Pigs and Pork in Denmark: Meaning Change, Ideology, and Traditional Foods

Abstract

This article engages with contemporary meaning and meaning changes within the porcine semantic field in Denmark. More specifically, I argue that pork is acquiring the meaning of Danishness. Analytically, I focus on the relation between language usage in different settings and on how situational usage relates to nationwide, mediatized discourses. The porcine field lends itself readily to such analyses, as pork has been the center of much political and politicized attention over the past decade, and much of the discursive engagement with pork implies or expresses an ideological and moral stance. Interactional data come from field studies in a school, a fine-dining restaurant, and a fast-food restaurant. Media data are sampled from three relatively recent debates on Danish values.