PHONOSTYLISTIC VARIABILITY OF THE GERMAN LANGUAGE IN THE PRINCIPALITY OF LIECHTENSTEIN

Abstract

National variants of the German language within the framework of polycentric approach are broadly researched by specialists in German studies. German literary language, which is spoken in the Principality of Liechtenstein, aligns with the orthoepy of the Swiss national variant of the German language. The article represents the results of the perceptual analysis, that illustrate current phonostylistic tendencies in the pronunciation of the Swiss variant of the German language. The data is obtained from the speech of the news readers from Lichtenstein news radio stations. According to the first hypothesis, the speech of news readers would have minimum deviation from the orthoepic norm of the Swiss variant of the German language, which was partially proven. Phonostylistic variability of the researched acoustic patterns was within the limits of the pronunciation standard. In the second hypothesis the researchers follow the assumption that phonostylistic design of news on radio stations would not change depending on the topic, which is not confirmed. When the news blocks about sports or weather are reported, the news readers switch to the dialect. That accounts for the broad usage of the dialect in Liechtenstein in conditions of median diglossy.