“For explorers by explorers”: A discursive analysis of cruise tourism in Norway

The Norwegian company Hurtigruten operates ships cruising along the Norwegian coast and has played an important role in tourism for over a century. This article provides a multimodal discourse analysis of the website advertising Hurtigruten’s most popular journey, drawing on a critical tourism studies approach. It aims to answer the question as to what central themes emerge in tourism discourse on Norway, targeted at an international audience. Central characteristics of tourism discourse (Dann 1996), i.e., strangerhood, conflict, authenticity, and playfulness, are shown to be crucial in the analysed material. The paper discusses the notion of authenticity as a performative strategy in the promotion of Norwegian cruise tourism. One central aim of this paper is finding out what and how the notion of “authentically Norwegian” is advertised. The results imply that these topics, and especially the notion of authenticity, are aligned with general tourism imaginaries, which are similar globally.         &nbsp

”Språket fick jag inte med mig som liten” : Unga meänkielibrukares samtal om språkbevarande på sociala medier

Young members of minoritized linguistic communities often face a situation of double marginalization. On one hand, many communities have struggled to maintain their languages due to oppression and assimilation politics, which often leads to a language shift. On the other hand, many young members also experience a language purism within the community, mostly from older generations, criticizing the young members’ linguistic practices and language skills. This paper explores how young Tornedalians, Kvens and Lantalaiset use social media as an arena for metapragmatic reflexions on minority language learning and Meänkieli maintenance. Drawing on data from the social media platform Instagram, this paper examines the role of Meänkieli in young peoples’ life and identity. The paper also explores how social media can contribute to create community among young Tornedalians, Kvens and Lantalaiset.Title in English: “AS A CHILD, I DIDN’T GET THE LANGUAGE” Young Meänkieli users’ reflections on language maintenance on social media </p

Guest Editor’s Note

https://doi.org/10.33063/diva-472026</p

Gelebte Mehrsprachigkeit im Plattenbau : Untersuchungen von Narrativen und Praktiken russlanddeutscher junger Erwachsener

This thesis focuses on the lived multilingualism of a group of young Russian-German adults who as children migrated together with their families from post-Soviet states to the Federal Republic of Germany during the 1990s. Today these adults live in a ‘Plattenbau’ housing estate in a small town in one of the new federal states of Germany. The large pre-fabricated concrete-slab system-built housing estates that were built during the GDR-era are today generally considered as deprived areas due a combination of decreasing population and high unemployment. This thesis shows how young Russian-Germans create a multilingual community of practice and use various aspects of language and non-linguistic resources for identity construction. The data analysed in this thesis comes from ethnographic studies conducted during three phases of fieldwork between Spring 2011 and Spring 2012. The data was collected at a youth centre where the group of young Russian-German adults regularly met. Combining intensive participant observation, field notes, photos, and narrative interviews the thesis is a mixed-method investigation. Underpinning the analysis of the research data are theoretical models of the relationship between language, identity, and space. Methodologically this study combines linguistic ethnography, narrative analysis, and membership categorization analysis. The thesis argues that an ethnographical-narrative approach is a powerful tool that is able to highlight the role of language(s) and non-linguistic resources for identity construction in social spaces, illustrates how young Russian-Germans construct a web of multilingual identities by using social categories to position themselves and others, and shows how the lived multilingualism of  young Russian-German adults influences all aspects of their social lives. For example, the thesis shows the maintenance of Russian as a heritage language within Russian-German families, yet and an avoidance of visible signs of the Russian-German heritage in public spaces

Gelebte Mehrsprachigkeit im Plattenbau : Untersuchungen von Narrativen und Praktiken russlanddeutscher junger Erwachsener

This thesis focuses on the lived multilingualism of a group of young Russian-German adults who as children migrated together with their families from post-Soviet states to the Federal Republic of Germany during the 1990s. Today these adults live in a ‘Plattenbau’ housing estate in a small town in one of the new federal states of Germany. The large pre-fabricated concrete-slab system-built housing estates that were built during the GDR-era are today generally considered as deprived areas due a combination of decreasing population and high unemployment. This thesis shows how young Russian-Germans create a multilingual community of practice and use various aspects of language and non-linguistic resources for identity construction. The data analysed in this thesis comes from ethnographic studies conducted during three phases of fieldwork between Spring 2011 and Spring 2012. The data was collected at a youth centre where the group of young Russian-German adults regularly met. Combining intensive participant observation, field notes, photos, and narrative interviews the thesis is a mixed-method investigation. Underpinning the analysis of the research data are theoretical models of the relationship between language, identity, and space. Methodologically this study combines linguistic ethnography, narrative analysis, and membership categorization analysis. The thesis argues that an ethnographical-narrative approach is a powerful tool that is able to highlight the role of language(s) and non-linguistic resources for identity construction in social spaces, illustrates how young Russian-Germans construct a web of multilingual identities by using social categories to position themselves and others, and shows how the lived multilingualism of  young Russian-German adults influences all aspects of their social lives. For example, the thesis shows the maintenance of Russian as a heritage language within Russian-German families, yet and an avoidance of visible signs of the Russian-German heritage in public spaces