Jógvan í Lon Jacobsen

The subject of this dissertation is attitude towards loanwords, particularly from English and attitude to new local coinages. The general Faroese language policy has so far been characterized by a purist mentality. This study is therefore about attitudes towards word purism. The aim of purism as an ideal is to limit the influence of foreign languages on the national language.

The idea is that new coinages should replace loanwords, because of the perceived threat of loanwords with their foreign structure undermining the original language structure in the long run. 

The purpose of this research is to examine the situation from a sociolinguistic perspective in order to gain greater understanding of Faroese attitudes towards the language issue. It is a matter of gaining insight into which standards and values underpin the points of view that can be uncovered.

This is part of a joint Nordic project: “Modern Imported Loan Words in the Nordic Languages”, which was officially launched in 2001 and commissioned by the Nordic Language Council. The project’s main objective is to produce an overview of how modern loan words and foreign language structure are handled in the Nordic languages, i.e. which standards and values exist in the Nordic language societies. It attempts to gain insight into the mentality of people in different social groups (classed by gender, age, lifestyle, etc.). The study focuses on the influence of English and asks which impact Anglo-American globalization is having on the Nordic languages.

The study is made up of three parts each with a different method:

• An attitude survey (direct quantitative method)
• A matched guise-test (indirect quantitative method)
• Long interviews with selected informants (qualitative direct method)

 
The main research question is: Which standards and values prevail in Faroese society in relation to language? A total of about 1,200 informants participate in the study (537 in the survey, 620 in the matched guise-test and 48 in the interviews).
The whole country is represented in the survey. The 537 randomly selected informants are grouped according to the population in each of the seven electoral constituencies used as a starting point.
The selection of informants for interviews is based on general lifestyle theories. We work with four lifestyles, termed A, B, C and D.  We consider lifestyle to be represented in two different types of company, traditional production industries on the one hand, and contemporary service industries on the other. In both types of industry there are informants on two levels: Management level (highly educated managers and middle managers) and ordinary workers (with medium length or no education).

The lifestyle study shows no clear difference in attitude to the use of loanwords between the different lifestyle groups. It does, however, indicate that informants from lifestyle B (managers in contemporary service industries) are more tolerant towards modern loanwords than informants from the other groups. One explanation might be that these informants work a great deal with IT, an area where much of the vocabulary is in English.

An interesting question is: Why is it that people who largely accept loanwords in every day use, still state that the “ideal” would be to have Faroese words? Such points of view emerge time and again in the information obtained. The most likely reason is that informants consider the question on two levels: Language is part symbol and part function. The “ideal” refers to the language as a national image, symbol, yet at the same time language has to fulfil its role as a means of communication in everyday language, and in that situation it matters less which words are used. Nonetheless, the symbolic function is omnipresent. Informants are aware of linguistic discourse: new Faroese coinages are better than loanwords. Furthermore, the “politically correct” replies are hardly always reliable.  One way of overcoming the observer paradox is by checking the type of arguments put forth, because informants are scarcely always fully conscious of how they defend their position in each individual case. As it turns out, the number of pragmatic arguments (that the word, which better serves communication should be used) is higher than the number of nationalistic/cultural arguments (that one should choose the Faroese word rather than the foreign one, because Faroese is a part of our culture and each individual’s identity). As regards technology, we observe a more positive attitude towards loanwords than, say, as regards literature or the Church, where most people say that we should use Faroese words. This is interesting, because it indicates a pattern, namely that “Faroese areas” (i.e. Faroese literature and church) require Faroese words, whereas “foreign areas” (i.e. technology and foreign food) require foreign words.