English in Germany: Evidence from domains of use and attitudes

Abstract

This paper discusses the changing role of English in Germany drawing on evidence from domains of English use and speakers’ attitudes. In so doing, it reports two case studies carried out at the University of Mannheim, Germany. The quantitative data and its methods of evaluation are discussed in the sections reporting case studies. The first study documents the use of English across formal and informal settings as well as in spontaneous interactions. In so doing, it reports the results of a survey collected from 172 students. The second study discusses the results of a survey tapping into German speakers’ attitudes towards two native (British, American) and two non-native (Indian, German) Englishes, thereby eliciting respondents’ attitudinal orientations towards English varieties including their own. This case study is based on data stemming from 94 students. The first case study shows that English in Germany has been continuously expanding its social domains of use and there is a small but stable minority of German speakers using English in spontaneous daily interactions. The second case study highlights the importance of the native-speaker model for the attitudinal mindset of the German learners; they see no value in speaking German English and clearly do not identify with this linguistic variety, a finding which reveals their exonormative orientation. Against this backdrop, I conclude that whereas English spoken in Germany shows clear signs of evolving into an ESL variety, it is still, by and large, an EFL English, at least in terms of attitudinal orientations professed by educated young adults.