Modern Danish Research Articles

Pastoral techniques in the modern Danish educational system

In recent years, therapeutic techniques have played an increasingly significant role in Danish educational thinking. One way in which this therapeutic thinking discloses itself is in the ever‐growing use of educational‐therapeutic games as part of the educational practice. Inspired by Foucault, we argue that educational‐therapeutic games can be understood as a kind of confessional practice that introduces a pastoral power relationship between pupils and teachers. This paper offers an empirically based analysis of one of the frequently used therapeutic‐educational games in Denmark, called ‘The Good Chair’. In general, the technique of ‘The Good Chair’ establishes a type of interaction that is characterized by a sense of togetherness, intimacy, and an instrumentality‐problem orientation. The structure and regulation of the game cast the child as a psychological being by uncovering the child’s true inner nature.

The Logic of comparability: On genres and phonetic variation in a project on language change in real time

This paper is based on data from the LANCHART (Language Change in Real Time) corpus. LANCHART is ‘data-based’ in that transcripts are orthographically normalized and both transcripts and annotations are time stamped and stored in a database. The corpus is structured according to generation, gender, geography, class, and time of recording. The socio-linguistic issue treated is the relationship between genre, as defined in the context of a so-called Discourse Context Analysis, and a particularly frequent and significant phonetic variable, viz. the (æ) variable in Modern Danish. Through repeated searches in the corpus we show that genres do have an effect on phonetic variation and that they frequently develop in real time, at least with regard to the patterning of the selected phonetic variable. The results are discussed in the context of intra-individual variation within the sociolinguistic interview, i.e., the timehonored style problem.

Generic variation? Developments in use of generic pronouns in late 20th century spoken Danish

In modern Danish, a handful of pronouns may be used to refer to a generic referent. In recent decades, the second person singular pronoun du has gained ground, apparently in parallel to similar recent developments in other languages. Even though generic du may not be as old as the traditional generic pronoun man, it is not a new variant in Danish if we by “new” mean that it has come into existence within the last 30–40 years. To all appearances, it has been used before the influence from English became significant in the last part of the 20th century, and the generic du as such need therefore not be explained by contact with English, as often assumed. In order to study the spread of the generic use of du we analysed the use of pronouns with generic reference in a large sample of speakers, most of whom were recorded during sociolinguistic interviews twice – the first time in the period 1978–1989 and the second time in 2005–07. The speakers come from four locations in Denmark, and three different age cohorts are represented in the study. The results show both a rise and a decline in the use of generic du in the time interval from the 1970s and 1980s till today in accordance with the hypothesis that the increased use of generic du began in Copenhagen and started spreading from Copenhagen to the rest of the country before the time of the old recordings in the 1980s. However, the use of generic du has peaked, or is about to peak, in the Danish speech community seen as a whole, and the developments in the use of generic pronouns should probably be seen within an overall perspective of stable variation.

DanNet: the challenge of compiling a wordnet for Danish by reusing a monolingual dictionary

This paper is a contribution to the discussion on compiling computational lexical resources from conventional dictionaries. It describes the theoretical as well as practical problems that are encountered when reusing a conventional dictionary for compiling a lexical-semantic resource in terms of a wordnet. More specifically, it describes the methodological issues of compiling a wordnet for Danish, DanNet, from a monolingual basis, and not—as is often seen—by applying the translational expansion method with Princeton WordNet as the English source. Thus, we apply as our basis a large, corpus-based printed dictionary of modern Danish. Using this approach, we discuss the issues of readjusting inconsistent and/or underspecified hyponymy hierarchies taken from the conventional dictionary, sense distinctions as opposed to the synonym sets of wordnets, generating semantic wordnet relations on the basis of sense definitions, and finally, supplementing missing or implicit information.

The Danish Paradox: Intolerance in the Land of Perpetual Compromise

What explains the apparent contradiction between Denmark's reputation as a liberal, tolerant society, and the recent rise in wide-spread xenophobia there? The root causes of the present wave of xenophobia are fundamentally similar to the rest of Europe: they grow primarily out of the tensions inherent in the transition from an industrial to post-industrial society. However, its unusual virulence across an apparently inclusive mainstream political spectrum, and departure from the established norms in the country, is an outgrowth of the present challenge to the egalitarian, anti-modern ethos that has steered Denmark toward its present state. Modern Danish nationalism, heavily influenced by the ideas of N.F.S. Grundtvig, has emphasized anti-elitism, decentralization, and egalitarianism. However, for the first time since at least the 1920s these political cornerstones are being seriously challenged and re-examined. Immigration has become one of the symbols of, and primary battlefield in, the challenge to the socil consensus that has existed throughout most of the 20th century.
 
