Hybridization or what: A question of linguistic and cultural change in Germany

This paper contributes to the ongoing debate around the effects of globalization and the influence of English on languages and cultures worldwide (amongst others Phillipson 2009; Pieterse 2009; Blommaert 2010). These effects, which are mostly viewed from the perspectives of homogenization and hybridization in the German case by previous research, are reconsidered in this paper by means of shedding light on the yet undiscovered linguistic and cultural changes on current German adult contemporary radio media. By means of a quantitative and qualitative analysis of radio language as well as interviews with the producers of radio content, particular attention is paid to the usage of anglicisms on air, journalistic practices and the radio format as well as how these are shaped by linguistic and cultural flows. The term asymmetrical hybridization is proposed to describe the uneven effects of linguistic and cultural flows on Germany.