Attitudes to variation in spoken Faroese

Abstract

This paper presents results from a language attitude test in the Faroe Islands, a small country with considerable dialectal variation and no standard spoken language. The test used is a replica of the verbal guise test method that has been used through the SLICE research network, which includes a verbal guise test to elicit reactions to five regional varieties of Faroese and a label ranking task to elicit statements on language variation. There were 203 Faroese 15‐year‐old students tested. The results from the label ranking task indicate a common notion of a national Faroese dialect hierarchy that favors that of the capital. However, the reaction patterns in the verbal guise test reflect no such hierarchy. The Faroese results thus diverge from the evaluation patterns found in a number of comparable European verbal guise tests, yet are similar to the patterns found in one European test locality: Western Norway.