Fighters, Girls and Other Identities

Lian Malai Madsen is Associate Professor of Psychology of Language at the University of Copenhagen, Denmark. Her research interests include linguistic ethnography, interactional sociolinguistics, language and diversity, youth language, leisure communities and education, popular culture, and identities, style and stylisation.

• List of FiguresList of TablesTranscription Symbols UsedAcknowledgementsChapter 1: PreliminariesChapter 2: Sports, Integration and ParticipationChapter 3: Girls, Boys and InteractionChapter 4: Youth, Language and Ethnic CategorisationChapter 5: School Orientaton in an Out-Of-School SettingChapter 6: PerspectivesReferences

In this highly original and compelling study of contemporary urban youth language in a Copenhagen taekwondo club, Lian Malai Madsen looks beyond ethnic difference to focus on interaction and integration practices within the informal domain of a martial arts club. Malai Madsen shows the importance of understanding community labels themselves – girls and fighters – rather than externally imposed or assumed categories. A very important book that delivers a spinning kick to sociolinguistic studies of language and identity.