Vinderup in real time

A showcase of dialect levelling

Signe Wedel Schøning | Lanchart, University of Copenhagen

Inge Lise Pedersen | Lanchart, University of Copenhagen

This article is based on a panel and a trend study showing the real-time language changes in spoken Danish over 28 years. The local dialect rapidly loses ground to regional standard Danish, but with large differences between the intra- and the intergenerational changes and with increasing gender differences. Our findings point to women being in the lead of these language changes. To obtain a deeper insight into the linguistic changes we provide a qualitative family study of three generations which relates the use of dialect to the issues of gender, lifestyle and life history. In generation 1 and 2 gender has less bearing on linguistic usage than lifestyle and life history in signalling local affi liation, whereas dialect in generation 3 functions as a masculine subcultural identity marker. Dialect therefore no longer indicates local orientation or a locally bound lifestyle.

Published online: 30 November 2009
https://doi.org/10.1075/cilt.308.19sch

Cited by

Cited by 3 other publications

Jensen, Torben Juel & Marie Maegaard

2012. Past participles of strong verbs in Jutland Danish: A real-time study of regionalization and standardization. Nordic Journal of Linguistics 35:2 ► pp. 169 ff.

Maegaard, Marie, Torben Juel Jensen, Tore Kristiansen & Jens Normann Jørgensen

2013. Diffusion of language change: Accommodation to a moving target. Journal of Sociolinguistics 17:1 ► pp. 3 ff.

Monka, Malene

2018. In The Sociolinguistics of Place and Belonging [IMPACT: Studies in Language and Society, 45], ► pp. 213 ff.

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