Experimental approaches to the study of language ideologies in Swedish-language Finland Therese Leinonen SLICE Experimental strand meeting Copenhagen, February 24 25, 2014
Project overview project funded by the Academy of Finland (postdoctoral researcher) funding period: 01.09.2013 31.08.2016
Overview of the talk Swedish-language Finland Aims A pilot study Experiment 1: speaker evaluation task + label ranking Experiment 2: shadowing + implicit association test
Swedish-language Finland Swedish is one of two official languages in Finland 290 000 (5.4 %) of the population in Finland are registered as Swedish-speaking three main regions: mainland west coast (Österbotten) mainland south coast (Nyland + Åboland) Åland Islands
Finland-Swedish standard language? pluricentric languages: it is common in non-dominant varieties that the proper national norm is heavily practised but officially depreciated the official norm is rarely practised but officially highly appreciated (Muhr 2012) linguists and language planners argue that Finland Swedish should be considered a regional variety of Swedish and not a separate language with a separate standard language finlandssvenskt standarduttal ( Finland-Swedish standard pronunciation ) Swedish spoken by educated speakers in Helsinki and Turku has traditionally been regarded as the standard variety of Finland Swedish recent change in which variety is considered the best language by Finland- Swedes (Ivars 2003, Östman & Mattfolk 2011, Stenberg-Sirén & Östman 2012)
Aims 1. Does a common standard language ideology exist in the Finland Swedish speech community? 2. Which varieties are positively/negatively evaluated by Finland Swedes on scales of superiority and dynamism? 3. What are the explicit and implicit attitudes of Finland Swedes towards the two majority languages? Are there geographic and/or social variation associated with these attitudes within the Finland Swedish speech community? 4. What are the effects of explicit and implicit attitudes on sociolinguistic variation?
Pilot Study Aims: which labels are Finland-Swedes using for varieties of Finland Swedish? which levels of language use are (folk-linguistically) relevant in the Finland Swedish context (local dialect regional dialect regiolect standard?) collect adjectives for the speaker evaluation task test language aesthetic evaluation in the Finland Swedish context test the usefulness of social media for language surveys
Pilot Study: participants 129 participants completed the survey Complete Partial 100 freq. 50 0 11/29 11/30 12/1 12/2 12/3 12/4 12/5 12/6
Pilot Study: participants man kvinna annan/vill ej ange 6 5 4 antal 3 2 1 0 1920 1925 1930 1935 1940 1945 1950 1955 1960 år 1965 1970 1975 1980 1985 1990 1995 2000
Pilot Study: labels rural local varieties: -dialekt, -ska (ex. solfdialekt, kimitsko) urban varieties: -dialekt, -ska, -svenska, -slang (jakobstadsdialekt, kariska, åbosvenska, hesaslang) regional varieties: west coast: labels for regional varieties are not used for speaker s own variety (bidialectality: local dialect standard language) south coast: regional labels are common (östnyländska, västnyländska, åboländska) broad generalization are made of other s languages (österbottniska, nyländska, åländska) super-regional varieties: finlandssvenska, högsvenska, standardsvenska
Pilot Study: positive adjectives glada trevliga sympatiska jordnära öppna humoristiska hemvana sociala stolta bildade positiva lättförståbara vänliga ärliga utåtriktade identifierbara roliga pålitliga lantliga rejäla pratsamma rediga genuina identitetsbärande självsäkra lugna ungdomliga arbetsamma kreativa företagsamma hjälpsamma varma snälla äkta praktiska rakryggade högutbildade artiga naturnära trygga skämtsamma personliga nyfikna modiga engagerade aktiva gladlynta starka kunniga väluppfostrade kulturbärande avslappnade unga hederliga svenska framåt familjära sakkunniga flitiga trovärdiga självständiga neutrala drivkraftiga energiska bondiga gammalmodiga mysiga raka nostalgiska charmiga duktiga obekymrade oförställda vackra förståelsefulla empatiska sorglösa rättframma sakliga experimenterande livsglada skojfriska belevade spralliga medvetna livliga pratglada välmående informella ansvarsfulla bofasta hemtama vanliga
