We found love in a hopeless place: Exilic agency and translingual practice in Jonas Carpignano’s Mediterranea

Jonas Carpignano’s film Mediterranea is a complex and nuanced portrait of contemporary transnational migration, with a focus on exilic agency. Translingual practice is an essential part of the biographical narration of the film, which centres on the protagonist, Ayiva. This chapter proposes a reading of translingual practice in Mediterranea through the lens of recent sociolinguistic theory, which focuses on the interaction of agency, spatial setting and material context. The analyses indicate that Ayiva’s translingual practice is crucial to the representation of his agency, as well as to the critical potential of the film.publishedVersio

For hvem ønsker vel å leve i huler? En utforskning av begrepet «bærekraftig utvikling» i norske stortingsdebatter (1998–2019).

«Bærekraftig utvikling» er ett av tre tverrfaglige tema i den nye læreplanen, og det er økende interesse for bærekraftpedagogikk både nasjonalt og internasjonalt. «Bærekraftig utvikling» må forstås i et samfunnsmessig perspektiv, og kapitlet viser hvordan begrepets meningsmangfold i stortingsdebattene kan uttrykke både vekstkritikk og status quo, og fungere avpolitiserende. «Bærekraftig utvikling» bør derfor suppleres med perspektiver fra økokritikken og andre kritiske perspektiver på miljøproblemet.Sustainable development’ and education for sustainable development have received an increased interest over the recent years, and should be understood with reference to political context. The chapter examines the semantic plurality of this term as used in parliamentary debates, and finds that it can express both degrowth and status quo perspectives. ‘Sustainable development’ may usefully be supplemented by perspectives from ecocriticism, as well as other, more critical perspectives on environmental issues.publishedVersio

Intercultural Competence in the Foreign Language Classroom. Pedagogical Applications of Literary Texts on Migration and Exile

The development of intercultural competence is a crucial part of foreign language (FL) education, yet it remains under-explored in teaching materials and teacher education. Transnational perspectives on FL teaching, and specifically literary texts on migration and exile, may help expand teaching beyond the traditional monocultural focus and stimulate the development of intercultural competence. The article presents case studies of three literary texts that can be used for this purpose. The texts may contribute to the development of the students’ intercultural competence as they give access to other perspectives, while simultaneously encouraging students to reflect on their own life-world. However, the texts are highly dependent on contextualization and adaptation of classroom activities, thus underlining the crucial role of the teacher in the development of students’ intercultural awareness.publishedVersio

Heteroglossic Masculinities: Multilingualism in Armée du salut and Princesa

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People’s Conceptions and Valuations of Nature in the Context of Climate Change

This paper investigates how people conceive and evaluate nature through language, in a climate change context. With material consisting of 1,200 answers to open-ended questions in nationally representative surveys in Norway, we explore what semantic roles and values the respondents attribute to nature as well as to how they interact with the public debate about climate change. We observe that different conceptions and valuations of nature are tied to different perspectives on the climate change issue: some address the responsibilities of causing climate change, others its consequences, and others yet its potential solutions. The study provides knowledge about the variety of conceptions of nature that can be mobilised by individuals and suggests that policy measures and public communication could benefit by taking this diversity into account.acceptedVersio

Natur og menneske i et språklig klimaperspektiv

Med utgangspunkt i et klimaperspektiv undersøker vi i denne artikkelen hvordan nordmenn uttrykker sine meninger om og sitt forhold til den fysiske naturen. Med et materiale i hovedsak hentet fra representative spørreundersøkelser, bestående av svar på åpne spørsmål, stiller vi to spørsmål: 1) hvilken rolle tillegges natur og menneske som årsak til klimaendringer, og 2) hvilken plass har naturen i folks liv og levemåte som et argument for livsstilsendringer. Teoretisk plasserer analysene seg innenfor lingvistisk polyfoni og leksikalsk semantikk. Studien belyser den betydelige kompleksiteten i klimaspørsmålet og peker på de mange spørsmål og valg knyttet til forholdet menneske-natur som deltakerne i vårt demokratiske samfunn må ta stilling til.publishedVersio

Future and climate: representations of the future in French language blogs related to climate change.