 Full text available at: https://doi.org/10.22215/rera.v5i1.204

The Danish Paradox: Intolerance in the Land of Perpetual Compromise

What explains the apparent contradiction between Denmark's reputation as a liberal, tolerant society, and the recent rise in wide-spread xenophobia there? The root causes of the present wave of xenophobia are fundamentally similar to the rest of Europe: they grow primarily out of the tensions inherent in the transition from an industrial to post-industrial society. However, its unusual virulence across an apparently inclusive mainstream political spectrum, and departure from the established norms in the country, is an outgrowth of the present challenge to the egalitarian, anti-modern ethos that has steered Denmark toward its present state. Modern Danish nationalism, heavily influenced by the ideas of N.F.S. Grundtvig, has emphasized anti-elitism, decentralization, and egalitarianism. However, for the first time since at least the 1920s these political cornerstones are being seriously challenged and re-examined. Immigration has become one of the symbols of, and primary battlefield in, the challenge to the socil consensus that has existed throughout most of the 20th century.

A concrete research agenda for critical lexicographic research within critical discourse studies: an investigation into racism/colonialism in monolingual Danish, German, and Swedish dictionaries

The way in which monolingual dictionaries, understood as a discourse formation in their own right, construct realities is regarded as a critical research focus in the broader frame of critical discourse studies. In order to widen research in this area and to cultivate a critical public attitude towards the authority of dictionaries in questions of meaning, a toolbox for critical lexicographic research has been developed. The topic chosen for analysis is the production and negotiation of racism in the context of colonialism in modern monolingual German, Danish, and Swedish dictionaries.

The Infinitive Marker across Scandinavian

In this paper I argue that the base-position of the infinitive marker in the Scandinavian languages and English share a common origin site. It is inserted as the top-most head in the VP-domain. The cross-linguistic variation in the syntactic distribution of the infinitive marker can be accounted for by assuming that it undergoes head movement. This movement is optional in Danish, English, Norwegian, and Early Modern Danish and is not feature-driven. In Faroese, Icelandic, and Swedish, on the other hand, it is triggered by φ-feature checking on Finº. In Icelandic and Swedish these φ-features are strong and induce obligatory vº→Finº movement, whereas they are weak in Faroese and do not induce vº→Finº movement.

The Rich Agreement Hypothesis and Early Modern Danish embedded-clause word order

This article attempts to shed light on the issue of a possible link between the loss of ‘rich’ subject-verb agreement and the loss of verb raising in embedded clauses in earlier stages of the Mainland Scandinavian languages. Different versions of this so-called ‘Rich Agreement Hypothesis’ are compared in light of new diachronic data from the history of Danish. Examples of word order variation with and without verb raising over sentential adverbials were collected from a corpus of twelve sets of texts written in the Early Modern Danish period (ca. 1500–1700). Empirical results indicate that distinctions in person agreement in the verbal inflectional paradigm disappeared nearly 250 years before a significant decline in the frequency of verb raising. In order to explain a possible trigger for this change, the article closely examines the impact of structurally ambiguous word order and syntactic – not morphological – clues during acquisition.

Prosody, productivity and word structure: the stød pattern of Modern Danish

Parts of a new model of phonology-morphology-lexicon interplay is presented to account for the complex distribution of the Modern Danish stød (a syllabic prosody). Stød, which is sometimes productive for speakers, is analysed as a signal of the second mora of bimoraic syllables not subject to the Non-Stød Principle (NSP). The author's cross-language model for Systematically Graded Productivity of Endings (section 3) is shown to account for the application of NSP (section 4), and a detailed typology of lexemes with respect to stød-alternations, derived from the model, is presented in section 5. In section 6, a simple case of stød-alternations in inflection, viz. regular plurals of nouns, is given, and section 7 exemplifies stød and non-stød as a key to morphology for the addressee.

Avian richness and abundance in temperate Danish forests: tree variables important to birds and their conservation

Many studies on avian diversity and forest structure have focused onfiner scale forest variables such as foliage height diversity, foliagediversity, foliage density, vertical distribution of vegetation and horizontalvegetation density. From a conservation and forestry operational point of viewit would be of great interest if tree variables influenced directly by forestrymanagement decisions also had significant influence on avian richness andabundance. The species, age and size of a tree are examples of such treevariables. A great number of studies also have focused on avian diversityindices to reveal relationships with vegetation variables. However, it may bemore appropriate for foresters and conservation officers to operate withrichness and abundance measures directly, because indices complicateinterpretations on the relative importance of the two variables (richness andabundance) constituting the index. Fourteen managed temperate forests in Denmarkwere investigated for avian species richness and abundance and related tomeasures on different tree variables influenced directly by forestry managementdecisions. A rapid assessment method of avian richness and abundance wasemployed. It consisted of point-counts of bird richness and abundance within 1km2 of forest. General linear models were tested byanalyses of variance statistics to reveal the tree variables most important toavian richness and abundance. It was found that more old trees, more treespecies and more tree size-classes correlated with more bird species andindividuals. However, some variation in bird richness and abundance was alsorelated to site quality and/or chance colonization. Moreover, it was shown thatthe guild of cavity-nesting birds correlated positively to age of tree stand.The potential number of bird species in Danish forest is similar to that innearly pristine forest in Poland, and much larger than that recorded in any ofthe forests investigated. Together with the results above, this indicates a highpotential for squeezing in more avian species in a higher quality forest from abiodiversity point of view. Modern Danish forestry affects tree variablesinfluenced directly by forestry management decisions. Such tree variables havegreat influence on avian richness and abundance, but simple measures in forestrypractices can be taken to enhance the conservation of bird richness andabundance.

