Description vs. prescription : the prescriptive role of culture in Johann Christoph Adelung's Geschichte der Deutschen Sprache

This analysis of Johann Christoph Adelung's eighteenth century grammar entitled Geschichte der Deutschen Sprache clearly reveals Adelung's main theory of the interconnection of language and culture and how he approached his discussion. Adelung's grammar consists of four sections which emphasize the effect of the level of culture on the development of language. Section three of this grammar (Deutsche Mundarten) is of main importance to my research because it best illustrates Adelung's view on the relationship of language and culture. In this section of Adelung's grammar, Adelung's specific use of the three words Sprache, Mundart and Dialect and his views regarding the formation of the Oberdeutsche, Niederdeutsche and Hochdeutsche Mundarten are analyzed. The result is clear: Adelung arranged his notions of Sprache, Mundart and Dialect and the three German Mundarten on a hierarchy according to his perception of their level of culture. In addition, Adelung was highly judgmental in his descriptions of Oberdeutsch, Niederdeutsch and Hochdeutsch.

The analysis concludes that Adelung's initial intention for writing this grammar was to describe the language rather than prescribe in order to enlighten the masses of the irregular usage in their language. Adelung hoped his indirect intervention would be a successful method aimed at refining the German language, but a closer analysis of his text reveals that he did intervene by expressing a preference for the dialect he proposed to describe. Through this choice of dialect, he in effect acted prescriptively because he thus chose to describe forms he preferred and could ignore forms he found distasteful.