When written texts are spoken is as a project placed within a media studies framework. It is also clearly a sociolinguistic project. In a media context, I hope to contribute to the knowledge about journalists` construction of their professional language, especially in radio and television. This paper gives a brief glimpse into the background for my studies in a rather small field in modern Norwegian broadcast and language history. My research period began at March 15th 1999 and will last for three years. I`ve been working as a journalist myself, using nynorsk in broadcasting, and later I`ve been a lecturer dealing with the subject.

Background
Every day, Norwegians meet spoken, standardized nynorsk in radio and television. Some like it, some don`t. The majority is perhaps so used to listening to nynorsk in radio and television that they don`t think about the language variant being used. But although broadcasts are the most important source of spoken nynorsk, there is very little research on this special language variant. Here I`m going to present some background facts which can tell more about the usage of standardized nynorsk in electronic media (here: radio and television).

Media language, speech norms and nynorsk is quite often debated in Norway. To get overview it is necessary with a broad approach to this subject, and therefore I have chosen literature from several fields, also dealing with standardizing of bokmål (Book Language, the dominating variant of Norwegian) and other languages in electronic media. The difference between radio and television and the relationship between bokmål and nynorsk is not the issue here, and I won`t discuss the consequences that the growing use of dialect in radio and television might have for the nynorsk language in electronic media.

With a subject which is moving between a theoretical view on media language as a phenomenon on one side and practical pronounciation of certain sounds on the other, it is difficult to have one theoretical perspective. I have a pragmatic, sociolinguistic perspective, and the question I ask is this: What do we have to take into consideration when we want to make research on the standardized nynorsk speech norms in radio and television?

Nynorsk in Norway today
The usage of spoken nynorsk has institutions and no social class or any geographical area as centre for its norm (Lomheim 1996:111), and the norm for spoken nynorsk neither has any strong tradition, nor is it very prestigious. Spoken nynorsk is something most Norwegians meet in texts read load, in broadcasting media, in the theatre or church. Common nynorsk users write nynorsk and speak dialect. In 1994 approximately 12 % of the Norwegian population lived in municipalities with nynorsk as administrative language. 16,1 % of the pupils in the primary schools had nynorsk as their first language in 1996, and today there are approximately 500 000 active nynorsk users in Norway (Randen p 141).

Nynorsk has a stronger position in the bureaucracy than in business life. This is also the fact in the so called "Nynorsk core area" - the four fylke (unit of counties) at the west coast and some parts of Oppland, Buskerud, Telemark and the Agder fylkes, all in the southern part of Norway. In this area, nynorsk dominates in some local newspapers, and is also used in regional papers like GD, Sunnmørsposten, Bergens Tidende and Stavanger Aftenblad. In the electronic media branch, only Norwegian Broadcasting Corporation (NRK) has to use nynorsk. For the time being, the private TV2, TVNorge and P4 (radio) have people using nynorsk on the air, too.

In 1997, NRK used between 11 and 24 % nynorsk in its channels (NRK 1998). A study from 1995 shows that "the nynorsk norm in the statistics of NRK is very wide" (Alsnes p 17, my translation). All the same, NRK is thought of as a main carrier for nynorsk (Lomheim 1987:305).

A short historical glimpse
It is not easy to say when nynorsk was used for the first time in radio. It happened probably in transmissions from Kringkastingsselskapet a/s, founded 1925. The first complaint on language usage in electronic media came that year, written by Noregs Mållag, an organisation promoting nynorsk (Natvik p 81). When NRK was founded 1933, the weather forecast for Vestlandet (the west coast in southern Norway) was sent in nynorsk. The following year, the first nynorsk user began working in NRK, Karl C. Lyche. When World War II started, the spoken words broadcasts contained 8-10 % nynorsk.

