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Part of
The Sociolinguistics of Place and Belonging: Perspectives from the margins
Edited by Leonie Cornips and Vincent A. de Rooij
[IMPACT: Studies in Language, Culture and Society 45] 2018
► pp. 239–260

Chapter 12
Alternative place naming in the diverse margins of an ideologically mono-lingual society

| University of Copenhagen

This chapter presents an analysis of the sociolinguistic practice of giving places unofficial names, i.e. the practice of ‘alternative place naming’. The theoretical starting point is a discussion of ‘place’ as a topical challenge in sociolinguistics. While place as a holder of linguistic variation can be criticized and links between people, languages and places can be deconstructed as symbolic formations, strong ideologies of monolingualism and a place-people-language unity remain to dominate in society. The chapter studies this encounter between the national ideological construction of a mono-lingual society on the one hand and the practice based polylingual reality of young people on the other. Analyses of hip-hop and graffiti practices in Copenhagen, Denmark, suggest that alternative place naming may be a means of managing diversity in the context of a monolingualism ideology. Through the use of unofficial names, the young people create their own symbolic links between themselves, their places and languages.

Article outline
  • Introduction
  • 1.Place as a sociolinguistic factor in the 21st century
  • 2.Ideology of monolingualism
  • 3.Alternative place-names and the construction of places
  • 4.Alternative place-naming in hip-hop
  • 5.Alternative place-naming in the diverse margins of Amager
  • 6.Conclusion: Managing the multilingual place in the context of a monolingual society
  • Acknowledgements
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 7 March 2018
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/impact.45.12qui
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