The field includes a number of professional approaches; we initially want to focus on the following three pillars:
- Spoken language practices and lines of development in the first instance in the Salten region, including Bodø city – with emphasis on both traditional dialectological features and newer linguistic style variants. Linguistic practices among children and young people will be particularly focused.
- Linguistic practices on various social media platforms in Salten – with particular emphasis on norm development in the intersection between established written norms and local dialect forms.
- Saami languages as a minority language in the Salten region in the 2000s – revitalization, social position and various forms of practice in speech & writing.
An overall motivation for research along the three main pillars mentioned is a genuine desire to acquire new knowledge in all of these subject areas. All three pillars contain relatively new approaches in the field of sociolinguistics, at the same time as they build on established, classical knowledge within linguistics. All three academic pillars are "covered" by the participants in Language in the North, in the sense that members or partners of the research group already have research expertise in the relevant fields. As Language in the North has also established a formal collaboration with university colleagues from Bergen, Trondheim and Tromsø, the group will almost automatically become part of a larger, initially national professional community. Not least, these external anchoring points will give us an immediate opportunity to compare the language conditions in Salten with other regional development trends.
A point-by-point formulation of the key ambitions for the research group:
- Further develop the professional competence among the linguistic employees at the Norwegian section at Nord University, and especially those who work with language in some form of socio-cultural perspective.
- Establish professional connections with the rest of the research community in Norway and thus be able to contribute to this scientific community.
- Disseminate the knowledge from this national research community towards teaching at Nord University – both to teacher students, kindergarten teacher students, further education courses for teachers, and perhaps above all in connection with the supervision of master's students.
The research group's main goals are closely linked to Nord University's strategy, both in terms of overall strategy ("Strategy 2020") and research strategy ("Research Strategy 2020-2022") for the Faculty of Teacher Education, Arts and Culture. The purpose is to develop the professional field with a view to linguistics and sociolinguistics, where we also work closely with practice by involving the field of practice in the form of children and young people in our research. In addition, it is important for us to facilitate "learning in exploratory communities" by allowing master's students to be members of the research group, by involving students in research projects, and to provide teaching that is updated on the research results.
The main focus of the research group is language, language use and language development. This is an important part of local and national culture and identity, and in this way the cornerstone of the group coincides with one of the main elements in the Research Strategy for the Faculty of Teacher Education, Arts and Culture: proximity to nature and culture. Collaboration with external members safeguards the goal of research and dissemination through collaboration with local, national and international actors as well as the development of interdisciplinary and cross-faculty environments and projects.
Active research projects
Project leader: Irene Løstegaard Olsen.
Objective: To investigate the use of dialect and the meaning of dialect with a view to identity among young people in the music community in Bodø and the surrounding area.
PhD Projects
Objective: To investigate how strong language models are understood and implemented in school.
PhD candidate: Sandra Nystø Ráhka.
