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Programme: accepted abstracts

Abstract ID: 1045

Part of Session 113: "Medium-sized" languages and the city (Other abstracts in this session)

Language in Copenhagen: Changing social structures, changing ideologies, changing linguistic practices

Authors: Maegaard, Marie (1); Jørgensen, Jens (2)
Submitted by: Maegaard, Marie (University of Copenhagen, Denmark)

Copenhagen has undergone large societal and linguistic changes during the latest century. Some changes are general to Denmark, and some are specific to the Copenhagen community. In this paper we focus mainly on the disappearing division between  high and low Copenhagen speech, which accompanies the emergence of new types of linguistic variation. Another focus is the status of English in Denmark (and in Copenhagen), and the ideologies linked to it.

From the 1960s and onwards Denmark has witnessed a very rapid economical development that, together with the Danish welfare system, has produced a society that is both economically very wealthy and very equal (OECD 2008, 2010). One consequence of this is that traditional concepts of social class lose their importance. Linguistically, this means that the former differences between high and low Copenhagen speech are no longer relevant, since the classes that they used to be associated with, no longer exist in the same way. However, new social distinctions are created in Denmark, and one of the most important social distinctions has to do with constructions of ethnicity.

The ideology of “Danishness” has changed in recent years, and an “us” vs. “them” distinction has become very important in some parts of the majority population, usually phrased as a “Foreigners” vs. “Danes” distinction. This is visible at all levels of discourse, ranging from kids playing in the school yard to official documents from the Ministry of Refugee, Immigration and Integration Affairs (e.g. 2009).

The new social distinctions in Danish society has lead to new linguistic distinctions. It is tempting to interpret the division as yet another class division between “high” and “low”. However, this is not a straight-forward interpretation, as we will show. The “foreigners” are not necessarily lower class, measured in terms of socio-economic index, and similarly, the “Danes” are not necessarily higher class. However, ideologically, “foreigners” are associated with lower class. This is for instance seen in  public discourse, where politicians, journalists, teachers and other debaters frequently refer to “foreigners” or “immigrants” in connection with unemployment, crime, educational problems and so forth. At the same time, in local communities, “foreigners” are often associated with attributes that are highly prestigeful at the local micro-level. This may involve toughness, cleverness, ambitions, attractiveness etc. as we have seen in several studies from Copenhagen schools (Maegaard 2007, Madsen 2008, Stæhr 2010). All this means that issues of class, prestige and ethnicity are highly relevant in contemporary Danish society, and perhaps particularly in Copenhagen. Social constructions of class, prestige and ethnicity have changed, and they are interrelated in complicated ways at different levels of discourse. Furthermore, they are related to linguistic variation in ways that we will present in this paper.

Another “us” vs. “them” theme is the constructed threat from English on the Danish language (Hultgren 2011). This debate is probably typical for medium-sized language communities, where the use of English is seen as an increasing and problematic practice. In our paper, we will discuss this point and question the reality of this threat.