Språk og stril. Om språkleg og lokal identitet i Fjell

Abstract

This article is about the relationship between linguistic identity and spatial identity among adolescents between the age of 13 and 16. Based on historical data, a survey and interviews,this article examines the concept of stril and its role as an identity marker among adolescents in the former municipality of Fjell outside Bergen. This language society, traditionally an area of the so-called strils, is today characterized by pressure against the Nynorsk written language and by dialectal levelling. The results of the study indicates that the concept of strilis relevant in order to understand language choice, language use and language identity. Furthermore, it shows a con-nection between self-categorization as striland main written language, gender, local geography and parental background. Most significant is the interaction between main written language and gender.