Ideologising recent linguistic

pluralisation in the Norwegian mediascape

Ingunn I. Ims & Bente A. Svendsen

Focus

The ways recent linguistic pluralisation

phenomenon are linguistically and socially

defined and constructed in the media

‘Kebabnorsk’ or ‘Kebab-Norwegian’ – a

purported speech style associated with young

people in linguistically and culturally

heterogeneous urban spaces, in Oslo, in particular

(e.g. Ims 2013; Svendsen and Røyneland 2008)

Cf. Ims 2103

Focus

What values are ascribed to ‘Kebab-Norwegian’ and its alleged speakers

synchronically and diachronically – to uncover the recursive

(re)production of ideologies

ideologizing as the process by which

ways of using language become socially

recognized, classified, evaluated,

debated – in short: invested with

language ideologies. (Androutsopoulos

2010: 182)

Focus

What values are ascribed to ‘Kebab-Norwegian’ and its alleged speakers

synchronically and diachronically – to uncover the recursive

(re)production of ideologies

Apply CAMDA i.e. Corpus-Assisted Multimodal Discourse Analysis

(Bednarek & Caple 2015).

Corpus-assisted multimodal

discourse analysis (CAMDA)

An integrative combination of

methodologies traditionally associated

with corpus linguistics (CL) and critical

discourse analysis (CDA).

CAMDA applied

1) To address value ascription in media synchronically: A

detailed close-reading discourse analysis of selected texts,

viz. an analysis of a debate on ‘Kebab-Norwegian’ in 2009

(Svendsen 2014; Svendsen and Marzo 2015) and an analysis

of a TV-program in 2010 in which the valuing and

ideologising of how people with an ‘immigrant background’

speak Norwegian are explored (Ims 2014).

1) Iconization, 2) erasure and 3) fractal

recursivity

(Irvine & Gal 2000: 37f).

Cloze-up I: The ‘Kebab-Norwegian-debate’, 4.-19. June 2009

’Kebab-Norwegian blocks for employment’

Svendsen 2014; Svendsen & Marzo 2015

Cloze-up II: Program on Norwegian televison (NRK1) Jan. 2010

’Everyone speaks Norwegian’

Ims 2014

Name Place of residence Work and occupation Value

Ahmed Oslo (east) Rapper Bad Norwegian Ali Oslo (west) Journalist Good Norwegian Shahab Tromsø/Oslo Lawyer Good Norwegian (dialect)

CAMDA applied

2) To address value ascription in media across time: A large-

scale analysis of relevant semiotic systems related to ‘Kebab-

Norwegian’ using corpus linguistic techniques (collocations and

concordances) to investigate semantic prosody, which is

evaluative in that it often reveals the speakers/writers’ stance to a

certain topic; it might be defined as the ‘consistent aura of

meaning with which a form is imbued by its collocates’ (Louw

1993: 157, cf. Baker et al. 2008: 278)

Corpus and software

Retriever: Media monitoring and tools for news research and

media analysis in the Nordic region.

Grand corpus: Atekst: 18,7 millions articles, 250 media sources

Specialized sub-corpus on ‘Kebab-Norwegian’: 597 articles,

277 590 words between 1998-2015

Media types: written media texts available digitally: national and

regional newspapers, web, TV and radio, apart from the

genres scholarly journals and magazines (i.e. 14 articles)

Software: Laurence Anthony’s AntConc

“Kebab-Norwegian” in Norwegian media 1990-2015

Cf. Svendsen & Marzo 2015

0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70

Aasheim

Opsahl

Lomheim

Uri

Røyneland

Svendsen

Språkforsker

Østby

Figure 2: Number of articles after 1 January 1995 in the Norwegian

press on ‘kebabnorsk’+various scholars and ‘kebabnorsk’+’language

researcher’ (‘språkforsker’) (Retriever 10 September 2014, N=506),

(Svendsen & Marzo 2015)

05 06 07 08 09 10 11 12 13 14 150

5

10

15negative

num

ber

of w

ords

05 06 07 08 09 10 11 12 13 14 150

5

10

15negative

positive

num

ber

of w

ords

05 06 07 08 09 10 11 12 13 14 150

5

10

15negative

num

ber

of w

ords

05 06 07 08 09 10 11 12 13 14 150

5

10

15negative

positive

num

ber

of w

ords

The Norwegian linguascape is traditionally

described as a ‘paradise’ in which “there is an

enormous social tolerance for linguistic diversity”

(Trudgill 2002: 31)

05 06 07 08 09 10 11 12 13 14 150

5

10

15negative

num

ber

of w

ords

05 06 07 08 09 10 11 12 13 14 150

5

10

15negative

positive

num

ber

of w

ords

99% ærlig

Film 2008

Minoritet1, Norwegian hip-hop

crew

Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet in ‘Kebab-Norwegian’

by Nordic Black Theatre performed with

Bergen Philharmonic Orchestra, music Sergej Prokofjev,

at Bergen International Festival, June 2011’

Lyrics: Emire & Lillebror

«Alle utlendinger har lukka gardiner» (2015)

‘All foreigners have clozed curtains’

The integration of methodologies

traditionally associated with CDA and

CL provide us with a more nuanced

understanding of value ascription in

the media synchronically and across

time than either of them could have

done alone.

Corpus-assisted multimodal discourse analysis

(CAMDA)

Thank you and enjoy LIM6!

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