Diglossia in Switzerland? A social identity analysis of speaker evaluations

Abstract Ferguson (1950) cites German Switzerland as a defining case of diglos-sin; however, little or no research has been conducted to substantiate this claim. The present paper discusses diglossia, describes the language situation to be found in German-speaking Switzerland, and reports an experimental study adopting the matched-guise technique in which language variety (Swiss vs. High German) and situational formality (formal vs. informal) are orthogonally manipulated in a within-subjects design. Speaker evaluations revealed an upgradingwith respect to formaIity of contest only on status variables, and an interesting two-way inter-action on solidarity dimensions. whereby less solidarity is felt for a speaker of High German in a formal contest. The results uphold the experimental hypotheses derived from a socid idcnfify perspective (Tajfel. 19821). but disconfirm predic-tions from Ferguson’s diglossia. I t is concluded that an adequate taxonomy of language situations must include a consideration of the identity function of I a ngii age. In 1959 Fergiison employed the term diglossia to refer to a speech community in which ‘two varieties of a language exist side by side throughout the community, with each having a definite role to play ’ (p. 325). The canonical cases were considered to be Arabic, modern Greek, Haitian Creole and Swiss German. Since Ferguson’s original statement the concept of diglossia hns been subject t