Since 1989 the State of Bavaria and the Canadian province of Quebec have established a close and dynamic partnership in the field of science and technology as well as in politics, economy, education and culture. The cooperation rests upon common cultural and historical values that originate from a strong and unique identity both partners claim, granting them a special status within the federal states in which they are embedded. Based on this premise, it is possible to determine a number of analogies and differences in the perception and definition of the languages and dialects spoken in both communities. This comparison in terms of language and identity was focused during a bilateral seminar organised in the province of Quebec in March 2012 by the Chair of Romance linguistics of the University of Augsburg and various institutional and academic partners in Quebec. The project was conceptualized as an interdisciplinary and comparative approach to analyse respectively the role of regional variation as an identity marker, its place in the metalinguistic discourse in the media, its importance in language policies for integration, its protection and promotion as well as its description in lexicography. The article describes and analyses the results of two subprojects carried out by the Bavarian participants of the seminar. By means of a mini-survey conducted on both sides of the Atlantic, we first compare the perception and evaluation of regional linguistic identity as it is displayed by two similarly structured commercial televisions. Secondly we contrast the metalinguistic discourse put forward by a Bavarian language columnist (the so-called chroniqueur de langage) with the discourse of one of his Quebec counterparts, who we were able to interview.
