August 2009
1 The final minutes from EW2
Please find them attached to this mail. No great changes from what you have already seen. Thanks again to Janus for a splendid job.
I copy from my previously distributed plan for THE NEAREST FUTURE:
(3) based on this final version, Tore will propose a ‘minimal core’ (mandatory) for the experimental strand, Nik will propose a
‘minimal core’ (mandatory) for the media strand.
(4) based on your comments on these proposals, the final versions of the ‘minimal cores’ will be finalised by the end of
September (with the proviso that this may be judged to be neither expedient nor possible)
2 Home page ‘slice.tk’ and Google group ‘slice-tk’
I have not really understood how you establish a home page, but I have understood this much: Since there are a lot of ‘slices’ around, we ‘surnamed’ ours TK. Slices with other ‘surnames’ (like the usual DK in Denmark) give you slices of fast food and other kinds of the real stuff, not slices of language ideology, neither overt nor covert. Therefore, please slice. tk. You’ll be informed as soon as the page opens.
The google group has been opened. You have received Christoph’s information about this (thanks also to Christoph for a splendid job); I reproduce it here:
Hi everybody. Some of you may be experiencing problems in getting started with the group membership so I have made this step-by-step manual for registering: 1) click on the link in the e-mail where it says: "visit the group" 2) click "sign in and apply for membership" If you already have a google account you should get directly to the group. If you don't have a google account please continue 3) click "create an account" 4) write your current e-mail address, choose a password, write a nickname, write the 'twisted letters', and click "I accept. Create my account" 5) choose how often you wish to receive e-mails from the group, choose or reconfirm your nickname, and click "Accept Invitation" 6) you should now be logged in to the slice group. If you don't succeed or have questions please contact me. Best regards -Christoph
Hi once again. In my previous mail today I told you to follow a link and promptly forgot about it. Here it is: http://groups.google.com/group/slice-tk -Christoph
3 Bergen takes the lead
As we were informed at EW2, the Bergen people will have to begin data collection for the attitudes strand shortly. Appointments for data collection sessions have been made for the 3rd of September. I have been on a trip to Bergen (from Copenhagen), as has Unn (from Oslo), to take part in the discussions and preparations there - and I feel convinced that we will, just like we reasoned at Schaeffergaarden, be able to benefit from these and other heads start experiences in designing the ‘minimal core’. The data collection in Bergen (or they start in Øygarden, the archipelago west of Bergen) will be carried out by MA student Kathrine Aasmundseth. Her name and email address have been added to our mailing list.
September 2009
Strand proposals
Attached you will find what Nik and I have put together as proposals for the two strands (experimental and media). The experimental strand proposal is partly constructed as a dialogue between Nik and me. The idea behind this is to stress that what we need to develop is not strict applications of common guidelines (the LANCHART model) but local adaptations reflecting the local situations - as the best and only way to secure comparability across situations. Nik has raised a series of very pertinent questions which will have to be affronted everywhere, and to which there are no 'correct' answers. So, instead of giving 'correct' answers, I ended by thinking that the mix of guidelines and dialogue you will find in the attachment is a good way to start - and also the way we need to go on, of course. It goes for both strands that there will have to be modifications and elaborations as the work progresses. The work of both strands will be a process which should take account of the various experiences that emerge.
And the experiences have begun emerging
The Bergen group collected their data in the first of the sites they intended to study, a local community near Bergen called Oygarden. The group has translated their data collection instruments and data collection report into English for all of us to see and benefit from. Please also find these materials attached [1, 2, 3, 4]. The Bergen group continues in the next local community, Midsund, at the beginning of October. This work will be carried out by MA student Marie Fossheim, whom I hereby welcome and add to our mailing list.
I have been informed that Noel got his PhD position recently - congratulations! - and that the Irish (Tadgh and Noel) are about to take off.
After a meeting of sociolinguists that Kristján organized, two more Icelandic colleagues who are interested in issues of standardisation have signalled their interest in being part of or collaborating with SLICE. Welcome to Ari Páll Kristinsson and Ásta Svavarsdóttir, who have also been added to our mailing list.
The SLICE website
An initiative has now been taken and we will enter cyberspace before long...
The SLICE presentation document
I have not forgotten the expressed wishes for such a paper - to be used in particular in connection with local applications for money - but have found it difficult at the present stage to compose anything different from what we put together for the HERA application. I guess changes to this text will have to be made in response to concrete calls from research programmes. As far as I am informed, there is no 'big' bid to go for short, so for the time being initiatives in the financial domain will have to be taken locally. What I have done in the attached file with the proposals is simply to include a slightly revised version of parts of the text for the HERA application - with a comment from Nik inserted, again to stress that the reasoning about the importance of local ponderings is valid also here.
October 2009
The SLICE website
The establishment of our website has been a slow process for various reasons, but it is soon going to happen.
Finland
Jan-Ola and Pirkko have submitted an ambitious application for funding for experimental strand work in both speech communities (Finnish speaking and Swedish speaking). We cross our fingers.
Germany
Christoph is about to enter the field and is doing a pilot study these days (experimental strand).
