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Programme: accepted abstracts

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Abstract ID: 1023

Part of Session 155: Changing linguistic norms in the audiovisual media (Other abstracts in this session)

What is a destandardised language? A new standard or a dialect?

Authors: Nesse, Agnete
Submitted by: Nesse, Agnete (University of Bergen, Norway)

When discussing the destandardisation that many speech communities have experienced during the last decades of the 20^th century, it is not always clear how the outcome of the destandardisation should be evaluated. One possibility is that there still is a spoken standard in the speech community, but that this new standard is changed, and that the changes come from “below” – often from the vernacular in the major city of the speech community in question.  The new standard (the “destandardised standard”) is used within the same domains and by the same people as the former standard. 

Another possibility, which can also be referred to as destandardisation, is that the spoken standard remains (more or less) unchanged, but that this variety is no longer used in as many domains as earlier.  Instead, those domains are taken over by dialects, or a mix between dialect and standard. 

The destandardisation of Norwegian is often referred to as “the dialect wave”, thus suggesting that the latter form of destandardisation has taken place, a development that can be seen as a result of the emphasis on regional culture in the forming of a Norwegian identity since the 19^th century.

In my paper, I will draw upon a large material of broadcasted radio programmes from the 1930s until the 1990s in exploring the language used in the NRK (Norsk rikskringkasting = The Norwegian National Broadcasting).  Important questions are not just how the change in the radio language should be evaluated, but also when the change took place, and how this can be analysed in light of the general political and cultural tendencies in Norway at the time.

References

Anderson, Benedict 1991. Imagined Communities.  Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism. London/New York: Verso.

Deumert, Ana and Wim Vandenbussche (eds) 2003. Germanic Standardizations. Past to present.  Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins

Førland, Tor Egil and Trine Rogg Korsvik 2008. Ekte sekstiåttere [Real 1968ers].  Oslo: Gyldendal.

Halse, Ketil Jarl and Helge Østbye 2003 Norsk kringkastingshistorie [History of the Norwegian broadcasting]. Oslo: Det Norske Samlaget.

Llamas, Carmen and Dominic Watt (eds) 2010. Language and identities. Edinburgh: Edinburgh university press.

Nesse, Agnete 2007. "Radiotalemål i Nordland 1936-1996" [Radio speech in the county of Nordland 1936-1996] in T. Arboe (ed.) Nordisk dialektologi og sociolingvistik. Århus: Aarhus Universitet.

Nesse, Agnete 2008 Bydialekt, Riksmål og Identitet - Sett fra Bodø [City dialect, Standard language and Identity - seen from Bodø].  Oslo: Novus.