The sixteen chapters comprising this book on the Bay Area German Linguistic Fieldwork Project offer over twenty-five years of research into the changing language of native speakers and first-generation American-German speakers residing in the San Francisco Bay Area. Since 1984 the principal project investigator, Irmengard Rauch, together with students of Germanic linguistics at the University of California, Berkeley, has elicited and analyzed an array of linguistic phenomena that include politically correct (PC) German, the German language of vulgarity and civility, and the grammar of e-mailing and texting German as well as that of snail-mail German. Comparison data were also gathered from Berlin in the case of the PC German and from Bonn in the case of the vulgarity/civility project. In recording the sounds of spoken German in the Bay Area, the BAG fieldworkers interviewed not only German-speaking adults but also first-generation German-speaking children (yielding a "Kinderlect") to compare with the spoken English of both of these groups. Still other studies focus on the interplay among gesture, emotion, and language; canine-human communication; the architecture of the lie; and the architecture of the apology. Chapter one details the modus operandi of the BAG research project. This book is useful for the study of the sociolinguistics of German, English-German bilingualism, general linguistics, and the methods of linguistic fieldwork.

The Phonology / Paraphonology Interface and the Sounds of German Across Time is an excursion into the phonology of the German language in the present, the remote prehistoric past (Indo-European and Germanic), and throughout the almost thousand-year historical era. It accordingly addresses all eras pertaining to the study of the German language in its innermost core, namely, its phonology. This book makes accessible to linguists and non-linguists alike the elements of acoustic and articulatory phonetics. It provides the reader with insight into phonological methods from the Prague Structuralism and Chomskyan Generativism of the last seventy-five years to an array of today's non-linear approaches by applying them to given phonological changes that act as leitmotifs in the research of German sounds through time. The dynamic acts that infuse the structure of German phonology, such as ablaut, umlaut, and various other assimilations, diphthongizations, monophthongizations, and consonant shifts, are all woven into the book. In each of the three time frames, the interface with ample paraphonological data allows the reader to experience "flesh and blood" phonology, that is, how it occurs and to what purpose in the mouth / ear of the speaker / listener of the German language. Not least, the reading of a piece of literature, be it a Runic inscription, the Old High German Otfrid, a Middle High German dawn song, the Early New High German Ackermann aus Boehmen, or a Rilke poem, adds delight to the understanding of the sounds that belong to our most vital and prized human possessions.

Selected Writings of Irmengard Rauch represents that portion of Irmengard Rauch's articles which center on contemporary and historical Germanic linguistic phenomena. They thus speak to the principal North, East, and West Germanic dialects. Her authored books The Old High German Diphthongization: A Description of a Phonemic Change (1967); The Old Saxon Language: Grammar, Epic Narrative, Linguistic Interference (1992); Semiotic Insights: The Data Do the Talking (1998); The Gothic Language: Grammar, Genetic Provenance and Typology, Readings (2003, 2011); The Phonology/Paraphonology Interface and the Sounds of German Across Time (2008) stand on their own. Her contributions to linguistic fieldwork are documented in BAG-Bay Area German Linguistic Fieldwork Project (2015). Rauch's writings spanning half a century, from the early sixties to the present, encompass an array of subjects from the state of the art, to multiple language components, that is, segmental and prosodic phonological, morphological, syntactic, semantic, and pragmatic topics informing Germanic languages, as well as to literature and to nonverbal communication. Linguistic and interdisciplinary methods imbue all of her writings. At the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, where Generative Grammar made early inroads, she was trained as an American structuralist, reaping the benefits of the functionalist Prague School, preceded by Saussure, the Neogrammarians, Darwin, Rask, Grimm (all 19th-century instigators of linguistics as a science), and of the founding of the LSA. Since the early seventies she opened her methods of analysis to the semiotic approach of Locke, Saussure, and Peirce. Consequently, Rauch's writings exploit the combined approaches of linguistics and semiotics. These are the inextricable work-horses, which in combination, enhance her arguments detailing given linguistic problems that define the field of General and Germanic Linguistics and thus feed the multi-disciplinary research interests of both seasoned researchers and neophytes.

TRENDS IN LINGUISTICS is a series of books that open new perspectives in our understanding of language. The series publishes state-of-the-art work on core areas of linguistics across theoretical frameworks, as well as studies that provide new insights by approaching language from an interdisciplinary perspective. TRENDS IN LINGUISTICS considers itself a forum for cutting-edge research based on solid empirical data on language in its various manifestations, including sign languages. It regards linguistic variation in its synchronic and diachronic dimensions as well as in its social contexts as important sources of insight for a better understanding of the design of linguistic systems and the ecology and evolution of language. TRENDS IN LINGUISTICS publishes monographs and outstanding dissertations as well as edited volumes, which provide the opportunity to address controversial topics from different empirical and theoretical viewpoints. High quality standards are ensured through anonymous reviewing.

TRENDS IN LINGUISTICS is a series of books that open new perspectives in our understanding of language. The series publishes state-of-the-art work on core areas of linguistics across theoretical frameworks, as well as studies that provide new insights by approaching language from an interdisciplinary perspective. TRENDS IN LINGUISTICS considers itself a forum for cutting-edge research based on solid empirical data on language in its various manifestations, including sign languages. It regards linguistic variation in its synchronic and diachronic dimensions as well as in its social contexts as important sources of insight for a better understanding of the design of linguistic systems and the ecology and evolution of language. TRENDS IN LINGUISTICS publishes monographs and outstanding dissertations as well as edited volumes, which provide the opportunity to address controversial topics from different empirical and theoretical viewpoints. High quality standards are ensured through anonymous reviewing.

TRENDS IN LINGUISTICS is a series of books that open new perspectives in our understanding of language. The series publishes state-of-the-art work on core areas of linguistics across theoretical frameworks, as well as studies that provide new insights by approaching language from an interdisciplinary perspective. TRENDS IN LINGUISTICS considers itself a forum for cutting-edge research based on solid empirical data on language in its various manifestations, including sign languages. It regards linguistic variation in its synchronic and diachronic dimensions as well as in its social contexts as important sources of insight for a better understanding of the design of linguistic systems and the ecology and evolution of language. TRENDS IN LINGUISTICS publishes monographs and outstanding dissertations as well as edited volumes, which provide the opportunity to address controversial topics from different empirical and theoretical viewpoints. High quality standards are ensured through anonymous reviewing.