What's the target? A folk linguistic study of young Stockholmers’ constructions of linguistic norm and variation

Abstract

To account for the full range of language use in contemporary multilingual urban contexts, the notion of target language (TL) needs to be reconsidered. In studies of second language acquisition and language variation, taking TL for granted implies that people agree on what constitutes ‘good’ language, or the standard norm. The TL of language learners and users is, however, more heterogeneous than is often assumed. To gain insight into what people are actually targeting in their language development and use, we need to study their perceptions of ambient sociolinguistic variation. In this folk linguistic listener study involving 343 upper secondary school students, a range of data types were analysed: attitude scales, variety labelling, and assessments of speakers’ social and linguistic backgrounds. This article highlights some results pointing to a considerable divergence in the listeners’ perceptions, in particular with regard to speech representing what is here characterised as migration-related social dialects. Several listeners labelled these samples as ‘good’ Swedish, possibly suggesting that they do not simply aim at or even relate to a TL identical with the dominating monolingual norm, but may instead have a less narrow view of the kind of Swedish they consider appropriate for use in more formal situations.

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