What is UNO?

UNO - Nordic Teenage Language (Språkkontakt och Ungdomsspråk i NOrden)

• is a research project and a network for Nordic researchers studying teenage language
• is directed by professor Anna-Brita Stenström at the English department, University of Bergen, and professor Ulla-Britt Kotsinas at the department of Nordic languages, Stockholm University.
• is sponsored by the Nordic Council of Ministers (Nordisk Ministerråd).
• is a part of the research program Europe and The Nordic Countries, Norden och Europa

THE RESEARCH PROJECT

• aims to investigate and compare the spoken and the informal written language of Nordic teenagers, through the collaboration of Nordic researchers.
• has as its main aim to investigate language change in the Nordic countries, in light of international (mainly English) influence and inter- Nordic contact. As regards the influence from English, the project aims at comparing the language of Nordic teenagers to that of London teenagers in the COLT corpus (The Bergen Corpus of London Teenage Language).
• focuses on two main areas of research: lexical analysis, ie the study of slang and informal loanwords (The slang study), and discourse analysis, ie research on speech styles and the use of discourse markers (Spoken corpora).

THE NETWORK

• will create and maintain cooperation between the Nordic countries in a number of ways, eg by means of:
• network meetings for young researchers
• an electronic mailing list
• possibly a publication series
• different kinds of information on the projectÕs homepage, including:
• conference announcements
• information about current research projects and student assignments
• a bibliography of research on teenage language, to be continuously updated
• an address list of UNO´s contact persons and of persons in the Nordic countries who are doing research on teenage language

Last updated: 1 October 1997 by Kristine Hasund