Standardized online language in protest or respect?
Orthographic deviation in political CMC
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.7557/17.5660Keywords:
CMC, online language, moral panic, orthograpic deviations, social media, Sami, Sami policy, immigration policyAbstract
This article presents an analysis of 1,949 online discussion entries from "Nordnorsk debatt", the Facebook page on which the regional newspaper Nordlys launches online debates. All discussion entries investigated are from the 2017 election campaign. A key finding in the study is that online language in political discussions about Sami politics is notably more normative than discussions about other political topics. In the material as a whole, 54 per cent of the statements have at least one orthographic deviation. In such cases, the comment or the response on Facebook differs from the two Norwegian written standards (Bokmål and Nynorsk) by shortening the words or by using punctuation or letters in an unconventional way. By that we can say that the norm in political online language expands the official standards of written Norwegian. However, this predominance of orthographic deviations does not appear to have been created by language users who do not master the standard, and the deviations therefore hardly represent a linguistic decline. Nor do orality markers that amplify the prosody or show temper dominate in the material. There is therefore no reason to say that such orthographic deviations are iconic or that the confrontational style is the essence of political CMC. The article provides two alternative explanations of the significantly lower amount of orthographic deviations in digital statements about Sami politics. The first, and consensus-oriented explanation, is that the language users choose a neutral written standard out of respect of this controversial case. The second, and more conflict-oriented, explanation is that these language acts index that one wants to be loyal to or favours the Norwegian culture and language over the Sami. If this is the case, the debaters consciously or unconsciously use linguistic variation to strengthen the majority culture’s linguistic hegemony. In the article I argue for the conflict-oriented explanation, also because men are strongly overrepresented in these debates. Towards the end of the article, I compare the CMC in debates about Sami politics and immigration policy.
References
Androutsopoulos, J. 2000. Non-standard spellings in media texts: The case of German fanzines. Journal of Sociolinguistics, 4(4), 514–533. https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-9481.00128
Androutsopoulos, J. 2011. Language change and digital media: A review of conceptions and evidence. I T. Kristiansen & N. Coupland (red.), Standard Languages and Language Standards in a Changing Europe. Oslo: Novus, 145–159.
Bakkevoll, G. 2019. “Mye tøv du skriv”: Språklege og semiotiske ressursar i politisk CMC. Masteroppgåve i nordisk språk. Tromsø: UiT Noregs arktiske universitet.
Bondevik, K.M. 2019, 9. oktober. Språklig søppel er en trussel mot demokratiet. Aftenposten. https://www.aftenposten.no/meninger/kronikk/i/y3y8nE/spraaklig-soeppel-er-en-trussel-mot-demokratiet-kjell-magne-bondevik
Bucher, T. 2012. Want to be on the top? Algorithmic power and the threat of invisibility on Facebook. New Media & Society, 14(7), 1164–1180. https://doi.org/10.1177/1461444812440159
Enjolras, B., Karlsen, R., Steen-Johnsen, K. & Wollebæk, D. 2013. Liker, liker ikke. #sosiale medier, samfunnsengasjement og offentlighet. Oslo: Cappelen Damm Akademisk.
Evjen, L.R. 2011. æ sitt med klump i halsen når æ skriv det hær: Dialekt i skriftspråket i debattforum knytt til tre norske nettaviser. Masteroppgåve i nordisk språk. Tromsø: Universitetet i Tromsø.
Hellevik, O. 1999. Forskningsmetode i sosiologi og statsvitenskap. Oslo: Universitetsforlaget.
Hjarvard, S. 2007. Sprogets medialisering. Språk i Norden, 38(1), 29–45.
Holmes, J. 2008. An Introduction to Sociolinguistics. 3. utg. Harlow: Pearson Longman.
Hougaard, T. & Balleby, L. 2019. Medialektale træk i digitale dialoger. Språk i Norden, 49(1), 7–23.
Irvine, J.T. & Gal, S. 2000. Language ideology and linguistic differentiation. I P.V. Kroskrity (red.), Regimes of Language: Ideologies, Polities, and Identities. Santa Fe, New Mexico: School of American Research Press, 35–84.
Jaffe, A. & Walton, S. 2002. The voices people read: Orthography and the representation of non-standard speech. Journal of Sociolinguistics, 4(4), 561–587. https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-9481.00130
Jaspers, J. 2006. Stylizing Standard Dutch by Moroccan boys in Antwerp. Linguistics and Education, 17(2), 131–156. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.linged.2006.09.001
Kloss, H. 1967. 'Abstand Languages' and 'Ausbau Languages'. Anthropological Linguistics, 9(7), 29–41.
