Standardization from below and from above

The chapter discusses the history and current developments of the standardization of German from a historical sociolinguistic perspective. Starting with a brief overview and discussion of the various research interests in the standardization of German and their ideological backgrounds, the chapter focuses on different processes of standardization from two perspectives which have attracted particular interest in historical sociolinguistics in recent years – standardization from below and standardization from above. The main part of the chapter is concerned with an examination of these standardization processes in German and their impact on the development and ongoing change of the present-day standard. It argues that the standardization of German was initially defined by processes from below, followed by processes from above in the age of prescriptivism and finally – from the mid-twentieth century onwards – bears traits of both processes.