Sociolinguistic approaches to multiethnolect: Language variety and stylistic practice

Abstract

The paper presents the findings of two studies of Copenhagen multiethnolect. The first study depicts a set of linguistic features that constitutes the linguistic variety which is termed multiethnolect. This study was by and large carried out from a perspective which in the paper is called a variety perspective. The second study was carried out from a stylistic practice perspective where multiethnolect is analyzed in more holistic terms as part of a broad range of stylistic repertoires in a local community of practice. The two studies serve in this article as illustrations of different approaches to studying language use and variation in multiethnic urban areas.