Dr. Pia Lane (University of Oslo)
Minority language standardisation – methodological approaches

I will investigate the standardisation of Kven, a Finnic minority language spoken in Northern Norway. Kven got recognised as a language in 2005. Influenced by the global focus on language revitalisation and the new status of Sámi and minority languages in neighbouring countries, many Kven wish to reclaim their language, and currently, a written standard is being developed.

Developing a standard for a minority language is not a neutral process; this has consequences for the status of the language and how the language users relate to the new standard. An inherent problem with standardisation is whether the users themselves will accept and identify with the standard chosen. Standardisation changes the conditions and scope for human agency, and therefore, social actors are key factors when standardising minority languages. I will use an ethnographic approach to address how minority language users relate to standardisation processes (Lane 2014), focussing on the role of social actors (Scollon and Scollon 2004). For this presentation, I will draw on and compare different types of data such as sociolinguistic interviews, discussions in social media, reactions of Kven speakers when reading Kven for the first time and participant observation as a member of the Kven Language Council.

Language standardisation usually has material outcomes such as texts resulting from the standardisation process (text books, grammars and dictionaries), and also linguistic forms included in in the standard. Such objects may be seen as results of actions that have been performed at some point in time by an individual (Norris 2007). By applying the concept of frozen action to language standardisation, language standards are analysed as mediated actions, a result of social actions performed in the past. Accordingly, a nexus analysis of social practices shows how language users embrace, accept and contest discourses of revitalisation and language standardisation to varying degrees and for a wide range of reasons.

References:
Lane, Pia 2014. Minority language standardisation and the role of users. Language Policy 10.1007/s10993-014-9342-y
Norris, Sigrid.2004. Analyzing multimodal interaction: A methodological framework. New York: Routledge.
Scollon, Ron and Suzie Wong Scollon 2004. Nexus analysis: Discourse and the emerging internet. London: Routledge.