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Place attachment and linguistic variation: A quantitative analysis of language and local attachment in a rural village and an urban social housing area

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 February 2020

Malene Monka
Affiliation:
University of Copenhagen, Denmark
Pia Quist*
Affiliation:
University of Copenhagen, Denmark
Astrid Ravn Skovse
Affiliation:
University of Copenhagen, Denmark
*
Address for correspondence: Pia Quist, University of Copenhagen, Department of Nordic Studies and Linguistics, Section of Dialectology, Emil Holms Kanal 2, 2300København S, Denmark[email protected]

Abstract

This article presents the results of a quantitative analysis of language variation and place attachment in two different places in Denmark—a rural, mono-ethnic village where traditional dialect is still used in everyday practices, and a multiethnic suburban social housing district where speakers use features associated with regional dialect and multiethnic youth styles. It is argued that variationist sociolinguistics, dialect research, as well as sociolinguistics that foregrounds situated interaction analysis need to develop methodologies that include and combine information about speakers’ individual mobility histories, local practices, and future orientations in relation to language use and place. For this purpose, this study employs a quantified measure, an index of local attachment, of speakers’ attachment to their local area. The index is calculated on the basis of insights from ethnographic fieldwork and interviews, and is compared to the variation of three linguistic variables in each location. Results show differences between the two places, the rural and the urban communities, as well as between individuals that can be explained by differences in place affordances, life histories, and future orientation. (Place, local attachment, mobility, dialect, multiethnic speech style, quantitative analysis)*

Type
Articles
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2020

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Footnotes

*

We would like to express our gratitude to Jenny Cheshire and two anonymous reviewers for valuable comments and useful suggestions on an earlier version of this article. We would also like to thank the members of the LaPUR project's advisory board who gave us constructive comments and encouraged us to pursue the idea of developing an index of local attachment. The study presented in this article is a result of a long-term collaborative teamwork in the LaPUR project. Thus, the order of author names is purely alphabetical.

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