ABSTRACT
This chapter investigates lectal coherence within a Central Bavarian dialect-standard region of Austria through a real-time panel study. To date, only a few empirical studies have dealt with lectal coherence over time in diaglossic dialect-standard constellations. To address this desideratum, this chapter explores lectal coherence across the lifespan of twelve speakers from the Austrian village of Ulrichsberg. Nineteen phonetic-phonological variables in two settings (informal conversation vs. formal interview) are traced across two survey points that span 43 years (1975/1976 and 2018/2019). To uncover lectal coherence, two data analysis steps are performed: first, a variationist analysis reveals both significant inter-situational differences and real-time differences, with the latter indicating retrograde change; and, second, factor analyses of the 1975/1976 recordings and the 2018/2019 recordings indicate a fairly stable distribution of variants that correspond to two clearly distinct nonstandard lects: the Basisdialekt ‘base dialect’, representing the locally restricted and most traditional dialect, and the Verkehrsdialekt ‘contact dialect’, which has emerged as an intermediate supraregional dialect locatable in-between the Basisdialekt and the standard language. A comparison of both factor analyses shows few differences between the two recording periods, thus providing evidence for overall stability in lifespan coherence. We argue that retrograde change preserves lectal coherence, since it slows down the rate of standardisation tendencies.
