Exploring the German Language

Sally Johnson is Professor of Linguistics in the School of Modern Languages and Cultures at the University of Leeds, and is a Fellow of the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation. Her recent publications include Gender, Group Identity and Variation in the Berlin Urban Vernacular (1995), Spelling Trouble: Language, Ideology and the Reform of German Orthography (2005) and a special issue of German Life and Letters on the German spelling reform, co-edited with Oliver Stenschke (2005). Natalie Braber is a lecturer in the Department of Linguistics at Nottingham Trent University. She has published on a range of linguistic topics, including speech disorders, language and intercultural communication, and emotional language in post-unification Germany.

• 1. Introduction; Part I. The History and Geography of German: 2. The German language past and present; 3. The German-speaking areas; Part II. The Structures of German: 4. The sounds of German; 5. Putting the sounds together; 6. The structure of German words; 7. The structure of German sentences; 8. The meaning of German words; Part III. The German Language in Use: 9. Meaning in context; 10. Variation in German.