Rural versus Urban: Styling social position among rural Danish youth

Signe Wedel Schøning

Rural versus Urban: Styling social position among rural Danish youth

Signe Wedel Schøning

Department of Nordic Studies and Linguistics

17 Citations (Scopus)

749 Downloads (Pure)

Abstract

This ethnographic project discerns how rural adolescents living in West Jutland, Denmark, carry out their daily lives under globalised conditions. The project shows how the young speakers (re)activate, align with and discard ideological perceptions of rural and urban Denmark. By investigating stylisations of Copenhagen speech, Stylised københavnsk, and of traditional, local dialect forms, Stylised vestjysk, it demonstrates how the adolescents exploit and create social meaning potentials indexed by the two stylised registers in social alignment, and how they reflexively comment on, put on display and take position within larger social structures of unequal power structures through such employment. The adolescents did not explicitly discuss power relations between urban and rural Denmark in their everyday social encounters, but when they employ Stylised vestjysk and Stylised københavnsk, they continuously ascribe low social status to the former and high social status to the latter. Thus, the overall picture is one reproducing urban Denmark as a powerful and prestigious centre, whereas rural Denmark is disempowered.

Original language	English

Publisher	Det Humanistiske Fakultet, Københavns Universitet
Number of pages	245
Publication status	Published - Feb 2017

Access to Document

Ph.d. afhandling 2017 Signe WedelOther version, 2.69 MBLicence: CC BY-NC-ND

Cite this

@phdthesis{c0a52799ebea42f59d4b1657aeb72b2f,

title = "Rural versus Urban: Styling social position among rural Danish youth",

abstract = "This ethnographic project discerns how rural adolescents living in West Jutland, Denmark, carry out their daily lives under globalised conditions. The project shows how the young speakers (re)activate, align with and discard ideological perceptions of rural and urban Denmark. By investigating stylisations of Copenhagen speech, Stylised k{\o}benhavnsk, and of traditional, local dialect forms, Stylised vestjysk, it demonstrates how the adolescents exploit and create social meaning potentials indexed by the two stylised registers in social alignment, and how they reflexively comment on, put on display and take position within larger social structures of unequal power structures through such employment. The adolescents did not explicitly discuss power relations between urban and rural Denmark in their everyday social encounters, but when they employ Stylised vestjysk and Stylised k{\o}benhavnsk, they continuously ascribe low social status to the former and high social status to the latter. Thus, the overall picture is one reproducing urban Denmark as a powerful and prestigious centre, whereas rural Denmark is disempowered.",

author = "Sch{\o}ning, {Signe Wedel}",

year = "2017",

month = feb,

language = "English",

publisher = "Det Humanistiske Fakultet, K{\o}benhavns Universitet",

address = "Denmark",

}

TY - BOOK

T1 - Rural versus Urban

T2 - Styling social position among rural Danish youth

AU - Schøning, Signe Wedel

PY - 2017/2

Y1 - 2017/2

N2 - This ethnographic project discerns how rural adolescents living in West Jutland, Denmark, carry out their daily lives under globalised conditions. The project shows how the young speakers (re)activate, align with and discard ideological perceptions of rural and urban Denmark. By investigating stylisations of Copenhagen speech, Stylised københavnsk, and of traditional, local dialect forms, Stylised vestjysk, it demonstrates how the adolescents exploit and create social meaning potentials indexed by the two stylised registers in social alignment, and how they reflexively comment on, put on display and take position within larger social structures of unequal power structures through such employment. The adolescents did not explicitly discuss power relations between urban and rural Denmark in their everyday social encounters, but when they employ Stylised vestjysk and Stylised københavnsk, they continuously ascribe low social status to the former and high social status to the latter. Thus, the overall picture is one reproducing urban Denmark as a powerful and prestigious centre, whereas rural Denmark is disempowered.

AB - This ethnographic project discerns how rural adolescents living in West Jutland, Denmark, carry out their daily lives under globalised conditions. The project shows how the young speakers (re)activate, align with and discard ideological perceptions of rural and urban Denmark. By investigating stylisations of Copenhagen speech, Stylised københavnsk, and of traditional, local dialect forms, Stylised vestjysk, it demonstrates how the adolescents exploit and create social meaning potentials indexed by the two stylised registers in social alignment, and how they reflexively comment on, put on display and take position within larger social structures of unequal power structures through such employment. The adolescents did not explicitly discuss power relations between urban and rural Denmark in their everyday social encounters, but when they employ Stylised vestjysk and Stylised københavnsk, they continuously ascribe low social status to the former and high social status to the latter. Thus, the overall picture is one reproducing urban Denmark as a powerful and prestigious centre, whereas rural Denmark is disempowered.

M3 - Ph.D. thesis

BT - Rural versus Urban

PB - Det Humanistiske Fakultet, Københavns Universitet

ER -