Double standards in speakers’ minds? An evaluation of standard varieties in Luxembourg and Belgium

We investigate how double standard norms manifest at individuals’ perceptual level. To do so, we study attitudes towards the (non-)standard varieties in two speech communities, i.e. the Belgische Eifel in Belgium and the Canton Clervaux in Luxembourg. In these communities, differences in codified norms emerge from differing standardisation processes: Standard Luxembourgish shows lower levels of codification and implementation, compared to the highly standardised Hochdeutsch present in Belgium. In contrast, norms of usage are more similar,
since in both speech communities, individuals possess concepts of model speakers and model texts of their respective standards. In this paper, we hypothesise that differences in codified norms will manifest in the type of explicit attitudes that previous studies have found to require more cognitive effort. On the other hand, similarities in norms of usage will manifest in implicit attitudes requiring less cognitive effort. Implicit attitudes were tested with Implicit Association Tests, while explicit attitudes were measured with questionnaires.