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

ather cooler view of Scandinavian represented by the more diverse MIN-informants, it is not
unlikely that Iceland should rather be compared with Finland as ‘a core in its own right’, than
with the Faeroes or Swedish-speaking Finns, who share a closer linguistic or political bond
with Scandinavia.
As we have seen, the questions of English or Scandinavian in inter-Nordic communication
stand in a one-dimensional opposition to each other. This would mean that pro-Englishness
typically comes across as anti-Scandinavism, and vice versa. But such a forced opposition
might not represent a true picture of peoples’ ideologies; valuing English highly in inter-
Nordic communication need not be due to a lack of competence in Scandinavian languages,
nor need it be due to negative sentiments towards Scandinavian. It might just as well be a re-
sult of fluency in English and positive sentiments towards English. Conversely, negative sen-
timents towards Scandinavian may be overshadowed by a lack of competence in English, or
any other combination of the two. In fact, it may even be that part of what it means to be seen
as a ‘true’ Nordic person, is to be fluent in English. That is, the two dimensions of ‘Nordicity’
and ‘Englishness’ may not at all be in opposition to each other, but may work together to form
a Nordic identity.
This is our reason for including the responses to the question on global English (# 3.4) in
this study: to get at the more general attitudes towards English as a language of wider com-
munication as well as to get data on informants’ competence in, and contact with, English.
Again, we draw on data from the INS-project, since that study also includes tests in respon-
dents’ competence in English. Further, as regards contact with English, we include data from
the opinion poll survey part of the MIN-project (see Kristiansen, this volume). Here the re-
spondents are a representative sample of the populations, and ‘contact’ means ‘productive
contact’, i.e. speaking, writing or talking English rather than merely hearing it e.g. on TV. Ta-
ble 4 shows a comparison of all the relevant scales. This time the ranks on the question of
Scandinavian in INC have been reversed so that the most pro-English are situated at the far
left in table 4.
Table 4: Contact with, competence in, and views on English
MINproject
INSproject
‘Pro-English’
Factor Most Least
INC–Scand.
(reversed)
Fin Ice Nor (Swe Den) SweFin Far
INC–English (Ice Fin) Den (Swe Nor) SweFin Far
Global English Far (Den Nor) Swe Ice Fin SweFin
Contact Ice Swe (Den Nor Fin) SweFin Far
Competence in
English
(SweFin Far Swe) (Nor Ice) Den Fin
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