Abstract
This paper examines intra-speaker variation in historical writing. Its purpose is to show that lower-class people were able to consciously switch between language forms of conceptual orality and distance in their texts. To test this hypothesis, the article focuses on code-switching phenomena in autobiographic writing by patients from the Southern German psychiatric hospitals in Irsee and Kaufbeuren (1852–1931). The corpus of this paper consists of c. 98,300 tokens by 22 writers, of whom 11 use code-switching. First, I develop a method to distinguish code-switching from code-mixing phenomena in written texts by combining structural with functional approaches. In the article’s empirical part, I analyse the writers’ different communicative repertoires and the structures and functions of code-switching. Writers use linguistic variants of both conceptual orality and distance for code-switching. Thereby, they often use dialect, regional, or Southern German language forms that are outside of their regular linguistic repertoires. This leads to a re-evaluation of diatopically marked variants as not necessarily reflecting a writer’s lack of standard competence, but on the contrary being his or her deliberate linguistic choices.
Acknowledgements
This work was supported by the Alexander-von-Humboldt Foundation (Bonn), the University of Bristol and the University of Augsburg. I owe my thanks to the Bezirkskrankenhaus Kaufbeuren (PD Dr Albert Putzhammer, Petra Schweizer-Martinschek, Erich Resch) for granting access to the patient files and their interest in my work. Katherine Bennett (Salzburg), Nils Langer (Bristol), Timothy Jacob-Owens (Bristol) and Simon Pickl (Salzburg), the two anonymous reviewers and the editors have provided useful comments on an earlier version of this paper.
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Appendix
The following table gives context information on the 22 patients with autobiographic writing:
| File no. & patient | Birth | Profession | Admission & accommodation class [15] | Date & title(s) | Pages | Tokens | Other ego documents |
| #80, Hans A. | 1901 | jobless apprentice | 24.10.1917; 3p | 26.09.1919; ‘My fatuities and pranks’, ‘Experiences’, ‘Pranks’ | 23 | 7,689 | ca. 120 letters, notes, prayers, etc. |
| #373, Wilhelm N. | 1842 | tanner | 18.05.1882; 3 | 26.06.1882; ‘Episodes from my life’ | 8 | 3,508 | 1 letter |
| #457, Anton H. | 1832 | farmer’s son | 09.01.1858; 3 | 27.11.1857 [16]; ‘Protocol’ | 2 | 392 | 0 |
| #696, Clement W. | 1848 | warehouse clerk; bookkeeper | 08.07.1883; 3p | after 08.12.1885; ‘Excerpts from my diary’, ‘List of assaults experienced’ | 11 | 2,135 | 2 letters |
| #882, Theodor H. | 1850 | post office assistant | 08.09.1880; 2 | undated; no title (CV) [17] | 2 | 357 | 1 letter, 2 religious illusions |
| #936, Pius G. | 1847 | tailor | 06.04.1883; 3p | 06.04.1883; ‘From my life (3rd, revised edition)’ | 20 | 5,845 | ca. 100 letters |
| #1342, Josef R. | 1886 | unskilled labourer | 13.06.1907; 3p | 01.10.1921; no title (CV) | 4 | 1,137 | 7 letters |
| #1356, Josef B. | 1873 | factory worker | 27.05.1899; 3p | undated; no title (CV) | 2 | 165 | 10 letters |
| #1483, Michael Z. | 1887 | day labourer | 28.02.1906; 3p | 10.03.1906; ‘Curriculum vitae’ | 2 | 469 | 13 letters |
| #1623, Johannes G. | 1851 | assistant carpenter | 20.08.1874; 3p | undated [ca. 1874–1905]; ‘Description of my curriculum vitae’ (2 versions) | 4 | 552 | 18 letters, 1 song |
| #1725, Josef B. | 1856 | postillion | 18.07.1908; 3p | 06.08.1908; no title (CV) | 1 | 45 | 9 letters |
| #1763, Georg S. | 1831 | assistant miller | 22.08.1863; 3 | undated; no title (CV) | 94 | 52,162 | 44 letters |
| #1809, Konrad A. | 1835 | tailor | 26.06.1885; 3p | 15.07.1885; no title (CV) | 4 | 690 | 1 letter |
| #2058, Franz W. | 1842 | assistant miller | 14.01.1875; 3 | 27.08.1880; ‘Curriculum vitae’ | 4 | 982 | 22 letters |
| #2132, Josef K. | 1870 | mason | 02.04.1908; 3p | 08.04.1908; no title (CV) | 1 | 58 | 2 letters |
| #2585, Anna K. | 1830 | spice trader’s daughter | 30.04.1853; n.a. | 22.04.–01.05.1852; no title (Diary) | 37 | 11,580 | 2 letters |
| #2936, Urban S. | 1872 | day labourer | 13.05.1922; 3p | between 13.05.–16.05. 1922; ‘Curriculum vitae’ | 8 | 2,508 | ca. 100 letters, 10 notes |
| #2938, Alois S. | 1870 | day labourer | 28.01.1923; 3p | 30.01.1923; no title (CV) | 2 | 288 | 8 letters |
| #3041, Ludwig P. | 1883 | merchant | 28.03.1905; 2 | 23.07.1905; ‘Curriculum vitae of my son’ (but autograph) | 2 | 877 | 1 letter |
| #3688, Rudolf B. | 1881 | bookkeeper | 20.04.1905; 3 | undated; Curriculum Vitae (original title) | 4 | 436 | 3 letters |
| #3713, Julius E. | 1838 | merchant and mill owner | 15.01.1884; 3p | 02.02.1884; ‘Life description’ | 28 | 5,790 | 2 letters, notebook with letter drafts |
| #3842, Josef S. | 1880 | mason, farmer | 21.09.1909; 3p | after 1931; ‘Curriculum vitae’ | 4 | 632 | 10 letters |
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