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Programme: accepted abstracts

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Abstract ID: 1120

Part of Session 165: Language, Place and Identity (Other abstracts in this session)

The Place of Standard Speech

Authors: Røyneland, Unn
Submitted by: Røyneland, Unn (University of Oslo, Norway)

Oral standards (orthopey) are by some definitions supposed to be abstracted from place (e.g. Swann et al. 2004). In Europe, however, spoken standard norms tend to be based on urban upper class speech, and may accordingly be highly socially and geographically localizable (cf. Auer 2005; Deumert & Vandenbussche 2003; Kristiansen & Coupland 2011). This paper considers evidence from media, CMC and everyday discourse on the connection between notions of standard speech and urban dialects in contemporary Norway.

There are two official written standards of Norwegian, Nynorsk and Bokmål, both quite heterogeneous (e.g. Jahr 2003). While attempts at establishing a spoken Nynorsk standard have never born significant fruit, the effort to determine a spoken standard based on Bokmål has been much more successful. This standard may be pronounced with a range of different (urban) accents. However, it is a contentious issue whether this variety may be conceived of as an orthopey proper (e.g. Sandøy 2011).

Dialects in Norway are well preserved, enjoy a relatively high status and are used in both private and official settings. Hence, communication between Norwegians from different areas is most often polylectal. Generally, the Norwegian language community is characterized by a rather weak standard ideology and a rather fuzzy and unclear standard norm (e.g. Røyneland 2010).

Recent media and CMC-data demonstrate, however, that if any version of spoken Norwegian could aspire to the label ‘standard’ it seems to be the urban speech of the capital, though not necessarily upper middle class Oslo speech. Across Europe the traditional orthopeys are undergoing processes of demotization, re-standardization and to some extent also de-standardization (cf. Mattheier 1997; Kristiansen & Coupland 2011). I argue that a similar development may be observed in Norway where a “modern” standard reflecting younger Oslo speech seems to be gaining ground.

Auer, P. 2005. Europe’s sociolinguistic unity, or: A typology of European dialect/standard constellations. In Delbecque, van der Auwera & Geeraerts (eds.) Perspectives on Variation. Trends in Linguistics 163. Berlin/New York: Mouton de Gruyter, 7–42.

Deumert, A. & W. Vandenbussche (eds.) 2003. Germanic Standardizations: Past to Present. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: Benjamins.

Jahr, E. H. 2003. Norwegian. In Deumert & Vandenbussche (eds.) Germanic Standardizations: Past to Present. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: Benjamins, 331-355.

Kristiansen, T. & N. Coupland (eds.) 2011. Standard Languages and Language Standards in a Changing Europe. Oslo: Novus.

Mattheier, K. J. 1997. Über Destandardisierung, Umstandardisierung und Standardisierung in modernen europäischen Standardsprachen. In Mattheier & Radtke (eds.) Standardisierung und Destandardisierung europäischer Nationalsprachen, Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang, 1-11.

Røyneland, U. 2010. Vertical convergence of linguistic varieties in a language space. In Auer & Schmidt (eds.) Language and Space. An International Handbook of Linguistic Variation, vol. 1, Mouton de Gruyter, 259-272.

Sandøy, H. 2011. Language culture in Norway: A tradition of questioning standard language norms. In Kristiansen & Coupland (eds.) Standard Languages and Language Standards in a Changing Europe. Oslo: Novus, 119-127.

Swann, J., A. Deumert, T. Lillis & R. Mesthrie (eds.) 2004. A Dictionary of Sociolinguistics. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.