Kutrovac, M. & Preus, A. 2018, 4. november. Ekspert: – Steng kommentarfeltene. TV2. https://www.tv2.no/a/10187756/
Lande, T.M. 2017. “My kjedelige grena i ol ass”: Stilistisk variasjon i en gruppe¬chat på Facebook. Masteroppgåve i nordisk språk. Tromsø: UiT Noregs arktiske universitet.
Lie, S. 2011. Det digitale språket. Oslo: Ling forlag.
Litt, E. 2012. Knock, Knock. Who’s there? The imagined audience. Journal of Broadcasting & Electronic Media, 56(3), 330–345. https://doi.org/10.1080/08838151.2012.705195
Marwick, A.E. & boyd, d. 2011. I tweet honestly, I tweet passionately: Twitter users, context collapse, and the imagined audience. New Media and Society, 13(1), 114–133. https://doi.org/10.1177/1461444810365313
Mæhlum, B. & Hårstad, S. 2018. Nasjonale og regionale identiteter. I T. Bull (red.), Ideologi. H. Sandøy & A. Nesse (hovedred.), Norsk språkhistorie. Bd. III. Oslo: Novus forlag, 245–326.
NESH Den nasjonale forskningsetiske komité for samfunnsvitenskap og humaniora. 2014. Etiske retningslinjer for forskning på Internett. https://www.etikkom.no/globalassets/documents/publikasjoner-som-pdf/forskningsetiske-retningslinjer-for-forskning-pa-internett.pdf
Rathje, M. 2018. Genre- og kontekstanalyse – Verbale kortformer i unges digitale tekster og skoletekster. I A.C. Stæhr & K.K. Mortensen (red.), Sociale medier og sprog. Analytiske tilgange. Frederiksberg: Samfundslitteratur, 93–120.
Rotevatn, A.G. 2014. Språk i spagaten. Facebook-språket. Om normert språk og dialekt blant vestlandselevar. Masteroppgåve i nynorsk skriftkultur. Volda: Høgskulen i Volda.
Sebba, M. 2007. Spelling and Society: The Culture and Politics of Orthography around the World. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511486739
Silverstein, M. 2003. Indexical order and the dialectics of sociolinguistic life. Language & Communication, 23(3-4), 193–229. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0271-5309(03)00013-2
Språkrådet. 2019, 16. januar. Skriveregler. https://www.sprakradet.no/sprakhjelp/Skriveregler/
Statistisk sentralbyrå. 2017. Drøyt 1 av 4 tenkte på innvandring da de stemte. https://www.ssb.no/valg/artikler-og-publikasjoner/droyt-1-av-4-tenkte-pa-innvandring-da-de-stemte
Strand, S.E. 2018. “Hvis æ skriv bokmål te nån av trondheimsvennan mine så får æ kjeft for at æ har blitt så fin”: En sosiolingvistisk studie av språkbruk på Messenger. Masteroppgåve i nordisk språk. Trondheim: NTNU.
Stæhr, A. 2016. Languaging and normativity on Facebook. I K. Arnaut, M.S. Karrebæk, M. Spotti, & J. Blommaert (red.), Engaging Superdiversity: Recombining Spaces, Times and Language Practices. Bristol: Multilingual Matters, 170–195. https://doi.org/10.21832/9781783096800
Tagg, C. & Seargeant, P. 2016. Facebook and the discursive construction of the social network. I A. Georgakopoulou & T. Spilioti (red.), The Routledge Handbook of Language and Digital Communication. London: Routledge, 339–353.
Thurlow, C. 2006. From statistical panic to moral panic: The metadiscursive construction and popular exaggeration of new media language in the print media. Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, 11(3), 667–701. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1083-6101.2006.00031.x
Vangsnes, Ø. 2013. Språkleg toleranse i Noreg - Norge, for faen! Oslo: Samlaget.
Williams, R. 2006. Base and superstructure in Marxist cultural theory. I M.G. Durham & D.M. Kellner (red.), Media and Cultural Studies: Keyworks. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing, 130–143.
Woolard, K.A. 2008. Language and identity choice in Catalonia: The interplay of contrasting ideologies of linguistic authority. I K. Süselbeck, U. Mühlschlegel & P. Masson (red.), Lengua, nación e identidad. La regulación del plurilingüismo en España y América Latina. Frankfurt am Main: Vervuert/Madrid: Iberoamericana, 303–323.
Østerud, Ø., Goldmann, K. & Pedersen, M.N. 1997. Statsvitenskapelig leksikon. Oslo: Universitetsforlaget.