Norway
In Bergen, the Oygarden data are presently being analysed by Kathrine. The main result is that the Oygarden community shows a reverse rank ordering of the locally relevant dialects in subconscious evaluation (speaker evaluation, SE) as compared with conscious evaluation (label ranking, LR). The adolescents’ evaluative patterns look like this (N=120):
LR: Oygarden / Bergen > Austland (= Eastern Norway)
SE: Austland > Bergen High > Bergen Low / Local Young > Local Old
/ = small difference, > = big difference
Notice that the Old/Young distinction refers to speech, not speakers (all stimulus speakers are young; young traditional dialect speakers are no oddity in Norway)
The SE result represents a pooling of
- 15 voices into 5 varieties (i.e. 3 voices per variety), although the evaluation pattern showed that other factors than dialect played a role in the evaluation of the voices
- and 8 scales (personality traits) into one scale, as the rank ordering of the voices (and hence varieties) was very much the same on all 8 scales.
This reverse pattern corresponds to what we have found in all studied Danish communities.
The Bergen group asked the informants to write down what they thought the SE was about. Only one student used the word ’dialect’ in his response. This student does not show the reverse pattern; his results look like this:
LR: 1. Oygarden………6. Austland 7. Bergen (the task included 7 dialect labels)
SE: Local Young > Bergen Low > Local Old > Austland / Bergen High
The reason why Bergen Low mingles in between Local Young and Old is that one of the Bergen Low voices is evaluated extremely positively by this student. NB: in the recognition task he says that this voice is from Oygarden (he recognizes all of the other voices correctly).
Thus, it seems so far that the Norwegian results offer evidence in support of the claim that the conscious/subconscious distinction should be taken into account in language attitudes studies.
The Oygarden results show no indication of an opposite pattern for Bergen High and Low, like the opposite pattern for Conservative and Modern in Denmark on superiority vs. dynamism. Accordingly, the Bergen group has decided to include an Oslo-based High/Low (or Conservative/Modern) variation in a forthcoming pilot study in Bergen city itself.
In the meantime, the Midsund data has also been collected, so we can look forward to more interesting news from Norway shortly.
November 2009
1. New member
First of all, I would like to signal that we may add Austria to the list of SLICE countries as Barbara Soukup from Institut für Anglistik und Amerikanistik Universität Wien has expressed interest in joining our group. Barbara has done work on language attitudes both in the US and Austria. We are happy to have you on board!
2. SLICE at SS 18 Southampton 1-4 September 2010
Stef Grondelaers and I have submitted a proposal for a thematic panel at SS 18 with a SLICE focus both in terms of participants and issues (see the attached proposal). As I know of quite a few others from our group who will also be at SS 18, I like to think of Southampton as our next meeting place - as was suggested at our EW2 in Copenhagen although I'd also like to think that we might be able to find ways to meet before that.
3. The media strand
From Finland, Jan-Ola has informed me that he has applied for money that will allow them to start media strand work. In Denmark, we have well-founded hopes that work within the media strand can be started before long.
4. Norway news
The Bergen group conducted a very ambitious pilot study in the 'low status' Bergen neighbourhood Aasane this month. With more than 160 subjects from 6 school classes (9th and 10th graders), our Bergen friends were able to test the impact of different kinds of procedures in the speaker evaluation experiment (SEE). They had three groups that might be said to differ in terms of the level of awareness about the evaluation-of-dialects aspect of the SEE:
(1) most aware
(2) less aware
(3) least aware
The stimulus voices included 5 varieties (3 voiced for each variety): Bergen High, Bergen Low, Oslo High, Oslo Low, STRIL (= non-urban dialect from outside Bergen)
The results for the three awareness groups in this 'low status' BERGEN neighbourhood look like this:
SEE most aware (1): Bergen High - Oslo Low - Bergen Low - Oslo High - STRIL
SEE less aware (2): Bergen High - Oslo Low - Bergen Low - Oslo High - STRIL
SEE least aware (3): Oslo Low - Bergen High - Bergen Low - STRIL - Oslo High
The result for the least aware group (3) differs from the result for the two other groups. The relative upgrading of Oslo Low is strongest in the least aware group (3). Thus, the result seems to sustain the argument for collecting subconsciously offered attitudes.
Further support for this argument is found when the SEE results are compared with the Label Ranking Task (LRT) results:
LRT 1 (= subjects' priorities): Bergen Low - Bergen High - Oslo High - Oslo Low - STRIL
LRT 2 (= subjects' estimation of general social status): Oslo High - Bergen High - Oslo Low - Bergen Low - STRIL
From the conscious vs. subconscious point of view, and also about 'the demonetisation issue', a comparison of the SEE (3) and LRT 1 patterns strikes me as exciting: The consciously expressed upgrading of Bergen Low (= subjects' language) is not found in the subconscious reaction, where Oslo Low is preferred to all the others. This pattern resembles what we find in Denmark.
5. Some good news for the new year to end with
A programme to be launched shortly by NORDCORP (NORDic Collaborative Research Projects) will be of interest to us, I presume. The available money will be 600.000 EUR per project (project periods of 3-4 years). The programme will be announced on http://www.nos-hs.org/ on December 15 - and will also be marketed by the national research councils. The deadline for application is Marts 25. So we should be prepared for doing some application work again at the beginning of the new year!