Recently, the Danish island of Bornholm has earned international fame for its food. In this article, we analyze how the meaning and value of the phenomenon of ‘Bornholmian food’ is transmitted and transformed through discursive processes, moving from the island to other locations. Through analysis of photos and audio-recordings from Bornholmian restaurants on Bornholm, in Copenhagen, and in Brooklyn, New York, we focus on recurring elements and noteworthy differences in the presentation of Bornholm, and we discuss how these depend on place and context. Thereby the circulation of ‘Bornholmian food’ is more than transmission of meaning and value; ‘Bornholmian food’ becomes different things in different locations. We suggest that although authenticity is made relevant, authentication is merely a starting point for processes of meaning production, notably when considering the reception of guests. In particular, nostalgia and exoticization make the relation to Bornholm meaningful to both producers and consumers. (Food, authentication, nostalgia, exotization, semiotic landscape analysis)

This article examines struggles related to the recasting of the collective memory connected to Danish colonialism, through analyses of exhibitions in, and communication from, the Danish National Museum. By use of multimodal and semiotic landscape analysis, we show how the Danish National Museum works to reformulate the historical relationship between Greenland and Denmark in ways that avoid the colonizer's language and at the same time describe and construct complex relations of past and present. The analysis demonstrates how a temporal ambiguity is present in the museum exhibitions, not offering a conclusive understanding of the colonial period. At the same time, we show how the presence and absence of colonial language in public space is inscribed into temporal frames legitimizing or problematizing their status. (Semiotic landscape, colonialism, language and nation, temporality)*

It is well documented that the same sociolinguistic feature can be used as a sociolinguistic resource with different indexical potentials in different linguistic as well as social contexts. Often, however, indexical meanings of a specific feature are related to or derived from one another. In this article we present the results of a perceptual study of indexical meanings of alveolar versus fronted (s)—[s] versus [s+]—in different registers. The data consist of responses to male speakers' use of [s] and [s+] respectively, in two different registers that may be labelled “modern Copenhagen speech” and “street language.” Results show that the [s+] indexes femininity and gayness when it occurs in “modern Copenhagen,” whereas the (s)-variation has a different and less significant effect when occurring in “street language.” We discuss the implications for theories of indexical fields and the relation between features and clusters of features in speakers' perceptions. (Indexical meaning, phonetic variation, fronted /s/, perception of sexual orientation and ethnicity, matched guise technique).

The article presents a real-time study of standardization and regionalization processes with respect to the use of past participles of strong verbs in the western part of Denmark. Analyses of a large corpus of recordings of informants from two localities show that the use of the dialectal en form of the past participle suffix has been in decline during the last 30 years. The en forms are replaced by three other forms, one of which is (partly) dialectal, one regional and one standard Danish. The study indicates that a regionalization process has taken place prior to the time period studied, but that it has now been overtaken by a Copenhagen-based standardization process. The study also shows interesting differences between the two localities, arguably due to the geographical location and size, and to the status of the different participle forms in the traditional local dialects.