ABSTRACT
The concluding chapter of this volume summarizes the key findings from this longitudinal, variationist sociolinguistic study of Swabian German, a dynamically evolving dialect-standard language continuum. Empirically, this study extensively documents processes of dialect leveling and supraregionalization and the emergence of a “Swabian Renaissance” among younger, well-educated urban speakers, who leverage the social indexical status of particular linguistic variables to convey social meanings of local prestige and community belonging. Methodologically, this chapter distills the best practices from a combined panel and trend study, demonstrating the compatibility and complementarity of real- and apparent-time analyses in uncovering the nature, rate, and dispersion of linguistic change. Theoretically, this research links intraspeaker lifespan change and interspeaker community change into a holistic approach, investigating the role that “orderly heterogeneity” plays in language variation and change.
