Intergroup Communication: Scandinavia

• Main Author: Kristiansen, Tore
• Format: Book Part
• Language: unknown
• Published: Oxford University Press 2017
• Subjects: Faroe Islands; Greenland; Norway; Faroes; Iceland; North Atlantic
• Online Access: http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/acrefore/9780190228613.013.393

In a broad sense, Scandinavia consists of the five sovereign states of Denmark (including Greenland and the Faroe Islands in the North Atlantic Ocean, with an autonomous status within the Danish state), Norway, Sweden, Iceland, and Finland (including the Åland islands in the Baltic Sea, with an autonomous status within the Finnish state). Historically, the dominating powers in the area have been Denmark and Sweden. Linguistically, the westward dominance of Denmark resulted in Danish having a strong influence on the language situations in Norway, the Faroes, Iceland, and Greenland; and as a consequence of the historical eastward dominance by Sweden, Finland has two official languages: Finnish and Swedish. In a narrow sense, Scandinavia consists of Denmark (without the North Atlantic territories), Sweden, and Norway. Scandinavian languages normally comprise Danish, Swedish, and Norwegian. The crucial point about the Scandinavian languages is that they are, to a high degree, mutually intelligible. Intergroup communication—in the sense of communication between national groups—is possible, by and large, when native speakers of Danish, Swedish, or Norwegian speak their own language in interaction with a “neighbor.” The three languages are often referred to as neighboring languages , and the intergroup communication they allow for has been called “semi-communication.” It is “receptive multilingualism” according to the principle, which also functions in communication between speakers/listeners of neighboring dialects: “speak your own language and understand the language of your neighbor.” This has been the way most intergroup communication has functioned in “narrow Scandinavia” at all levels of society; it still is, but today, English takes over as a lingua franca among younger generations (who are strong in English compared to earlier generations), especially when Danish is involved (because many changes in the phonology of modern Danish have distanced that language from Norwegian and Swedish). In contrast, linguistic ...