Approaches to the codification of German pronunciation in diachrony

The problem of the relation between norm and variation in pronunciation has set the agenda for many contemporary phonetic research efforts for more than a hundred years. Modern phonetics takes into account a wide range of factors that regulate the sound. Phonetic variation is a substantial characteristic of language. This article presents various approaches to the definition of the pronunciation norm in the German language from the 19th century to the present day. The authors conclude that the long history of the standardization of German pronunciation is characterized by a gradual transition from monocentriс to polycentric model for the codification of pronunciation.