Spelling Trouble? Language, Ideology and the Reform of German Orthography

Spelling Trouble? explores the linguistic, cultural and political issues underpinning the public disputes surrounding the 1996 reform of German orthography. Sally Johnson’s book will be of interest to speakers and students of German as well as sociolinguists with an interest in language politics, language planning and language ideology.

In 1995 an official reform of German orthography was announced and a new set of rules for spelling and punctuation was introduced into schools between 1998 and 2005. These changes, however, unleashed a wave of public protest such that by the beginning of 1996 the question of how the German language should be written had evolved into a major judicial wrangle requiring the intervention of the Federal Constitutional Court.

In this book Sally Johnson explores the linguistic, cultural and political issues underpinning the constitutional challenge brought by various individuals and groups against the reform. Drawing on sociolinguistic theories of language ideology, Johnson critically analyses the conflicting views of language that were produced, reproduced and challenged in the course of this dispute. At the same time her book attempts to situate those ideologies, together with the dispute as a whole, within the wider historical context of state involvement in the standardisation of German orthography from the mid-19th century onwards.

Spelling Trouble? will be of interest to speakers and students of German as well as sociolinguists studying language politics, language planning and language ideology.

Acknowledgements
1. Introduction to the 1996 Reform of German Orthography
2. Historical Background
3. Linguistic Details
4. The Constitutional Challenge
5. The 1996 Reform as Language Ideological Debate
6. The Trouble with Spelling? Discussion and Conclusions
Bibliography
Index