Phonai

The central concern here is the description and discussion of the findings of an empirical study on standard-language pronunciation in German-speaking Switzerland. Detailed consideration is also given to the factors potentially responsible for individual variations and to user attitudes to the standard language. A further section of the book is given over to discussion of the status of the standard language in Switzerland and the problems and history of standard pronunciation. Proposals are made for a Swiss pronunciation norm and a re-engagement with the phonological system.

The book contains a synchronic description of the phonetic structure of Warsaw Yiddish. This takes the form of a linguistic analysis of spoken Yiddish on the basis of interviews with the last remaining speakers of this Warsaw dialect, which is now on the verge of extinction. The recorded material is given in the second part of the book in a number of versions: phonetic/prosodic, Yiddish, German and Polish. Alongside a detailed description of the vowel and consonant systems there is also a taxonomy of sentence-phonetic phenomena representing an entirely new departure in the field of Yiddish studies. In addition typological issues posed by Yiddish morphosyntax are addressed from the perspective of the intermediate status of Yiddish between the Germanic and Slavonic language families.

This volume contains 105 transcripts dealing with language and supplements Phonai volume 42 (= Part I) which contains 165 excerpts from interviews with German-speaking Jewish emigrants to Palestine/Israel largely on biographical subjects. The CD enclosed contains 41 of these excerpts and conveys an acoustic impression of the high proficiency and fluency of the speakers, all between the age of 60 and 100. The subsequent linguistic analysis divides into 10 subsections examining the sociolinguistic backgrounds of the cultivated 'educated' German displayed by the speakers and its grammatical and stylistic characteristics. Together the two volumes document and describe a variety of German distinguished first of all by its striking orientation to written and literary standards and models, and secondly by occasional lexical enrichments from the Hebrew-speaking world surrounding the speakers. This historically unique variety of German is doomed to disappear with the last generation of emigrants.

This empirical study sets out the historical and synchronic dynamics of Letzebuergish dialects (Luxembourg), drawing on methods taken from dialectology, sociolinguistics, and phonetics/phonology. It transpires that inner-Luxembourg dialect harmonization plays a role in homogenizing regional variation.

The volume examines the mutually reinforcing effects of linguistic self-adjustment and integration into a new social environment. It describes the phonetic/phonological changes observed over a period of two years in a group of people moving from Saxony to South-West Germany shortly before and after the Wende in 1989. In addition, it examines the way in which the various processes of integration influence linguistic adaptation. Social integration is charted with reference to the concepts of social networks and attitudes to the cultural environment.

In 165 extracts from interviews conducted in Israel between 1989 and 1994, a total of 121 German-speaking Jews able to escape from Nazi Germany in the thirties are recorded here, communicating personal memories and views on various subjects. They originate from a variety of areas in Germany, Austria, the Czech Republic and Poland. Equally varied are their family and social background, the ways in which they found their way to Palestine/Israel and the different milieus they now live in. What they all have in common is the cultivated German of the educated upper middle-classes of the nineteen-twenties in which they memorably relate their experiences. The CD included contains 38 of these extracts, thus providing -- together with the book -- an unparalleled piece of linguistic and historical documentation.

From the early seventies in particular, sound recording has been a frequent research tool in the field of linguistics. The volume documents the recording of spoken German made for linguistic purposes with the aim of providing an overview of the material thus collected and encouraging multiple utilisation of data assembled with considerable effort and expense.

On the basis of a phonological analysis of a tape recording in Eastern Yiddish made by a speaker from Lublin, the authors begin by establishing the contrasts to standard German. They go on to discuss the problems posed by the analysis of an idiolect, ranging from the question of specifically idiolectal realisation to the production of a 'normative' Eastern Yiddish variety for the Lublin area. The authors further examine the recording from the point of view of modern language contact research. Finally, they attempt to place this individual utterance in an ethnographic and above all a culture-historical context.