Lecture: "Å stå ut i mengden" - Disguised English Loans in Norwegian

An Investigation of English Indirect Phrasal Loans in Norwegian Language

Indirect loans are less obvious than their direct counterparts, but still make their way into everyday language. One might be aware that words like "pizza" or "WiFi" have been taken from the English language, but what about the loans that take on native forms?

In this talk, I will present my investigation of indirect phrasal loans from English to Norwegian language. More specifically, I look at what makes for an acceptable loan, and if there are any linguistic patterns present.

In the spring of 2024, I decided to write my bachelor's thesis on English loans in Norwegian. I was fascinated by "borderline cases" that were found in the speech of younger people in particular. Sentences like "Da jeg grodde opp" ("When I grew up") and "Vil du komme over etter timen?" ("Do you want to come over after class?") would be produced and accepted by some people, but to others (including myself), they sound odd. The reason for this, is that the utterances contain English phrasal verbs that have been given Norwegian form, but are used as they would be in English language, leading to new and somewhat odd constructions.

I became curious as to what makes for an acceptable indirect phrasal loan, and started making a survey. The items in the survey were Norwegian sentences made with translations of English phrasal verbs, that the participants would rate on a scale of 1-5 based on how acceptable they thought the sentences were. In total there were 16 phrasal verbs, put together from four verbs, combined with four different prepositions/adverbial particles. I wanted to see whether there were linguistic patters (verb type, preposition type, presence of phrase in language) in what Norwegians rate as acceptable.

What I present in this talk are the results of my survey, along with the process that led me there, and my thoughts on the subject after completing the paper.

Info

Day: 2024-11-21
Start time: 11:55
Duration: 00:30
Room: 00A02 CNMS
Track: Syntax
Language: en

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