Author:

Keywords:

youth language, language contact, identity, Social Sciences, Linguistics, Sociology, Urban Studies

Abstract:

© Cambridge University Press 2015. During recent years, much linguistic research has been done on the emergence of what Rampton (2011a; Chapter 2, this volume) calls ‘contemporary urban vernaculars’. Although the term in itself is not so transparent as to exactly what kind of linguistic practice it describes, it gives a thorough picture of what characterizes urban vernaculars and the contexts in which they emerge. An important criterion in Rampton's discussion of what the term should include is that it can be characterized as a set of linguistic forms and enregistering practices (including commentary, crossing and stylization) … that has emerged, is sustained and is felt to be distinctive in ethnically mixed urban neighbourhoods shaped by immigration and class stratification (Rampton 2011a: 291; Chapter 2, this volume). The present contribution draws exactly on this criterion, viz. the connection of urban vernaculars to a neighbourhood, or more generally to a place that is shaped by cultural and linguistic diversity and is marked by social class differences. The aim of this chapter is to get a clearer view on this complex link between contemporary urban vernaculars, the urban neighbourhoods in which they have emerged, and the way in which they are being constructed in ‘talk about talk’ (Johnstone, Andrus and Danielson 2006: 93). Our point of departure will be two particular urban vernaculars, which have emerged in two different multicultural urban contexts: the city of Genk (Belgium) and the city of Oslo (Norway). In both cities these vernaculars are used by youngsters both with and without immigrant background. As for Oslo, previous analyses (Opsahl and Nistov 2010; Svendsen and Røyneland 2008) clearly indicate that there are grounds for assuming that adolescents in multiethnic settings have at their disposal a way of speaking Norwegian that distinctly differs from the standard-like southeastern Norwegian commonly spoken in the Oslo area.