After War, nynorsk has had a safe place in the broadcasts, though heavily discussed. In 1970, the majority of the Norwegian parliament supported the so called "25 percent rule", which says that at least one fourth of the spoken words broadcasts should be in nynorsk. Since then, NRK has had this rule as a goal - or a nightmare. NRK has never managed to reach the goal, and makes the nynorsk percentage look better by dividing the usage of dialect in its programs equally between bokmål and nynorsk. The last two decades, the dialects have become more widespread in NRK. In the NRK language rules from 1996 it`s clearly expressed that NRK wants its journalists to give their standardized language a regional touch, and that dialects can be used more, for instance in news interviews (NRK nyhetsbrev 1998).

Society, situation and language usage
As mentioned, nynorsk in radio and television has not been the subject of much research. In the book "Medierne og sproget", Finn Frandsen writes that neither media scientists nor linguists have worked much with media language. This is with focus on the specific linguistic phenomenona, that is typical for language usage in mass media (Frandsen p 10). In media research, communication theories, owner structures and media influence(s) have been specially focused. The linguists have either had a critical approach to the media language, or have looked upon it as normal language, Frandsen writes. But the last two decades, more and more have realized that media language is a special language variant, being used in a specific institution and a specific social context, and with an origin that is decided by history and culture (Frandsen p 180).

Frandsen presents theories and models which can be used in media language research, and I`ll sketch two of them. Alan Bell has a sociolinguistic model. He is interested in processes in the journalists` work with their language, analysis of the structures in news stories, and of the influence the listeners/viewers have on the linguistic form of media texts. Bell points out that media texts are the result of many linguistic transformation processes, from press releases, interviews, articles and so on. They are "multiedited", and have many sources that influence  the language. The work with the text is also influenced by what the journalist thinks about the public, and Bell has shown how one journalist changes linguistic style when he/she leaves one radio station and starts to work in another, changing from one group of listeners to another (Frandsen p 19-23). The language used by one person is not the same at all times.

Norman Fairclough is the other one I want to mention from Frandsen`s article. Fairclough has made a model for so called critical discourse analysis. His opinion is that the language used in a society reflects social and cultural changes. Fairclough deals with all sides of the language, from details concerning sounds and words, to genre analysis and interplay between media texts and society. This interplay goes both ways - media texts are both formed by and constituting society and culture (Frandsen p 27). In his critical analysis model, Fairclough studies language characteristics, the processes from creation to consumption of a media text and the communication contexts - the sociocultural praxis. He also deals with the relationship between a public discourse order (rules for language usage), related to the sources, and a private discourse order, related to the target public group. Here he finds that the discourse order is moving closer to the private (Frandsen p 26-31).

Neither written nor spoken
Both Bell and Fairclough points out that the language in electronic media is used in certain situations, and is not only to be seen connected to language norms. Sylfest Lomheim says  almost the same. Thus, he divides language in radio and television in two categories, distant language (fjernspråk) and close language (nærspråk), cf. the division between the public and the private discourse order. The distant language is less like daily life speech than close language, it is more "written" and has fewer spoken characteristics. Weather forecasts and news are examples of distant language, and entertainment programs are more typical  examples of close language. Where a journalist has to follow rules, we find distant language, and where such rules are lacking, close language is used - as dialect or (slightly) standardized, "relaxed" language (Lomheim 1987:297). An expectation of close language can make it difficult to divide between dialect and norm, and demands for use of distant language requires knowledge of the norm.

Wenche Vagle also points out that there isn`t one language norm for radio and television language. In "Velkomne til P2s morgonsending…" from 1990 she analyzes the breakfast programs in NRK radio, and divides between speak to- and speak with-strategies in these broadcasts. The speak to-strategy resembles distant language, and shows that the speaker talks to someone who is not necessarily at the same level as the speaker, or to someone from whom he/she doesn`t expect feedback or active participation. Earlier, the speak to-strategy used to occur only in relations on an (almost) equal footing, where one could dare to use a personal style. This strategy has become more widespread in society, also in media. Vagle tells that radio journalists are taught to avoid the more formal and in fact unavoidable speak to-strategy, by stressing the need to be direct and relaxed (Vagle 1990:100). The journalists should "converse" with their listeners.

