Changes in a Norwegian Dialect in America

Hjelde, Arnstein

doi:10.1075/silv.18.13hje

Cited by 23 publications

(30 citation statements)

References 16 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…American Norwegian was first documented and studied by Haugen ( 1953 ), based on fieldwork in the late 1930s and 1940s and subsequently, this heritage language was studied by Hjelde ( 1992 , 1996 ). More recently, extensive fieldwork has been conducted in connection with the NorAmDiaSyn project, and data have been collected from a number of 2nd to 4th generation immigrants who learned Norwegian as their L1 from parents and grandparents.…”

Section: Our Study: Participants Hypotheses and Methodologymentioning

confidence: 99%

Grammatical Gender in American Norwegian Heritage Language: Stability or Attrition?

Lohndal

Westergaard

2016

Front. Psychol.

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

This paper investigates possible attrition/change in the gender system of Norwegian heritage language spoken in America. Based on data from 50 speakers in the Corpus of American Norwegian Speech (CANS), we show that the three-gender system is to some extent retained, although considerable overgeneralization of the masculine (the most frequent gender) is attested. This affects both feminine and neuter gender forms, while declension class markers such as the definite suffix remain unaffected. We argue that the gender category is vulnerable due to the lack of transparency of gender assignment in Norwegian. Furthermore, unlike incomplete acquisition, which may result in a somewhat different or reduced gender system, attrition is more likely to lead to general erosion, eventually leading to complete loss of gender.

show abstract

Section: Our Study: Participants Hypotheses and Methodologymentioning

confidence: 99%

Grammatical Gender in American Norwegian Heritage Language: Stability or Attrition?

Lohndal

Westergaard

2016

Front. Psychol.

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Heritage Norwegian is easy to understand for Norwegians from Norway. It has undergone some koinéisation (Hjelde, 2015; Johannessen & Laake, 2012, 2017), often reflecting input from those dialects spoken in rural Eastern Norway (Johannessen & Laake, 2012, 2015). However, lack of exposure to modern Norwegian can make it difficult for them to understand researchers with an urban dialect, forcing researchers to accommodate to the heritage language (Johannessen & Salmons, 2012).…”

Section: Scandinavian Immigration and Heritage Speakersmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…60 years. While one reason for the delay of this process may have been that new immigrants kept coming from Norway over a long period of time, Hjelde suggests that the strong family ties and loyalty towards roots and family were crucial in this slow development (Hjelde, 2015, p. 295), cf. ‘horizontal ties’ (see the section Immigration and institutions in America ).…”

Section: Morphologymentioning

confidence: 99%

Factors of variation, maintenance and change in Scandinavian heritage languages

Johannessen

2018

International Journal of Bilingualism

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Aims and objectives/purpose/research questions: I investigate variation and change in heritage languages, focusing on descendants of 19th-/early 20th-century North Germanic immigrant languages in America. A battery of predictors (e.g. token frequency, language attitude) are compared against a baseline grammar, something often framed in terms of ‘transfer’, ‘incomplete acquisition’ and ‘attrition’. I examine which particular changes have been attributed to which factors. Design/methodology/approach, data and analysis: I synthesise and draw new conclusions from previous research on heritage Scandinavian. Findings/Conclusions: Relevant factors belong to two main categories: those favouring maintenance and those more likely to trigger change. Factors that support maintenance are structural ones (typically syntax, phonology and morphology), frequency of use and external factors. Factors that contribute to change are articulation, language attitudes and a series of cognitive aspects: incomplete acquisition and attrition, transfer and convergence, processing, memory, complexity and overgeneralisation. Originality: I undertake a comparative synthesis of patterns of change and non-change from baseline varieties. Significance and implications: This opens a door to investigating how factors correlate, what causal connections can be found and what levels of language are affected by what factors.

show abstract

“…one language has influenced another. Since these changes are not structural, but pertain to the lexicon, we do not want to classify it as koiné (see also Hjelde 2015 for a discussion on a particular American Norwegian variety). The word dialect commonly includes not just vocabulary, but also phonology, morhology and syntax.…”

Section: 1mentioning

confidence: 99%

Norwegian in the American Midwest: A Common Dialect?

Johannessen

Laake

2017

J Lang Contact

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

The American Midwest is an area that stretches over huge distances. Yet it seems that the Norwegian language in this whole area has some similarities, particularly at the lexical level. Comparisons of three types of vocabulary across the whole area, as well as across time, building on accounts in the previous literature from Haugen (1953) onwards, are carried out. The results of these comparisons convince the authors that it is justified to refer to this language as one lexically defined dialect, which we call lexicolect.

show abstract

Changes in a Norwegian Dialect in America

Cited by 23 publications

References 16 publications

Grammatical Gender in American Norwegian Heritage Language: Stability or Attrition?

Grammatical Gender in American Norwegian Heritage Language: Stability or Attrition?

Factors of variation, maintenance and change in Scandinavian heritage languages

Norwegian in the American Midwest: A Common Dialect?

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About