ABSTRACT
In Chapter 7, Stefan Dollinger turns to what he considers one of the lynchpins in solving the issue. In addition to the fundamental conceptual problems in Chapter 6, Chapter 7 shows that Austrian speakers of German are 80–90% convinced that German is spoken with more than one standard, so is pluricentric. This is a speaker need that must find expression in the way we model the variety. Negating it would result in linguistic imperial or neocolonial stances, and “pluri-areality” does show such traces. The interpretation by Joachim Herrgen of speaker perceptions is written in such light, as it distorts speaker realities in Austria and leaves aside the key aspect of “linguistic insecurity”, which leads speakers to rank their own standard variety as a bit longer on a couple of scores than the German standard, above all in terms of competence. The result is utterly expected, yet Herrgen is surprised, proclaims a new era—the denationalization of German—and states both Standard Austrian German and Standard German German are equally accepted in Austria. An infelicitous conclusion. Finally, the language planning and pedagogical angles are considered, in which it is shown that only the pluricentric model can offer Austrian school children relevant target norms and the underlying motivation of “pluri-areality” is revealed, i.e. to be used in teaching and to reshape German as a Germany-centred language.