By writing out texts from different programs, Vagle sees how they differ and depend on the situation; some texts are more planned and close to written texts than others. Radio language as phenomenon is a hybrid between written and spoken language, an example of secondary orality. It`s based on single words or totally prepared manuscripts, and false signs of spontaneity can occur, like self correction and interruptions.

In `Ways of Speaking` on Norwegian Radio 1935-1980, Vagle (1997) looks at language as a means of social interaction in a social context. It is not a stable system of identical forms, but exists as different norm systems that always are in conflict with each other (Vagle 1997:192). Texts are unique interpretations of a norm, and carry a possibility for changes. The article was written when Vagle was working with radio programs from 1936 to 1971, and the analysis so far showed that the radio language has two parallell development lines. One of them is the degree of orality, from the distant and authoritative to a more including and "close" language. Vagle sees also a time dimension, - that more oral language norms have been added to language being more like written texts. This reflects that society has become more complex. Social changes not only influence language, but also creates changes in the ways of using language, in the creation of new textual norms. Contributions from the radio in the culture can first and foremost be studied through the story of the radio genres, Vagle writes (Vagle 1997:203). If one wants to examine how nynorsk in radio and television differs from the written nynorsk, and what impact it has had on society, it is necessary to see in what programs this language variant has been used.

Speech norms
While "all" Norwegians know norms for written Norwegian, standardizing of speech norms is unknown for many - and debated. Kjell Venås shows that it is common with standards or norms for speech, connected to different norms for written language, and some of these speech norms have in common that they`re totally without local characteristics. Here we can mention Oxford English and German stage language. The most common is that standardized speech has regional characteristics, like standard English in England, Scotland, Ireland and the US (Venås 1997:25). Such regional standards have in common that dialect forms are "corrected" with a certain norm as a standard, where the written language decides which standard is to be followed. In Norway, there is no strong tradition for standard, nation wide speech norms, compared with countries like France, England and Germany. Also in our neighbouring countries, it is more common to follow standard speech norms.

Nynorsk and norms
The history of nynorsk is a history of norms, of search for rules and guidelines. Kjell Venås (1996) writes that the "father of nynorsk", Ivar Aasen, wanted a stable and commonly accepted norm, a national language that fit the urban dialects both in the sound inventory and in the grammar. Still it should be one language. Aasen was looking for forms that were suited to unite the dialects, and he also found guidelines in our lost Old Norwegian written language, and the neighbouring Nordic languages. The latter should give the new language respectability - it couldn`t be too unlike prestigious languages that people already knew. Aasen made changes in his own language, but the biggest changes have come after his death in 1896. Venås writes that Aasen wanted a written language that suited Norwegian dialects, and thinks that Aasen`s successors in Parliament and bureaucracy have shown most respect to the dialects, so that the unity in nynorsk has suffered (Venås 1996:78).

Nynorsk is quite liberal or open to different ways of writing words. Alf Hellevik (1979) writes that it has been necessary to take into consideration the different dialect forms, and weigh them against the need for stability. It has been important that people shouldn`t feel that there  was something wrong with their own mother tongue. At the same time, the official language policy has for a long period in our century had language unity between bokmål and nynorsk as a goal. The result of this policy is that both bokmål and nynorsk have been more open to contributions from the dialects. This has led to "width" in nynorsk, while a conserving tradition has been stronger with respect of bokmål (Hellevik p 194).

