Intra-speaker variation in the style of an Icelandic speaker

Athugun á mismunandi textum eins málnotanda

Abstract

Research was carried out into the language use of an Icelandic adult male speaker, the talk show host, former politician and urbanist Gísli Marteinn Baldursson. Three different text genres were analysed: his tweets (4.500 words), his blogs (4.500 words), and text excerpts spoken by him as host in two televised interviews (1.100 words). The study shows that there is clear variation between the different genres in this informant‘s speech (intra-speaker variation), and it is shown how, by means of sociolinguistic competence, the informant employs, switches between, and adapts different styles.

The language use is shaped by varying communication situations, potential readers/viewers, the social meaning conveyed, and the three different personae the informant shapes and projects on each different occasion. The variation manifests itself in lexical choices, syntactic structures, and utterance types.