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German as a pluricentric language
language, e.g. through signs giving office hours as Parteienverkehr (literally 'client traffic', GSG Amtsstunden, Offnungszeiten). Another example is the distinctive national character of the Standard German of Austrian, German and Swiss radio announcers. The attractiveness of a characteristically Austrian literature beyond its borders has given Austrians the opportunity of publishing books in Germany without making adjustments to their language. In some cases, such as children's books by Christine Nostlinger, ASG words are asterisked and explained in a glossary. However, this has not been without problems, and the author Franz Innerhofer (1993) tells of his experiences of being harassed by German publishers' editors insisting on adherence to GSG lexical and grammatical norms. He shows how Austrian literature is constantly being deprived of its autonomy. Patterns of convergence between speakers of different German national varieties in countries of immigration is a test case which could contribute to our understanding of this phenomenon. Austria's entry into the European Union may not affect favourably the status of its national variety as German Standard German is already very firmly entrenched as the community's German since the Federal Republic of Germany was one of the original community members. Besides, the European Community has up to now not made any concessions to O varieties (see 2.2) of French or Dutch (see 2.1). In the negotiations over EU membership, the Austrian Government secured recognition of twenty-three ASG variants as official alternatives to GSG ones, all words from the culinary domain, including Erddpfel (potatoes), Faschiertes (minced meat), Karfwl (cauliflower), Kren (horseradish), Powidl (sweet plum sauce) (Neue Zurcher Zeitung, 1/2 August 1994). The satellite TV station 3-SAT facilitates co-operation between the three major German-language countries. It is shared between the two German networks, ARD (Arbeitsgemeinschaft der offentlich-rechtlichen Rundfunkanstalten der Bundesrepublik Deutschland) and ZDF (Zweites Deutsches Fernsehen), which each produce 30% of the programmes, the ORF (Osterreichischer Rundfunk) 28%, and the SRG (Schweizerische Rundfunkgesellschaft) 12% (Norbert Waldmann, personal communication). There is no apparent attention paid to the pluricentric nature of German (although Swiss dialect is usually subtitled). However, the satellite does provide additional opportunities for people throughout the German-language area to get to know one another's national varieties better from an early age. English films are usually synchronized in Germany for the whole of the German-language area, and, where needed, commercials are added locally.