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Programme: accepted abstracts

Abstract ID: 428

Part of Session 181: Folk linguistics and society (Other abstracts in this session)

"Boorish, broad, ugly, and normal; Young people's views on linguistic variation and development in Norway"

Authors: Opsahl, Toril (1); Hårstad, Stian (2)
Submitted by: Opsahl, Toril (University of Oslo, Norway)

Over the last decade, one may roughly say that two main developmental processes have been addressed by researchers dealing with speech variation within the Norwegian context: One perspective is tied to a range of dialect levelling processes resulting in regional varieties, and a vigilance towards the (idea of the) existence of a Norwegian spoken standard. The other main trend is the study of contemporary urban vernaculars understood as a result of recent migration and language contact, resulting in the emergence of so called multiethnolectal speech styles.

This paper investigates non-linguists’ beliefs, evaluations and conceptualizations of different language variation phenomena. More specific we address the question of how youth groups situated in Norway’s capital Oslo on one hand, and in Trondheim, which may be called the regional capital of Mid-Norway, on the other, perceive each other’s linguistic varieties or speech styles (i.e. both variants of traditional dialects and urban vernaculars, and multiethnolectal speech styles).

Our study is based on data from semi-structured interviews with approximately 50 speakers age 16–19, as well as some peer conversations with no researcher present. These interviews and conversations, with a duration of approx. 30–90 minutes, aim to discover how the informants conceptualize and conceive of their sociolinguistic surroundings. By collating the interviewees’ categorizations and assessments in their narratives about linguistic realities, we believe to have gained insight into some significant ideas and value dimensions attached to different types of language variation. The analyses detect what folk linguistic criteria the adolescents employ for their categorization of each other both inter- and intra-related to the two urban areas, Oslo and Trondheim.

Among our major findings is the observation that the general acceptance of multiethnolectal speech styles differs substantially in the two urban centers. While young speakers in Trondheim tend to categorize multiethnolectal speech nearly unequivocally as “bad Norwegian”, Oslo youth divide into two groups where one group view this verbal practice in positive terms as a natural reflection of their experiences from growing up in a multicultural reality. The other group is in line with the Trondheim youth in their description of multiethnolectal speech as “ugly” and “improper”. This division in the evaluation of multiethnic speech styles is also found in public media discourse, but lately there seems to have developed a tendency to highlight negative evaluations.

Another main observation is that dialectal, i.e. geolectal, variation still constitutes the primary reference point for most informants. While dialectality seems to have been decreasing in importance in other European countries, e.g. Denmark, this continues to be an essential part of young Norwegians’ conceptualization of the linguistic landscape. Our informants demonstrate that they are highly aware of both geo- and sociolectal differences, and the way they assign values and meaning to different linguistic features, and the users thereof, in our data, testify of how language use and social identities are closely knit to each other. It also aptly illustrates how folk linguistic perspectives may enrich our understanding of linguistic variation and development in Norwegian urban areas.