Cet article explore la manière dont l’avenir est perçu dans des blogs portant sur les changements climatiques, extraits du corpus NTAP (Networks of Text and People). L’analyse, principalement entreprise dans une perspective lexicale, se concentre sur les périodes 2009-2010 et 2013-2014. Les résultats montrent que les perspectives négatives et pessimistes dominent grandement sur les perspectives positives et optimistes.This article investigates how the future is perceived in blogs related to climate change, extracted from the corpus NTAP (Networks of Text and People). The analysis, mainly undertaken in a lexical perspective, focuses on the periods 2009-2010 and 2013-2014. The results show that the negative and pessimistic perspectives are clearly more prevalent than the positive and optimistic ones.acceptedVersio

Controverses du changement climatique : la représentation des paroles d’autrui dans les pages de discussion sur Wikipédia francophone et norvégien

This article explores the collaborative encyclopedia Wikipedia through the lens of two aspects that have particularly interested Kjersti Fløttum throughout her work: (i) the climate crisis, which will be examined through the analysis of a corpus of Wikipedia pages related to climate change as well as the relevant discussion pages. The corpus contains both French and Norwegian versions of the relevant pages; in this sense, it is a comparable corpus that allows us to shed light on differences both in the treatment and textualization of the contents, and in the nature of the discussions carried out; (ii) the plurality of voices, more specifically from the perspective developed by J. Authier-Revuz (2020) (la représentation du discours autre - RDA), which allows us to analyze the representation of the speech of others, and linguistic polyphony (Ducrot 1984, Nølke 2017), with a focus on polemic negation in contexts of RDA, which allows us to analyze the expression of controversy.Le présent article se propose d’explorer l’encyclopédie collaborative Wikipédia au prisme de deux aspects ayant particulièrement intéressé Kjersti Fløttum au fil de ses travaux : (i) la crise climatique, qui sera abordée à travers le choix d’un corpus échantillonné comprenant des articles encyclopédiques et leurs pages de discussion associées. Notre corpus de travail contient les deux versions francophone et norvégienne des pages choisies ; en ce sens, il s’agit d’un corpus comparable qui nous permettra de mettre au jour des différences significatives tant dans le traitement et la mise en texte des contenus, que dans la nature des discussions menées; (ii) la pluralité de voix, plus précisément sous l’optique de la représentation du discours autre (RDA) développée par J. Authier-Revuz (2020), qui nous permettra d’analyser la représentation de la parole d’autrui et la polyphonie (Ducrot 1984, Nølke 2017), abordée dans le cadre de l’analyse de la négation polémique dans les contextes de RDA, ce qui nous permettra d’analyser l’expression de la controverse.publishedVersio

Representations of the future in English language blogs on climate change

This paper investigates how the notion of future is represented in a large corpus of English-language blogs related to climate change, with an overarching interest in exploring to what extent the perspectives of gloom-and-doom versus more positive perspectives of a sustainable society are represented. We address the following questions: (1) How are representations of the future expressed linguistically in public debates related to climate change? (2) What meanings do the representations convey? Our principal contribution is a set of nine meaning categories that characterize different representations of the future: the categories were derived by following a corpus-assisted discourse analysis approach. Within these categories, the large presence of characterisations related to sustainability, as well as frequent positive value-laden characterisations, are noteworthy. Representa- tions reflect various perspectives of a future for humanity, for nature, and for countries as well as for economies. Further, we have found that when climate change is viewed as a threat, it is in relation to nature, humans and security, while it is seen as an opportunity for growth in business and industry. The results provide knowledge on how people conceive the possible impacts of global climate and environmental change within two broad perspectives of a ‘‘gloom-and-doom’’ versus a ‘‘bright’’ future. This may contribute to an improved basis for political decision making on measures in order to avoid dangerous consequences as well as to encourage engagement in the shift toward a low-carbon future.acceptedVersio

Om fremveksten av en ny forståelsesramme for arbeidslivet og kampen mot arbeidslivskriminalitet

Språket vi anvender for å snakke om kriminalitet på arbeidsmarkedet er i endring. I det siste tiårets offentlige debatter og politiske strategidokumenter ser vi en stor økning i bruken av begreper som «arbeidslivskriminalitet», «arbeidsmarkedskriminalitet», «arbeidsmiljøkriminalitet» og forkortelsen «a-krim» som synonymer for å beskrive nye former for kriminalitet og kriminalitetsbekjempelse. Artikkelen presenterer en eksplorativ studie av den språklige endringen og knytter den til fremveksten av en ny forståelsesramme for kriminalitet i arbeidslivet. Vi viser at det nye begrepsapparatet er suksessfullt i den forstand at det skaper bred oppslutning, på tvers av både tradisjonelle politiske skillelinjer og organisasjoner. Vi analyserer datasett bestående av medietekster og nasjonale styringsdokumenter og identifiserer store endringer i språket. Metodisk er artikkelen fundert i korpus-assistert diskursanalyse, hvor nøkkelord brukes som analytisk omdreiningspunkt for kvalitative og kvantitative analyser av materialet, for å identifisere utviklingstrekk i saksfeltet. Artikkelen argumenterer for at en analyse av begrepet «arbeidslivskriminalitet» er nyttig for å forstå politikkutvikling på feltet, og at trusselforståelsen som ligger til grunn har fungert samlende på tvers av den politiske eliten.Om fremveksten av en ny forståelsesramme for arbeidslivet og kampen mot arbeidslivskriminalitetpublishedVersio