Lars S. Vikør has analyzed the purism of nynorsk. Vikør explains purism as a "struggle for keeping a language without foreign influence" (Omdal/Vikør 1996:122; my translation). In nynorsk, Vikør finds purism directed against loans from Danish, (Low) German and modern American English, and he shows different kinds of purism among nynorsk linguists. Vikør thinks that the purism is important and problematic at the lexical level, and he`s critical to puristic waves in nynorsk. Helge Sandøy (1994, 1998) is dealing with the same subject, and shows that words that are taken from bokmål and used in nynorsk, only to a small extent replace or make the "old" nynorsk words die. The result is that the nynorsk lexicon grows (Sandøy 1994:16)

Speech norms in Norway
Standardized speech norms are more common among the users of bokmål than among the nynorsk users. Finn-Erik Vinje writes that 15-20 % of the population use what we could call a standardized speech norm of bokmål (Vinje 1998:164). This language variant is called "standard East Norwegian" by Sandøy (1998:164), but also has regional variants in towns like Stavanger and Bergen in Western Norway. Venås (1997) says that it is more correct to call it regional variants of a national language, with dialects as an important basis for the standardized speech. Sandøy agrees, and his opinion is that when the "fine daily speech" is the same as the sociolect/dialect of the upper social classes in society, is it difficult for a critical person to participate in an unfair sharing of such a language privilege (Sandøy 1998:164). The privilege is that one social group has its own language as a norm giver for the rest of the population. But Sandøy doesn`t argue against standardizing speech norms as a principle. He says speech norms don`t have to be suppressing, but can be a democratic defence against powerful groups in society. The Norwegian Language Board (Norsk språkråd) has the power, and the duty of NRK is to use this power, we can say.
 
In the nynorsk movement the opinions on speech norms and standardizing have been changing. Already Ivar Aasen knew that a standard written language would be a basis for a speech norm (Hellevik 1979). In the middle of the 1960es, the Norwegian "dialect wave" occured, and in the beginning of the 70es the slogan "talk dialect, write nynorsk" came together with a political radicalizing. Speech norms were rejected by many, and the language of the people was the most important issue. In the 1990es, the supporters of speech standardizing have grown in number in the nynorsk movement. Irene Handeland Bech writes that the "new" supporters of using stable speech norms think that a strong tradition for standardized nynorsk speech can make the influence of bokmål in the dialects less powerful (Bech 1992).

Standardizing the media speech
In Norwegian schools, the pupils are not taught how to speak a standardized speech norm, but reading aloud gives a certain knowledge of the phenomenon. There exists some help for the ones who wants or feel they must use standardized speech norms professionally. This help is however not necessarily easy to obtain. Vinje has written an introduction for users of bokmål (Vinje 1990), and Sylfest Lomheim has published a parallell for nynorsk users (Lomheim 1994). Both publications are published by NRK for NRK employees. Bokmål has a book about pronounciation from 1969, nynorsk doesn`t have any, but in some glossaries recommended pronouciation is given for certain words. In Norway, cultivating language norms is first and foremost an issue for the written language (Sandøy 1998:163).

When looking through books about media language used in the education of Norwegian journalists, we can find that speech norms is hardly mentioned. The issue doesn`t seem to be frequently mentioned in media science literature from the anglo-american language area either. It`s not mentioned at all in News Reporting and Writing (Mencher 1994), Broadcast Journalism (Boyd 1998) or a book with a more linguistic approach like Broadcast Talk (Scannell 1991).  However, in Switzerland we find that speech norms are discussed, and journalist students are i.e. given pronounciation advice (Häusermann/Käppeli).

Norms for norms
Speech norms have to do with many parts of the language: the grammar, the syntax, the lexicon and pronounciation. Both for the users of bokmål and nynorsk with dialect as their normal tongue, it is much to learn and take into consideration when using speech norms that  are not equal with their dialects. In his guidelines for the NRK journalists, Finn-Erik Vinje writes that a "microphone speaker" sticks to the generally known lexicon, avoids group language ("tribal language") and words with local colour. The microphone speaker should also choose grammary rules identical with the rules for the written language, and should further respect norms for correctness in pronounciation, syntax and so on (Vinje 1990:10). Helge Sandøy partly disagree with this point of view, as he mentions that accustoming the speech norms towards a regional norm is essential for the users of nynorsk. In this way, the spoken, standardized language sounds more natural for the user (Sandøy 1998:166). Also Lomheim (1994, 1996) is having a more liberal view in respect of showing dialect background and characteristics than Vinje. This might show a difference between the attitude towards speech norms in nynorsk and bokmål, as Vinje also points out (Vinje 1998:152).

