Programme: accepted abstracts

Abstract ID: 1033

Part of Session 191: Language variation, identity and urban Space (Other abstracts in this session)

Social meanings of multiethnic speech style among adolescents in Oslo – an interface of ethnicity, class and place ?

Authors: Aarsæther, Finn (1); Nistov, Ingvild (2)
Submitted by: Aarsæther, Finn (Oslo and Akershus University College of Applied Sciences, Norway)

Oslo has increasingly become a multilingual city during the last 40 years, and today around 27 percent of the population have immigrant background. This paper draws on data from the UPUS-project (http://www.hf.uio.no/iln/forskning/prosjekter/upus/) which studied linguistic practices among adolescents in multilingual environments in the city. The participants in the study are all born and raised in Oslo, and include adolescents with and without immigrant family background. Our findings stem from two different areas of Oslo – one inner city area and one suburban, both with a high proportion of immigrant population. The inner city area is part of Oslo´s “East End”, traditionally associated with working class population. The suburban area is a community established in the 1980s, providing housing estates attractive to immigrants.

Previous analyses provide evidence that there in Oslo, as in many other European cities, seems to have developed a multiethnic speech style among adolescents (Svendsen & Røyneland 2008, Aarsæther 2010, Opsahl & Nistov 2010). We have found Eckert´s concept of indexical field (Eckert 2008) useful for analyzing the complexity of intertwining stances and social meanings indexed by this speech style, and an emerging blend of ethnicitiy and social class has been discussed (Aarsæther and Nistov 2011).

This paper aims at exploring the role of place in the indexical field, that is, both in terms of multiethnic speech style indexing identities as ‘east enders’ in the inner city and a strong local affinity to the neighbourhood in the suburb. In both cases the question of resemioticization (Johnstone 2010) and relinking to a new localized identity delinked from its social class or ethnic minority connotations (Marzo and Ceuleers 2011) will be discussed.

Our study has an ethnographic approach and the paper will also address methodological issues related to the emic /etic dimension.

References

Aarsæther, Finn (2010). The use of multiethnic youth language in Oslo. In Quist, P. and B.A. Svendsen (eds). Multilingual Urban Scandinavia. New linguistic Practices. Multilingual Matters, 111-126

Aarsæther, Finn and Ingvild Nistov (2011). Sociolinguistic portraits of adolescents in multilingual Oslo. Paper presented at the colloquium Multiethnolects in urban Europe – The role of social categories, International Symposium on Bilingualism (ISB 8), Oslo 15-18 June 2011

Eckert, Penelope (2008). Variation and the indexical field, Journal of Sociolinguistics 12, 4, 453-76

Johnstone, Barbara (2010). Indexing the local. In Coupland, N.(ed). The Handbook of Language and Globalization. Wiley-Blackwell, 386-405

Marzo, Stefania and Evy Ceuleers (2011). The use of Citétaal among adolescents in Limburg: the role of space appropriation in language variation and change. In Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development, Vol 32-5, 451-464

Opsahl, Toril and Ingvild Nistov (2010). On Some Structural Aspects of Norwegian Spoken among Adolescents in Multilingual Settings in Oslo. In Quist, P. and B.A. Svendsen (eds). Multilingual Urban Scandinavia. New linguistic Practices. Multilingual Matters, 49-63

Svendsen, Bente Ailin and Unn Røyneland (2008). Multiethnolectal facts and functions in Oslo, Norway. In The International Journal of Bilingualism, Vol 12, 1&2, 63-84

Sociolinguistics Symposium 19

Programme: accepted abstracts

Social meanings of multiethnic speech style among adolescents in Oslo – an interface of ethnicity, class and place ?