the Danish Parliament to Thursday the debate on linguistic considerations and changes in the Danish language.
It goes too far, when you are employed at a university are being urged by his employer to mention the students in a certain way – and for example, avoid gender words such as “he” and “she”.
It takes the Danish people’s Party and the party’s uddannelsesordfører, Jens Henrik Thulesen Dahl. He considers it to be inappropriate to a head of department at University of Copenhagen in september called on its employees to avoid gendered designations for students at the university.
Therefore, the party convened the education and forskningsminister Ane Halsboe-Jørgensen (S) to debate in the Danish Parliament on Thursday, where the Parliamentary members to discuss the use of the Danish language.
We’re going to come out on a slippery slope, when a manager at a university says that they are not allowed to use “he” and “she”.
– So reduces the freedom of speech, and out at the universities could reduce the freedom of research, ” says Jens Henrik Thulesen Dahl.
He fears specifically, that the fear of alienating people through the use Matbet of gendered words may limit the research in, for example, men and women’s behavior.
In advance rejects the Ane Halsboe-Jørgensen, development of legislative measures, which shows how to mention and refer to each other, for example, for educational institutions.
the Minister believes that it is up to each institution to assess how students and teachers talk to each other.
– I have very great confidence to the self-government locally, and to assess which group of students you have. It is my experience that you do. And that, I think, is the right way forward, says Ane Halsboe-Jørgensen.
– We would like to have a society where everyone can grow up and feel that they are just exactly the ones, they are. There we are, unfortunately, not today. Therefore, we must exert ourselves to become better at it, she says.
According to Marie Maegaard, who is a lecturer and researcher at the Department of Nordic Studies and Linguistics at Copenhagen University, it is not a new phenomenon, that the language is changing.
As it is the case, when the commonly used words as “he” and “she” in some contexts or in some ears – get a problematic charge.
– Either we discover that the words have a certain charge, which many people in society are not interested in, or they get a new charge, as many people are not interested in.
so there It is, coming here, the tension between those who would like to stick to the use of some specific words, which others perceive as problematic indications, says Marie Maegaard.
/ritzau/