The users of bokmål in radio and television have probably a quite clear impression of correct/acceptable/ incorrect, suitable/unsuitable etc in the spoken version of their written language, and their norm is prestigeous and quite stable. Media usage is important for the nynorsk language, especially in broadcasts, where nobody can "avoid" the often unpopular nynorsk. The nynorsk users do have clear role models in radio and television, but the written nynorsk is quite open to lexical variety - and also variation in the way of spelling words. Further, this manifold is reflected in the oral usage of the language. It is many ways of speaking nynorsk, the norm is not stable.

Focusing the users
When studying standardized speech norms of nynorsk in Norwegian broadcasting, one has to take into consideration the media channel as well as the programme context, the norm traditions of nynorsk and the dialects of the nynorsk users. Further, there is a lot that can be examined - like how widespread the nynorsk standard norm is, in which connections it is used (or not used), or how spoken nynorsk differs from written. The relation to bokmål is probably the most problematic issue for the users of nynorsk - as for nynorsk itself.

Journalists speaking nynorsk (or something close to nynorsk) are probably the majority or at least the most important of the rather few known persons "marketing" or practicing spoken nynorsk in public in Norway. The conditions are not good for learning how to follow the norms for spoken nynorsk, but still at least journalists in specific roles are obliged to speak (a version of) standard nynorsk. It`s not getting any easier by the fact that people using their voices on the air, are met with different expectations and views concerning "good language", often brought to them as complaints. I think Norway is lacking literature with a critical approach to speech norms, showing possibilities and problems - seen from the users point of view.

It seems to me that language politicians and linguists are the most active in "broadcasting" their opinions on speech norms, while the users of standardized language in the electronic media mostly are silent - or overseen. What do they think about the norms and conventional rules, what is difficult and what is easy for them? What is the attitude among the users of nynorsk in radio and television to standard nynorsk speech norms? Can they as professional users of language contribute to the development and standadizing of nynorsk? This approach, concentrating on the users, is necessary when usage and standardizing of broadcast language is studied.

The project When written texts are spoken
My project is divided in three parts:
1. A questionarie to all nynorsk-using journalists in Norwegian radio and tv channels. This will show factors said to influence these journalists` choices when constituting the spoken version of their nynorsk. Moments here are i.e. loyality to geografical background, to the public, to an ideological nynorsk project, to the language policy of the station/local office etc.

2. A comparision between words and grammatical forms actually used in NRK radio news performed in nynorsk and the rules for the written nynorsk. The years chosen are 1968 (before the Norwegian "dialect wave"), 1983 (after the dialect wave, before the boom of private r/tv channels) and 1998 (after new language rules in NRK, which open for a pluralistic use of dialects, and also after the collapse of r/tv monopoly in Norway). This will detect any systematic differences between written and spoken nynorsk, and the development during this quite short period of time.

3. Interviews with a small number of radio/tv journalists using nynorsk. This will hopefully lead to more solid insights in the relationship between personal attitudes to and practical usage of the language - it will try to show patterns of loyality which might teach us more about the journalists` constitution of a spoken, written language.

Although nynorsk and its professional users in the media are focused in the project, a smaller, comparing work will be done with bokmål/bokmål users. In this way, it will be possible to see differences and similarities between attitudes to and usage of the two versions of Norwegian language among their users.

Jon Peder Vestad, March/April 1999.

The literature mentioned, is listed at the end of this document.