Since at least 1986, from the International German Teachers conference in Bern, the German language has been recognized among linguists as a pluricentric language. Therefore, it is possible to speak about more language centres, and also about national and equal varieties of one language. In connection with the decentralization of power and regionalization in the world, as well as the accession of Austria to the European Union, which brought above all the "Protocol Nr. 10" with 23 specific Austrian words, the nineties experienced a boom in the production of pluricentric oriented literature. Many papers were also being focused on the research of the Austrian German. However, despite the declared equality of national varieties, their speakers are often not sure about the existence of more standard varieties, their characteristics or equality. These views, attitudes and evaluations as well as potential problems associated with the national varieties, will be described and analyzed by using the tools of the Language Management Theory. The starting points are authentic interviews of Austrian and German native speakers. An important focus of the research is also the way in which the pluricentric concept works at the micro level and how and what national varieties the speakers themselves are constructing....

Emojis can be ambiguous, even when used within one and the same language and geographic region, but they are also a globally accessible language in computer-mediated communication. This paper aims to examine if emoji usage across five different national varieties of English (American, English, Australian, Indian, and Nigerian), geographically located on five different continents, exhibits similar pragmatic functionality and sentiment. To achieve this aim, an analysis was made into the usage of three of the most frequently used emojis in tweets written by users from these five English-speaking countries. The number of tweets analyzed is 50 per selected emoji per selected variety of English, for a total of 750 tweets. The analytical process was to qualitatively determine the pragmatic function and sentiment the selected emoji exhibited in tweets. The results indicated that the pragmatic functionality and sentiment of the targeted emojis across the samples were generally similar, especially for Loudly Crying Face, but also for Face with Tears of Joy, whereas Sparkles showed more individual differences across the samples. A substantial finding was that it was possible to analyze facial and non-facial emojis in the same way. / Emojis kan vara tvetydliga, även inom samma språk och geografiska region, men de utgör också ett globalt tillgängligt språk inom datorförmedlad kommunikation. Syftet med uppsatsen är att fastställa om användningen av emojis inom fem olika nationella varianter av engelska (amerikansk, engelsk, australiensk, indisk, och nigeriansk), geografiskt lokaliserade på fem olika kontinenter, uppvisar liknande pragmatisk funktionalitet och attityd. För att uppnå syftet analyserades användningen av tre av de mest använda emojisarna i tweets skrivna av användare från dessa fem engelsktalande länder. Antalet tweets som har analyserats är 50 per utvald emoji per nationell variant av engelska, sammanlagt 750 tweets. Den analytiska processen var baserad kring att bestämma den pragmatiska funktionen och den attityd som de utvalda emojisarna uppvisade i tweets. Resultatet indikerade att den pragmatiska funktionaliteten och attityden hos de utvalda emojisarna var generellt sett snarlika över urvalen, speciellt för Ljudligt gråtande ansikte, men även för Ansikte med tårar av skratt, medan Glitter påvisade mer individuella skillnader över urvalen. En betydande upptäckt var att det var möjligt att analysera faciala och icke-faciala emojisar på samma sätt.