Language teaching is evidently no ideologically neutral practice, and several studies have shown how teaching materials are socio-politically embedded and strongly imbued with cultural knowledge and values, also concerning different ‘sociolinguistic orders’ (cf. e.g. Luke, 1988; Apple, 2004; Weninger, & Curdt-Christiansen, 2015). Textbooks are part of an institutionally circulated discourse that represents and maintains an authorized reality, and thus they may contribute to reproduce certain ideological structures and versions of the cultural world.
This paper aims to demonstrate how Norwegian primary school curricula and textbooks promote the idea of Norway as a ‘land of dialects’, i.e. a society where the concept of ‘dialect’ (Norw. ‘dialekt’) is a self-evident part of the sociolinguistic reality or normality. In the latest revision of the curriculum for the primary school (in force from August 1 2013), the following competence aim was added for year 2 (i.e. pupils aged 7) of the subject Norwegian: “[One aim of the training is] to enable the apprentice to discuss the concepts of dialect, Bokmål and Nynorsk” [‘Bokmål’ and ‘Nynorsk’ are the two written standards of Norwegian]. I will argue that this amendment can be seen as a politically based will to sustain (and enhance) the notion of Norway as a ‘dialect paradise’, i.e. an extraordinarily liberal speech society (cf. e.g. Trudgill, 2002, p. 31f.). By foregrounding ‘dialect’ (alongside with ‘Bokmål’ and ‘Nynorsk’), the policy makers accentuate this concept as an indisputable, valuable, and legitimate part of the cultural world, and thereby they may shape the young learners’ cultural identities. Furthermore, I will look into how a selection of recent textbooks deal with this new competence aim: How do the teaching materials instigate a ‘discussion’ of the three concepts, and how is the ‘dialectal normality’ presented textually?
References
Apple, M. (2004). Ideology and curriculum. Routledge Falmer.
Luke, A. (1988). Literacy, textbooks and ideology. Falmer Press.
Trudgill, P. (2002). Sociolinguistic Variation and Change. Edinburgh University Press.
Weninger, C., & Curdt-Christiansen, X. L. (2015). Language, ideology and education: The politics of textbooks in language education. Routledge.
