Between duty and neglect: Language ideologies and stancetaking among Polish adolescents in Norway

Abstract

Recent political and economic changes in Europe have resulted in an increased mobility of many central and eastern Europeans, including Polish nationals. This article examines how adolescent Poles living in Norway construct their own and other people's Polish language use and maintenance. Basing on a qualitative content analysis of 10 interviews with young Polish transnationals, the article first identifies four common categories of constructing Polish that emerged in the data set: Polish as intent, Polish as obligation, Polish as utility and Polish as unimportant. Secondly, employing stance as an analytical heuristic, interview excerpts illustrating the four categories are analysed accounting for the interactional processes of evaluation, alignment and positioning embedded in the stancetaking act. Finally, the ideological implications of the stances constructed towards Polish are discussed and a methodological issue regarding the treatment of the sociolinguistic interview data and the interviewer's role is raised. The findings suggest that competing language ideologies are at work in the researched cohort and show that boys and girls participating in the study construct Polish language use and maintenance differently.