Research Traditions in Germanic Linguistics

Abstract Research traditions in Germanic linguistics draw on a variety of influences, from historical linguistics (and philology) to modern, generative approaches to linguistic inquiry. Similarly, scholars consider a wide range of primary linguistic data, including not only textual evidence and audio corpora and transcriptions but also sociodemographic data on sociolinguistic context and use within specific linguistic domains. Data are gathered from myriad sources, including text corpora, audio corpora, crowdsourced methods (including questionnaires), fieldwork (interviews), and experiments in which variables are strictly accounted for. Building on variationist approaches that documented regional, nonstandard varieties of the Germanic languages, work in the early 21st century on extraterritorial varieties extends the study of Germanic linguistics beyond the national and geographic borders of Europe to include extraterritorial varieties, including Germanic languages spoken in language contact settings, and where a Germanic language is maintained as a heritage language—that is, as a minority language acquired through naturalistic means as an individual’s first language. The study of Germanic languages in the Americas and beyond broadens and enriches the history of the Germanic languages in line with the European dialectological tradition, expanding the field to include also diasporic speakers’ multilingual realities. To suggest that Germanic linguistics is not a monolith would be a severe understatement, and incorporating extraterritorial varieties into the canon of Germanic linguistics provides the most accurate view of the history and grammar of the language family. This range of new perspectives, data sets, and approaches builds on the work of those scholars who came before and collectively drives the field forward.