English in Danish and the Danes' English

This article is based primarily on a large-scale investigation into the socio-
psychological mechanisms behind the influence of English on Danish. After
refuting the commonly held set of beliefs holding that the influence of English
can be controlled by the Danish educational institutions (“English from
above”), the article first gives a brief presentation of Danish social domains
on which English is having a particularly strong impact, and an overview of
the linguistic manifestations of this influence on the Danish language. It then
describes the sociolinguistic forces at work in the way English is introduced
“from below,” through the Anglo-American youth subcultures in Denmark.
Codeswitching to English in these subcultures is seen to be a value symbol on
a par with subcultural styles of clothing and music, being a marker of identity
and group solidarity. Thus, through peer-group norm enforcement, codeswit-
ching to English becomes an integrated aspect of youth language in
Denmark. As a school subject, English is highly prestigious as a key to
participation in the internationalization process. The importance of learning
English is recognized even by those whose knowledge of English is limited or
nonexistent (the English-have-nots), though the latter are made to experi-
ence some of the problems of the functionally illiterate by the increasing use
of English words and passages in Danish texts.