Effects of English L2 on Norwegian L1

Abstract

English outweighs other languages as a source for linguistic borrowing in present-day Norwegian. Most of the research on this topic has considered direct lexical loans, yet observations indicate that English is increasingly burrowing its way below the lexical surface of Norwegian – evident in the rising number of calques. This study investigates how a selection of recently observed multiword calques from English are evaluated by native Norwegian speakers. This is examined through acceptability judgements among young bilingual Norwegians (n = 83, mean age 18), and among two control groups comprising 10 bilingual adults (mean age 55) and 16 minimally bilingual seniors (mean age 75), respectively. A translation test was included to compare the judgements against production data. Based on our overall findings, we suggest that increased calquing is a sign of heightened proficiency in and exposure to the English language.