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Programme: accepted abstracts

Abstract ID: 1117

Part of General Paper Session (Other abstracts in this session)

Language conflict as a local practice. Understanding the dynamics between Nynorsk and Bokmål in suburban areas of Western Norway.

Authors: Brunstad, Endre
Submitted by: Brunstad, Endre (University of Bergen, Norway)

This paper is about the language conflict between Nynorsk and Bokmål in Norway and how this may be studied at the local level as a local practice. More specifically, the paper will go further into how the Nynorsk-Bokmål conflict is realised at local referendums concerning school language. Nearly half of all referendums in Norway are concerning school language, and actions, publications and arguments related to these referendums are interesting sources for understanding more general notions of the relations between language, place and identity. 

In my paper I will use empirical data from referendums concerning language at two schools in a suburban area of the city of Bergen and referendums at two schools in a municipality close to Bergen. In all of these cases, Nynorsk is the language being challenged. From a general sociolinguistic point the challenging of Nynorsk may be regarded as an aspect of the general pressure from the majority to the minority and as a part of general socio-cultural processes such as urbanisation, deterritorialisation and modernity. However, if we are to understand the strategies individual language users use to navigate between competing notions and ideologies of language (and thereby also between two written languages) we have to examine how these strategies are made up locally with respect to activities in which the written languages are involved. In addition, we need to take into consideration the social, cultural and geographical spaces to which the language users make identity relations. In all of these cases the role of the dominating city is prominent but this role is not static.  

In my paper I will briefly compare the results from the suburban area of Bergen to more general results and trends concerning the language conflict in Norway, first of all concerning school language. In addition, I will discuss some implications in view of general theory on language conflict and in view of theories on how language is integrated to spatial activities.