the Slovene-speaking minority area of Austria, over two decades and presents statistics demonstrating enormous changes in work and marriage patterns, which, with educational changes, reflect the surge in mobility and communication of the 20th century. Also examined are four aspects of…