"It's only of /marginal/ interest to the linguist…": why written language matters

Following 4 separate studies conducted over the past 3 years on Norwegian Nynorsk, young language activists and popular media discourse about language (Puchowski 2015, Puchowski 2016a, Puchowski 2016b, Puchowski 2017 in writing), this talk plans to explain why linguistics as an interdisciplinary subject should accomodate more for studies on written language (incl. orthographies and stylistics), understanding it as a dynamic part of people's linguistic behaviour. I will hope to explain how qualitative and ethnographic studies on language, linguistic variation and so-called 'folk-linguistic' discourse are useful in understanding how language users behave, and how in at least the case of Norway, written linguistic behaviour is a centre-point to linguistic behaviour more generally. This presentation complements my undergraduate MA thesis on Nynorsk activist language attitudes and written language aesthetic preferences.