"I totally forgot about my suitcase": Divergence between German, Austrian and Prague standard around 1910 shown by Franz Kafka's language management in written German
Abstrakt
The article investigates Franz Kafka's language management during the process of writing and publishing fiction against the background of the divergence of language standards in German speaking countries around 1910. Referring to Ulrich Ammon's concept of a social network which defines a standard variety of language, the model character of standard German as used in the German Empire for those German writers in Prague who had the ambition of publishing on an international level will exemplarily be shown.
By means of three regionally defined language forms belonging either to the Austrian or the Prague standard German respectively representing a borderline case of Austrian standard its aim is to make clear that Kafka often but not always felt obliged to implement corrections in his future literary German work suggested by language experts who were friends or by editorial interventions of the German publishers who published his prose writing.