Å uttrykke seg er en slippery slope, men worst case scenario kan man jo bruke engelsk - An analysis of Anglicisms in the Norwegian podcast “Lørdagsrådet”, with a special focus on code-switching

Abstract

English influence on the Norwegian language is relevant from many points of view: it has to do with identity, prestige, and power and is relevant to scholars within many different fields. How we deal with the influence of the English language will affect the future of the Norwegian language. In this thesis, I investigate the status of English language usage in Norwegian speech by listening to and transcribing conversations from the Norwegian podcast “Lørdagsrådet”. I will try to identify which types of English words and phrases that are uttered based on theoretical framework on Anglicisms, loans, and borrowings, and code-switching. I provide examples from my data material of what signifies these elements of English in terms of manner and style, in addition to how the host of the podcast alters her use of Anglicisms in the different episodes, and discuss possible reasons for this. In this investigation, I found that 54.4 % of the Anglicisms consisted of loanwords, while the remaining 45.6 % consisted of code-switches. I also found that gender did not seem to affect the frequency of Anglicisms, while there might be a correlation between the frequency of Anglicisms and age. Nevertheless, this is not apparent in all the age groups I operated with, and I suggest that this may be due to an uneven distribution of participants with respect to age. There are two age groups that are represented by very few participants, which is especially damaging to the analysis. Moreover, I found that several code-switches are marked by features such as pausing and metacommentaries. I also found that the host of “Lørdagsrådet” did alter the frequency of Anglicisms in the 14 different episodes.