Linguistisch-literarische Perspektiven auf den Sprachwandel: Non-standardliche Sprachvariation in der neueren deutschen Prosa

The objective of this article is to examine the impact of general language change on literary language in contemporary German prose. In recent decades, an increasing transformation of standard language has been observed, driven by the infiltration of lexical and grammatical elements originating from various linguistic varieties, such as colloquial speech, youth language, sociolects, ethnolects, urban contact dialects, and others. Standard language is no longer regarded as a normative, omnipresent, and uniform idiom governed by strict and obligatory rules. Instead, it is now understood as the statistical aggregation of the majority’s everyday language use within a speech community, including non-native speakers. The erosion, democratization, and increasing non-normativity of standard language have also led to new forms of expression in literary language. This article aims to analyze selected non-standard expressions in contemporary literary texts and explore their functions and stylistic significance. Ultimately, it will demonstrate that literary language tends to oscillate between different linguistic varieties as well as the evolving standard language.