TPCS 28: Enregisterment among adolescents in superdiverse Copenhagen

By Janus Spindler Møller & J. Normann Jørgensen

Introduction

The Amager-project (e.g. Madsen, Møller & Jørgensen 2010) studies the varied language practices and social behaviour of a group of grade school students in a culturally and linguistically superdiverse (Vertovec 2007) urban setting. Data are collected in a range of different everyday contexts. In this paper we analyze enregistered ways of speaking (Agha 2007) through metalinguistic data primarily in the shape of essays or protocols produced by pupils attending eighth or ninth grade. In this written production the adolescent informants specifically address language and their norms of using it in everyday life. In line with Agha’s understanding of registers (2007) we address the following questions to our material: What linguistic registers do the participants mention and describe? What linguistic features (if any) do the participants use to exemplify registers? How are these registers described in their associations with values, speakers, etc.? How are the registers linked to or organized in metapragmatic systems?

We suggest that our findings can be described in three parameters. One parameter involves registers organized on a range associated with up-scale vs. down-scale culture, for example “street language”, “integrated language”, “old-fashioned language”, etc. Another parameter involves registers associated with separate "languages" such as Punjabi, Arabic, Danish, English, Kurdish, etc. The last parameter deals with the informants’ positioning and personal relation to the registers which includes use of possessive particles such as “my own language” as well as statements such as “when I speak to Danish adults I use integrated words” (quote from student essay).

We further discuss how the enregistered ways of speaking is presented by the adolescents alongside with norms for their use. The ways of speaking may involve poly-languaging (Møller 2009, Jørgensen 2010) but this does not mean that the adolescents associate these practices with an anything-goes-norm when they describe them. On the other hand the enregisterment of ways of speaking and norms for their use seem to be developed alongside each other in a dynamic interplay. Finally we argue that the young informants have developed a systematic organization of language they come across in their everyday. This organization might not be similar to larger mainstream language ideologies. In fact it differs in very interesting ways as exemplified in the label “speaking integrated”. But the main point is that this system is logic, coherent and reflecting (as well as constructing) society.

How to quote: Møller, J. S., & Jørgensen, J. N. (2012). Enregisterment among adolescents in superdiverse Copenhagen. (Tilburg Papers in Culture Studies; No. 28).

Read the full working paper here: Enregisterment among adolescents in superdiverse Copenhagen.