The question What is good (High) German? occupies people today just as it did 500 years ago. This study examines discourses surrounding historical attitudes to language and language standardization from the sixteenth to eighteenth century and shows what knowledge or accompanying beliefs scholars of the time associated with (High) German. It uses a frame-semantic approach to reconstruct the frame of knowledge.

Verena Sauer, Christian-Albrecht University of Kiel, Germany.