Pilot Study: negative adjectives självcentrerade egocentriska arroganta långsamma lågutbildade högdragna överlägsna gnälliga neutrala enkla ytliga skvallriga tröga lantliga snobbiga osäkra ignoranta envisa svenska inskränkta svårförståbara högfärdiga bondiga dryga dumma snorkiga exkluderandeopersonliga snålaknutpatriotiska stolta blyga högljudda omedvetna tystlåtna religiösa tråkiga slarviga obildade inåtvända fördomsfulla skamsna
Pilot Study: aesthetic evaluations HR NL OB 100 bedomning 80 60 40 20 0 finlandssvenska n=13 n=3 n=4 n=1 högsvenska rikssvenska standardsvenska finlandssvenska n=11 n=7 n=6 n=1 högsvenska rikssvenska standardsvenska finlandssvenska n=8 n=4 n=3 n=4 högsvenska rikssvenska standardsvenska
Pilot Study: aesthetic evaluations HR NL OB 100 bedomning 80 60 40 20 0 borgådialekt n=4 n=6 n=4 n=17 n=2 n=2 borgåsvenska helsingforssvenska hesaslang närpesdialekt närpesiska borgådialekt n=1 n=16 n=3 n=8 n=0 n=3 borgåsvenska helsingforssvenska hesaslang närpesdialekt närpesiska borgådialekt n=3 n=5 n=1 n=5 n=9 n=6 borgåsvenska helsingforssvenska hesaslang närpesdialekt närpesiska
Pilot Study: aesthetic evaluations 100 HR NL OB 80 60 value 40 20 0 n=28 n=28 n=28 n=28 n=28 n=28 fi.sve. sv.sve. finska am.eng. br.eng. ryska n=34 n=34 n=34 n=34 n=34 n=34 fi.sve. sv.sve. finska am.eng. br.eng. ryska n=32 n=32 n=32 n=32 n=32 n=32 fi.sve. sv.sve. finska am.eng. br.eng. ryska
Speaker evaluation task + label ranking SLICE-like design participants: Helsinki, Turku and Vaasa (Sw. Helsingfors, Åbo, Vasa) hypotheses:? voices:? men and/or women? from each site: one vernacular and one close-to-standard variety neutral variety (Turku?, radio-swedish) how many voices in total? adjective scales: how many? standardness rating: what word to use? label ranking task: how to choose appropriate labels?
Shadowing + IAT Babel (2010): shadowing task (Goldinger 1998): Australian speaker, participants from New Zealand Implicit Association Test (IAT, Greenwald et al. 1998): measured Australia/New Zealand biases of the participants participants with a pro-australia bias were more likely to accommodate to the Australian speaker automatic social biases predict the extent of speech accommodation
Shadowing + IAT aim: correlate implicit and explicit language attitudes with production data focus on one specific feature: duration of phonemically short intervocalic voiceless obstruents (Reuter 1982; Leinonen 2013) subjects: university students from Österbotten (n = 24) and the Helsinki region (n = 24) design: 1. shadowing (production) 2. IAT 1: association strength/salience of the variable, two female and two male speakers 3. IAT 2: valence test, one pair of speakers + positive/negative stimuli (implicit attitudes) 4. direct questioning (explicit attitudes)
References Babel, M. 2010. Dialect convergence and divergence in New Zealand English. Language in Society 29, 437 456. Goldinger, S. D. 1998. Echoes of echoes? An episodic theory of lexical access. Literary and linguistic computing 105, 251 279. Greenwald, A. G., McGhee, D. E. & Schwartz, J. L. K. 1998. Measuring individual differences in implicit cognition: The implicit association test. Journal of personality and social psychology 74, 1464 1480. Ivars, A.-M. 2003. Lokalt och regionalt i svenskan i Finland Tendenser i språkutvecklingen i norr och söder. In G. Akselberg, A. M. Bødal, & H. Sandøy (Eds.) Nordisk dialektologi (pp. 51 81). Oslo: Novus. Leinonen, T. 2013. Phonetic quantity as a social marker in urban Finland Swedish. In C. Gooskens & R. van Bezooijen (Eds.) Phonetics in Europe: Perception and Production (pp. 181 204). Frankfurt a. M.: Peter Lang. Muhr, R. (Ed.). 2012. Non-dominant varieties of pluricentric languages: Getting the picture. Frankfurt a. M.: Peter Lang. Reuter, M. 1982. Kvantitet i Helsingforssvenskan. Licentiate thesis, Helsinki University. Stenberg-Sirén, J., & Östman, J.-O. 2012. Processes of standardization through the media in minority languages: Swedish in Finland. Paper presented at Sociolinguistic Symposium 19, August 22, Berlin. Östman, J.-O. & Mattfolk, L. 2011. Ideologies of standardisation: Finland Swedish and Swedish-language Finland. In Kristiansen & Coupland (2011) (pp. 75 82).