Academic interests
Sociolinguistics, language and identity, language and gender, language ideology, multilingualism, the Oslo dialect, language in Østfold, globalisation
I am currently working on a project about the language situation in Østfold, Norway. Østfold has been one of Norway’s most important industrial areas, starting its industrial history in the 13th century, with its blooming period in the 19th and 20th century. The industry lead to a society in Østfold where social class distinctions were important, in contrast to most other parts of Norway.
Co-project leader, Application for Center of Excellence in Language Edcucation. Collaboration between Østfold University College and Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU). Center name: Ecology for Language Learning (EcoLL).
Courses taught
- Master in Norwegian Language Education (coordinator)
NOR403 Language and Society, NOR404 Multilingualism, NOR 103 Linguistic variation and change
• Sociolinguistics
• Language and social mobility
• Language and identity
• Linguistic variation and change
• Language and place
• Language history
• Mulitlingualism
• Linguistic landscapes
• Globalisation theory
• Grammar
Background
My Ph.D. dissertation argues that the relationship between language and place in Oslo has changed in recent years. Earlier, place of origin had a strong impact on spoken language. Now, language use seems to index lifestyle rather than place of birth. In this way geography is still significant for language use but more in accordance with other lifestyle choices.
The starting point for this study is the two speech corpora (TAUS) from the 1970s and (NoTa) from the 2000s. The most obvious difference between them is that TAUS documents a situation where east and west are linguistically separated, while NoTa documents a situation where the two variants of the Oslo dialect seem to have converged.
Adding to these corpora, 115 000 responses have been collected through the online survey Oslo-testen. The survey was promoted on the website of Aftenposten, one of Norway’s most central newspapers. I have also conducted a comparative linguistic landscape analysis from an eastern and a western district in Oslo.
In the analyses, Giddens’ (1990, 1991) theories on the global processes disembedding and re-embedding are central.
The dissertation consists of three articles. The first article presents an analysis of the linguistic landscapes in Majorstua in the inner west and Grünerløkka located in Oslo’s inner east. In this article the physics of the city is interpreted as a contextualizing framework for (social) place (see Lefebvre 1991, Johnstone 2010). The second article consists of two analyses, where the first one is diachronic and describes levelling in the Oslo dialect based on the typology in Auer (2005), and the second part is synchronic where data from NoTa and Oslo-testen is used to show the relationship between linguistic variants and place. The last article is co-written with Ingunn Indrebø Ims and discusses methodological aspects of Oslo-testen.
Awards
2013: My Ph.D. thesis won the Alliance Kunnskap Oslo's prize for the best research contribution on an Oslo-related topic.
2013: Teaching award, Faculty of Humanities, Department of Linguistics and
Scandinavian studies, University of Oslo.
Appointments
01.08.17–31.07.21: Elected member of the University College board. Østfold University
College.
Positions held
2018: Erasmus Grant, staff mobility at Meertens Institute, NL
2014–2015 Leader of Department, The Language Council of Norway.
Networks
Network for Sociolinguistics (SONE), Norway
MultiNord – research on linguistic and cultural heterogeneous environments in Scandinavia, University of Oslo/University of Copenhagen
SLICE (Standard Language Ideology in Contemporary Europe), University of Copenhagen
Affiliate, Center for Multilingualism in Society across the lifespan, University of Oslo
Language variation and change in society and education, University College of Southeast Norway