Environmental interpretation is flowering in Denmark

Environmental interpretation is flowering in Denmark. In 1986 it was decided to carry out a three‐year experimental project with 14 environmental interpreters. Today the number of environmental interpreters has grown to 230. The inspiration came from abroad, but the project is established according to Danish cultural and democratic traditions. Some Environmental Interpreters are employed by the State in the National Forests, others by counties, local authorities, museums or ‘green associations’, but they are all linked together in the Environmental Interpreter Service with secretariat in The National Forest and Nature Agency. A modern organisation provides training courses for the interpreters and has developed a series of active interpretation methods in order to make experiencing nature an important tool in modern Danish environmental management and inspire a positive attitude to the future—to sustainable development and management. The aim of setting up an Environmental Interpreter Service was to give people interesting experiences in and knowledge of the countryside and thereby a greater understanding of the complexity of nature, the conditions for agriculture and perhaps an increased environmental consciousness. It was also the hope that if people had a greater understanding of nature, they will love and care for it better. The Brundtland Report ‘Our Common Future, the conference in Rio in 1992 and Agenda 21 has changed the Environmental Interpreters’ work. We have recognised, that it is important to use live Interpreters and not only technical media in this important work. People respond best to personal, face‐to‐face interpretation. The interpreters try to create a love of nature, and at the same time, create an understanding of local and global environmental conditions.

A Mixed Gathering of Danish Women: No Man's Land, an Anthology of Modern Danish Women's Literature

A Mixed Gathering of Danish Women: No Man's Land, an Anthology of Modern Danish Women's Literature

Reviews : French Connections: Voices from the Women's Movement in France. Ed. and trans. by Claire Duchen. ("Explorations in Feminism.") London: Hutchinson, I987. I43 pp. £5.95. No Man's Land: An Anthology of Modern Danish Women's Literature. Edited with an Introduction by Annegret Heitmann. Norwich: Norvik Press, I987. 2II pp. £9.50

Reviews : French Connections: Voices from the Women's Movement in France. Ed. and trans. by Claire Duchen. ("Explorations in Feminism.") London: Hutchinson, I987. I43 pp. £5.95. No Man's Land: An Anthology of Modern Danish Women's Literature. Edited with an Introduction by Annegret Heitmann. Norwich: Norvik Press, I987. 2II pp. £9.50

The Scandinavian languages and the null-subject parameter

The null-subject parameter divides the Scandinavian languages in two groups. On the one hand, we find Icelandic and Faroese, which can have null-subjects with dummy interpretation in tensed clauses. On the other hand, we have Danish, Norwegian, and Swedish, where null-subjects are not found in tensed clauses. Certain other constructions are shown to presuppose a grammar permitting [+pronoun] heads of S: subject-verb-agreement, expletive pronoun base generated in X max, oblique subjects, Stylistic Fronting, violation of the that-trace filter, and Heavy Subject Postposing. Hence, it is in accordance with our expectations that these constructions are found in Icelandic and Faroese, As indicated in the text, Faroese does not have these constructions to the same degree as Icelandic. Having noticed this, Barnes (1986) suggests that in respect of the null-subject parameter, Faroese is now at roughly the same stage of development as seventeenth-century Swedish. but not in modern Danish, Norwegian, or Swedish. On the other hand, at least one mainland dialect, as well as medieval Danish, Norwegian and Swedish, can have null-subjects in tensed clauses, and, as expected, we find the grammatical constructions related to a [+pronoun] marking of COMP in these languages as well.

DANwORD, A Linguistic Data Base for Frequency Studies in Modern Danish

DANwORD, A Linguistic Data Base for Frequency Studies in Modern Danish

The Modern Danish Folk High Schools

The Modern Danish Folk High Schools

Scandinavian Influence on English Syntax

The Influence of Scandinavian on English vocabulary as a result of the settlement of the Northmen in England before the Norman Conquest was well established over fifty years ago by Bjôrkman. Claims have been made by some scholars about Scandinavian influence on English syntax, but these have been the subject of much controversy. As early as 1908 Logeman noted the tendency of both Danish and English to stress the preposition and usages such as “he has someone to work for,” which are not found in the other Germanic languages. Jespersen cited several correspondences between Modern English and Modern Danish, which he felt might possibly date back to the Viking settlements. Specifically he enumerated (1) relative clauses without pronouns, (2) the omission of the conjunction 'that,' (3) the use of 'shall' and ‘will’ in Middle English, (4) the genitive before nouns. Later students have followed Jespersen's lead; e.g. Marckwardt in his Introduction to English (Toronto & New York, 1942) and Pei in his Story of English (Philadelphia and New York, 1952).

Morpheme categories in modern danish

Morpheme categories in modern danish