Modeling variation: Pluricentricity and pluriareality – The debate surrounding both models, and potentials for their complementarity

Meer, Philipp; Durgasingh, Ryan

Abstract

The question of how to conceptualize variation in languages with more than one standard variety, such as English, Dutch, or German, has been a central one to variation linguistics. Variation in these languages is sometimes modeled according to two opposed approaches: pluricentricity and pluriareality, though not uncontroversially. The present chapter first introduces the pluricentricity/pluriareality debate and then identifies several aspects that warrant a more extensive and thorough discussion of their potential complementarity. It then introduces the volume, which is the first of its kind to consolidate pluricentric and pluriareal perspectives on modeling standard language variation in a systematic manner. A major contribution of the volume lies in the fact that most chapters seek to integrate both concepts in modeling variation.