About the project
Norway’s shifting demographic makeup in recent decades has been considerably influenced by immigration, in particular in urban centres. These rapid changes have attracted the attention of researchers interested in better understanding the extent to which localised language practices might be shaped by broader transnational flows of people. This project contributes to this scholarly debate by investigating continuities and disruptions in speech styles of multilingual urban youth in Norway.
Employing a multi-scalar analytical lens, the twofold aim of this project is to examine (i) media representations of the urban youth with immigrant background in Norway and their purported linguistic practices and (ii) the interconnections between the digitally-mediated communication practices of this cohort and broader social, cultural, economic, and political processes associated with immigration.
Results of part (i) indicate that “kebabnorsk”—a term commonly used to describe the speech styles of urban youths in Norway—is oftentimes mobilised in media debates to discursively construct an axis of differentiation (i.e. us vs. them), where “us” is a category that encompasses “ethnic Norwegians” who uphold Western values and speak standard Norwegian, whilst “them” describes those who have ethnically minoritised backgrounds, uphold non-Western values, and speak “kebabnorsk”.
Findings of this project shed light on, inter alia, the ways in which media debates about language (re)produce stereotypical views of minoritised groups along axes of class, gender, and race.
Outcomes of this project include chapters to appear in Southernizing Sociolinguistics: Colonialism, Racism, and Patriarchy in the Global South (edited by Bassey Antia and Sinfree Makoni; Routledge) and in the Handbook on Language and Youth Culture (edited by Bente A. Svendsen and Rickard Jonsson; Routledge).
This project is a sub-project of Urban Talk & Text, whose primary object is to contribute new knowledge on the social life of contemporary urban speech styles.
Duration
2020 - 2023