Abstract
Danish university students are often criticised for a general lack of proficiency in orthography, punctuation and grammar in the academic register. However, there has been limited empirical substantiation to support the claim. In this paper, we present the results of a study of linguistic deviations in university assignments written by first-year Journalism and Danish students at the University of Southern Denmark (N = 100 students). The results show that the majority of both groups struggles with Danish orthography and punctuation when writing academically, which seems to confirm some of the assertions made by the critics. However, it is argued that the inherent conflict of orthographic and punctuation principles in Danish as well as the specific characteristics and challenges of academic writing are more probable causes than the claimed general decline in the writing proficiency of students.
Highlights
Danish university students are often criticised for a general lack of proficiency in orthography, punctuation and grammar in the academic register
In recent years there has been a stream of criticism in the media concerning the allegedly poor writing skills of Danish university students
The aim of this paper is to lay the foundation for such an approach by examining empirically which types of linguistic deviations, in terms of orthography, punctuation and grammar, university students make when writing academically, and by debating the reasons why such deviations may occur, based on the theory of orthographic principles as well as on the lexical and syntactic properties of the academic register, i.e. the functional text variety used for academic purposes that corresponds to the situational settings and language norms of academic institutions
Summary
We opted for a case study of first-year students of Danish and Journalism at the University of Southern Denmark. Like all exams and assignments at SDU, the test was conducted on a computer, spelling and grammar controls in word processing programmes were allowed, and the students were neither prohibited from using nor explicitly encouraged to use dictionaries in digital or physical form. This was done in order to mimic the regular conditions for assignments at the University. Who were excluded due to plagiarism (i.e. direct copy-paste of sections from the theory text), and one suspected case of severe dyslexia
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