Hør dog hvad de siger - Note-to-Self: Trials & Errors

Tekst 6
Language attitudes and the ideology of the Nordic
Jan-Ola Östman & Jacob Thøgersen
1. Aim
The aim of this study is to explicate the ideology behind the scenes of ‘the Nordic communi-
ty’ and to have a closer look at the status of that community and that ideology in the begin-
ning of the 21 st century. The starting point is an historical one (or, indeed, a mythical one, a
codified view of ‘the good old days’), in terms of which the concept of the Nordic community
is seen as a viable characterization of an era when the geographical area in – roughly – the
northwest of Europe was a common language community, and its members had largely com-
mon interests.
We approach ‘the Nordic’ through a comparison of the (language) attitudes and ideologies
of the individuals in the member communities with the general ideology of that community.
In this process the very notion of ideology will require dissecting; as a pre-theoretical departu-
re, we take ideology to be manifested in the official language planning activities of the respec-
tive communities and in the discourse in which those activities are embedded.
Manifestations of community members’ ideologies were collected by scholars in the pro-
ject Modern imports in the Nordic languages (the MIN-project) through extensive, interactive,
in-depth interviews in seven Nordic communities: Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Iceland, Fin-
land, the Faeroe Islands, and Swedish-language Finland. 22
Our overarching tasks are twofold. First, we wish to compare the differences that are ex-
pressed in the seven communities – in view of the common aspects of the history and traditi-
ons of the communities, and with a view to getting a deeper understanding of the ontology of
the (or, indeed, a) Nordic community in late modernity. Secondly, and ultimately, we are inte-
rested in the ideology, thoughts, and arguments that are at the heart of the different views that
the members of the respective communities express: Is ‘the Nordic project’ (still) perceived as
a joint project, and is it perceived very differently in the different Nordic communities? A
22 We would like to thank the scholars working on these issues in the seven communities for lengthy discussions
over the years, and for permission to get acquainted with, and use excerpts from the interviews they have collected:
Catharina Nyström Höög (Swedish), Jógvan í Lon Jacobsen (Faroese), Marit Merete Lunde (Norwegian),
Leila Mattfolk (Finland Swedish), Hanna Óladóttir (Icelandic) and Saija Tamminen (Finnish). The Danish material
was collected by Jacob Thøgersen. An earlier version of this study was distributed to these scholars, and
commented on by several of them.
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