Dialectal speech of youth as a part of their personal and national identity

The article presents the research findings on the use of various social varieties of the Slovenian language, i. e. Standard and Non–standard language, by the students studying Slovenian language and literature in Maribor. A brief introduction is followed by a description of language culture and its efforts to improve the subject matter and the importance of the norm in a language with rich social language varieties use. The research indicates the largely positive attitude of young people to the use of their own dialect in different language situations thus shifting the society’s traditionally negative attitude towards the use of dialectal language, perceiving it as a value and as an indicator of one’s personal and national identity. General dialectal characteristics are distinguished in non-formal communication and the informants' switching between the Standard language and the dialect in non-formal communication is a rare occurance, showing that the environment of schooling and the field of study are not prevailing influence factors in choosing a specific social language variety.