Swedes Can’t Swear: Making Fun at a Multiethnic Secondary School

ABSTRACT

During the last decade, Sweden has witnessed a significant increase in public attention concerning the following interrelated linguistic phenomena: (a) a linguistic style labelled “Rinkeby Swedish,” (b) specific “Rinkeby Swedish words” that have been perceived as disparaging in Swedish public debate, and (c) a specific young male immigrant identity indexed by this linguistic style. Drawing on ethnographically collected data and naturally occurring talk in a multi-ethnic Swedish upper secondary school, this article examines a possible shift in language ideology, whereby tabooed words and urban youth styles are not dismissed by the school institution but are incorporated in teaching activities. Furthermore, it is argued that there are reasons to look for other interactional accomplishments than solely identity in the use of urban youth styles. The article shows how identity may be used as a resource in the construction of social hierarchies as well as interactional enjoyment among some male students.

KEYWORDS:

• Classroom ethnography
• humour
• identification
• interactional enjoyment
• urban youth styles

Acknowledgments

I want to thank Don Kulick and Tommaso M. Milani for very useful feedback on earlier versions of this text.

Transcription conventions

(.) a short pause of less than one second

(2.0) a longer pause, time in seconds

(reads) comments on context

[hanky-panky] explanations of untranslatable expressions

: extended sound

:: longer extension

Sweden underlined, said with stress

HOW COULD said in loud voice

? indicates question intonation

! indicates exclamatory intonation

“ ” quotation marks indicate the speaker’s reference to someone else’s voice, i.e., “You can migrate back to your crappy homeland”

[—] missing speech

Är Sverige sämst original transcript marked in italics

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Swedish Research Council for Health, Working Life and Welfare (Forte 2014-00873).