Dialects & Dialogues
15th Annual Interdisciplinary German Studies Conference
The conference aims to explore historical, (pop-)cultural, political, linguistic, and literary movements concerning the notions of dialect and German.
Like a puzzle, the German language is made up of many pieces. Some pieces are easily recognizable—creating the borders of the image—, while others don’t seem to fit at first glance, and still others have been scattered or lost on the floor. No piece alone represents the entire picture, rather the dialogue of juxtaposition and interaction of all the varieties create the German language.
Questions that will be addressed include: What role has dialect played in deciding history? What is the relationship between communicator and dialect? How does an author play with dialect? To what extent do people interpret dialect as a social marker? How do dialects simultaneously create a dialogue of difference and commonality? How do we measure what is and what isn’t dialect?