Austrian German taught at schools?

In many linguistic publications, references have been made to a linguistic inferiority complex among Austrian speakers of the German language towards German-speakers from Germany. In some publications these feelings of inferiority have been linked to a lack of knowledge about and vague concepts of the pluricentric variation within the German language (Austrian Standard German, German Standard German, Swiss Standard German). Linguists also presume that pluricentric variation is only rarely a point of discussion in school teaching and teacher training. Therefore this research project - the results are documented in the book at hand - has focussed on the question if and how both students and teachers at Austrian schools get in touch with variation within the German language during their education and teacher training, respectively. To achieve this, firstly curricula for teaching German at primary and secondary level, curricula for teacher training at universities and pedagogical institutes (Pädagogische Hochschulen), and the most commonly used German course books were examined with regard to the representation of linguistic variety. Secondly, a survey among approximately 160 teachers and 1300 students at upper secondary level was carried out throughout Austria, examining language attitudes of both students and German teachers, and the role of Austrian Standard German in everyday school teaching routines. Furthermore, 21 interviews with German teachers, group discussions with teachers and students, and participating observations in class were conducted. One result of the analysis of these curricula is that there is no systematic use of terminology when referring to norms, no reference is made to a linguistic codex and pluricentric variation is not mentioned as such at any point. With few exceptions, the same applies to teacher training curricula. Apart from one course book, Austrian Standard German is not dealt with in any of the course books examined in this research project. Student sensibilisation for pluricentric variety is therefore completely left to teachers. Results of the surveys show that the vast majority of teachers consider German to be a language with differences in its standard form among the German-speaking countries. Most teachers and students associate Austrian German predominantly with dialect or colloquial German. The concept of pluricentric languages is mostly not known. Attitudes towards the correctness of Austrian Standard German compared to German Standard German proved to be ambiguous. However, a clear majority of teachers and students are convinced that Austrian Standard German as such exists. As regards the preference of Austriacisms or Germanisms, our results point to a tendency among students (linguistic lay persons) and younger teachers to prefer more German expressions to Austrian ones. In contrast to this, middle-aged and older teachers tend to prefer a higher amount of Austrian expressions. In the concluding chapter of the book, recommendations are provided for how to deal with intralinguistic variation in a systematic and explicit manner in class. In order that these recommendations can be put into practice, school books and teaching material need to undergo revision. At the same time, the matter of linguistic variation needs to be taken into account in curricula for schools and for teacher training.