‘Language is a costly and complicating factor’: a diachronic study of language policy in the virtual public sector
This article examines language policy in the virtual linguistic landscape (VLL) in Norway and its development over time. The analysis is based on diachronic website data and interviews with state employees concerning the presence or absence of different languages on the websites of three central sta...
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ftoslouniv:oai:www.duo.uio.no:10852/59186 2023-05-15T18:14:47+02:00 ‘Language is a costly and complicating factor’: a diachronic study of language policy in the virtual public sector Berezkina, Maimu 2016-11-30T23:35:35Z http://hdl.handle.net/10852/59186 http://urn.nb.no/URN:NBN:no-61887 https://doi.org/10.1007/s10993-016-9422-2 EN eng NFR/223265 http://urn.nb.no/URN:NBN:no-61887 Berezkina, Maimu . ‘Language is a costly and complicating factor’: a diachronic study of language policy in the virtual public sector. Language Policy. 2016 http://hdl.handle.net/10852/59186 1406846 info:ofi/fmt:kev:mtx:ctx&ctx_ver=Z39.88-2004&rft_val_fmt=info:ofi/fmt:kev:mtx:journal&rft.jtitle=Language Policy&rft.volume=&rft.spage=&rft.date=2016 Language Policy 21 http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10993-016-9422-2 URN:NBN:no-61887 Fulltext https://www.duo.uio.no/bitstream/handle/10852/59186/1/Berezkina_LanguagePolicy.pdf 1568-4555 Journal article Tidsskriftartikkel Peer reviewed AcceptedVersion 2016 ftoslouniv https://doi.org/10.1007/s10993-016-9422-2 2020-06-21T08:51:13Z This article examines language policy in the virtual linguistic landscape (VLL) in Norway and its development over time. The analysis is based on diachronic website data and interviews with state employees concerning the presence or absence of different languages on the websites of three central state institutions. The article reveals a linguistic homogenization of the VLL of the public sector in Norway, which is mostly due to the removal of immigrant languages from state websites. The analysis also shows an increased linguistic presence of Nynorsk (the less used written standard of Norwegian), of the indigenous Sámi language, and of English, which performs a ‘hypercentral’ function. The virtual linguistic ethnography and follow-up interviews show that the websites of the three institutions in focus exist more or less fully only in two language versions: Bokmål (the more widespread written standard of Norwegian) and English. The translations into Nynorsk and Sámi are mainly done to comply with official regulations. Furthermore, immigration, rather than leading to an increased visibility of language diversity in the VLL, can also put pressure towards homogenization. One could perhaps even go so far as to see Norway as the harbinger of change: once multilingual provision has reached a notional peak, there is a chance that more and more state institutions will cut down on ‘less than necessary’ languages online, opting instead for ‘commonsense’ English together with the respective official language(s). The final version of this research has been published in Language Policy. © 2016 Springer Verlag Article in Journal/Newspaper Sámi Universitet i Oslo: Digitale utgivelser ved UiO (DUO) Norway Language Policy 17 1 55 75 |
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Open Polar |
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Universitet i Oslo: Digitale utgivelser ved UiO (DUO) |
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English |
description |
This article examines language policy in the virtual linguistic landscape (VLL) in Norway and its development over time. The analysis is based on diachronic website data and interviews with state employees concerning the presence or absence of different languages on the websites of three central state institutions. The article reveals a linguistic homogenization of the VLL of the public sector in Norway, which is mostly due to the removal of immigrant languages from state websites. The analysis also shows an increased linguistic presence of Nynorsk (the less used written standard of Norwegian), of the indigenous Sámi language, and of English, which performs a ‘hypercentral’ function. The virtual linguistic ethnography and follow-up interviews show that the websites of the three institutions in focus exist more or less fully only in two language versions: Bokmål (the more widespread written standard of Norwegian) and English. The translations into Nynorsk and Sámi are mainly done to comply with official regulations. Furthermore, immigration, rather than leading to an increased visibility of language diversity in the VLL, can also put pressure towards homogenization. One could perhaps even go so far as to see Norway as the harbinger of change: once multilingual provision has reached a notional peak, there is a chance that more and more state institutions will cut down on ‘less than necessary’ languages online, opting instead for ‘commonsense’ English together with the respective official language(s). The final version of this research has been published in Language Policy. © 2016 Springer Verlag |
format |
Article in Journal/Newspaper |
author |
Berezkina, Maimu |
spellingShingle |
Berezkina, Maimu ‘Language is a costly and complicating factor’: a diachronic study of language policy in the virtual public sector |
author_facet |
Berezkina, Maimu |
author_sort |
Berezkina, Maimu |
title |
‘Language is a costly and complicating factor’: a diachronic study of language policy in the virtual public sector |
title_short |
‘Language is a costly and complicating factor’: a diachronic study of language policy in the virtual public sector |
title_full |
‘Language is a costly and complicating factor’: a diachronic study of language policy in the virtual public sector |
title_fullStr |
‘Language is a costly and complicating factor’: a diachronic study of language policy in the virtual public sector |
title_full_unstemmed |
‘Language is a costly and complicating factor’: a diachronic study of language policy in the virtual public sector |
title_sort |
‘language is a costly and complicating factor’: a diachronic study of language policy in the virtual public sector |
publishDate |
2016 |
url |
http://hdl.handle.net/10852/59186 http://urn.nb.no/URN:NBN:no-61887 https://doi.org/10.1007/s10993-016-9422-2 |
geographic |
Norway |
geographic_facet |
Norway |
genre |
Sámi |
genre_facet |
Sámi |
op_source |
1568-4555 |
op_relation |
NFR/223265 http://urn.nb.no/URN:NBN:no-61887 Berezkina, Maimu . ‘Language is a costly and complicating factor’: a diachronic study of language policy in the virtual public sector. Language Policy. 2016 http://hdl.handle.net/10852/59186 1406846 info:ofi/fmt:kev:mtx:ctx&ctx_ver=Z39.88-2004&rft_val_fmt=info:ofi/fmt:kev:mtx:journal&rft.jtitle=Language Policy&rft.volume=&rft.spage=&rft.date=2016 Language Policy 21 http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10993-016-9422-2 URN:NBN:no-61887 Fulltext https://www.duo.uio.no/bitstream/handle/10852/59186/1/Berezkina_LanguagePolicy.pdf |
op_doi |
https://doi.org/10.1007/s10993-016-9422-2 |
container_title |
Language Policy |
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17 |
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1 |
container_start_page |
55 |
op_container_end_page |
75 |
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