Abstract Summary
This paper provides insight into the writing practices and language attitudes of university staff who are asked to write in Nynorsk in order to ensure the language rights of Nynorsk using students. It investigates if attitudes expressed by staff can explain a lack of commitment to language legislation.
Abstract :
This paper addresses language rights and language hegemony at a Norwegian university. Bokmål and Nynorsk are two written varieties of Norwegian that are equal by law, and according to national legislation, students are entitled to exam questions in their preferred variety. However, policies to ensure Nynorsk students’ language rights are ignored, and individual students are pressured by university staff to choose Bokmål instead of Nynorsk (Author 2015). Exam questions in Nynorsk are often not in alignment with the norm, and non-standard grammatical features may lead students to misunderstand the questions. This paper provides insight into the writing practices of university staff and explores why staff often do not adhere to the Nynorsk norm. Further, it investigates if ideologies and attitudes (Woolard 1998; Garrett 2010) expressed by staff can explain the lack of commitment to the language legislation seen in the study.
The data consists of all sets of exam questions given in Nynorsk in the spring of 2014, from all faculties (152 in total). The exam questions were checked for incongruence with the norm and for ambiguous language. Additionally, 16 interviews were conducted with authors of exam questions and faculty deans. The interviews were analysed for language attitudes and ideologies towards Nynorsk, and the findings were juxtaposed with the findings from the exam material.
The study of the staff’s language practices demonstrated a lack of language awareness and investment in using the norm. The incongruence with the norm appeared to correspond with to which degree staff felt committed to the legislation, which further was related to the staff’s language ideologies and attitudes. The exam policy was not perceived as students’ language rights, but rather as a burden. I argue that these findings make a case of language rights violation at the university, which in turn reinforce the majority language’s hegemony.
