272 Raphael Berthele
study was explorative in the sense that I was not sure whether there was
such a thing as a perceptual mental “gestalt” for languages and varieties
that speakers know. The spontaneous reaction of our participants seems to
suggest that this idea might not be totally wrong.
2.2. Attributions, characterizations, and cultural models
As we will see below (e.g. in Table 3), there are various languages and
varieties that are attributed to the bubbles, and since the design does not
force choices out of the participant but lets them associate freely, the data
of the different participants are not comparable in a straightforward way.
The first analysis to be presented here zooms in on the two most fre-
quently mapped varieties in the data. Out of the 45 participants, 35 attri-
buted Standard German to at least one of the bubbles and 37 participants
attributed the Alemannic dialect of Bern to at least one of the bubbles. With
regard to the two models laid out above, it is thus interesting to take a clos-
er look at three aspects:
- Which are the typical bubbles chosen by the participants for these two
varieties? - Which are the typical attributes given to characterize the two varieties?
- Can these mappings be related in any way to the cultural models of lan-
guage standardization?
Table 1 lists the 3 most frequently mapped bubbles (numbers refer to the
numbers in fig. 1) per variety as well as all attributes that have been given
more than once for the particular variety. The most striking difference be-
tween the two mapping patterns is that the Bern variety is consistently as-
sociated with round, organic, or floral forms (the three picture stimuli listed
top left in Table 2 make out about 70% of all the mappings for this particu-
lar variety), whereas the standard language is preferentially associated with
angular and pointed forms in more than 70% of all mappings. Most attitude
studies in German-speaking Switzerland have shown that there are negative
attitudes towards the standard language (Häcki Buhofer and Burger 1998),
a result which is unsurprising to people familiar with the local landscape.
This widespread negative attitude towards the standard language is in sharp
contrast with many other European countries (e.g. the Netherlands; cf. van
Bezooijen 1997).