Language discrimination in Germany : when evaluation influences objective counting
- Language attitudes matter; they influence people’s behaviour and decisions. Therefore, it is crucial to learn more about patterns in the way that languages are evaluated. One means of doing so is using a quantitative approach with data representative of a whole population, so that results mirror dispositions at a societal level. This kind of approach is adopted here, with a focus on the situation in Germany. The article consists of two parts. First, I will present some results of a new representative survey on language attitudes in Germany (the Germany Survey 2017). Second, I will show how language attitudes penetrate even seemingly objective data collection processes by examining the German Microcensus. In 2017, for the first time in eighty years, the German Microcensus included a question on language use ‘at home’. Unfortunately, however, the question was clearly tainted by language attitudes instead of being objective. As a result, the Microcensus significantly misrepresents the linguistic reality of different migrant languages spoken in Germany.
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| Author: | Astrid AdlerORCiDGND |
|---|---|
| URN: | urn:nbn:de:bsz:mh39-94488 |
| DOI: | https://doi.org/10.1558/jld.39952 |
| ISSN: | 2397–2645 |
| Parent Title (English): | Journal of language and discrimination. Special Issue: Linguistic discrimination and cultural diversity in social spaces |
| Publisher: | Equinox Publishing |
| Place of publication: | Sheffield, United Kingdom |
| Document Type: | Article |
| Language: | English |
| Year of first Publication: | 2019 |
| Date of Publication (online): | 2019/12/19 |
| Publicationstate: | Postprint |
| Publicationstate: | Zweitveröffentlichung |
| Reviewstate: | Peer-Review |
| Tag: | German Microcensus; language attitudes; survey design |
| GND Keyword: | Deutsch; Deutschland; Mikrozensus; Sprachgebrauch; Sprachstatistik |
| Volume: | 3 |
| Issue: | 2 |
| First Page: | 232 |
| Last Page: | 253 |
| DDC classes: | 400 Sprache / 400 Sprache, Linguistik |
| Open Access?: | ja |
| Leibniz-Classification: | Sprache, Linguistik |
| Linguistics-Classification: | Soziolinguistik |
| Program areas: | Zentrale Forschung |
| Licence (German): |  Creative Commons - Namensnennung - Nicht-kommerziell - Weitergabe unter gleichen Bedingungen 4.0 International |