Anglicismi in Norvegese e Purismo Linguistico

Is English a threat to the Scandinavian languages? Undoubtedly, this is a commonly asked question among scholars and a sensitive topic for language purists. Indeed, there has been a substantial amount of language contact between English and the Scandinavian languages throughout the centuries – justified by the fact that they belong to the same branch of the Indo-European language family, i.e. the Germanic languages. In the past, English was known as a borrowing language, considering that a variety of languages, namely French, Latin, German, the Celtic languages and the Scandinavian languages had affected English, its lexis in particular. However, nowadays English has the opposite role, being the most widespread donor language in the world. Of all the Scandinavian languages, namely Danish, Swedish, Norwegian, Icelandic and Faroese, this dissertation focuses on Norwegian and how English influenced its lexis throughout the centuries. The reason why this subject was chosen is my fondness for Norway, its culture and the Norwegian language itself, which I have been studying lately. By listening to Norwegian music and watching Norwegian TV series and films, I noticed that English plays a significant role in the culture and language of this country. Norwegians become familiar with English from a very young age, mainly through radio, television and subtitled films; therefore, it is easy to understand that it is a natural process for Norwegians to absorb words and expressions coming from English. In the first chapter, a brief historical background of the influence of English on the European languages, with a focus on Norwegian, will be provided. Moreover, some of the most salient theories revolving around borrowings will be presented and supported by a few examples of Anglicisms in contemporary Norwegian, considering both its official written forms, i.e. Bokmål (lit. 'book tongue') and Nynorsk (lit. 'new Norwegian'). Subsequently, the focus will shift on a specific type of borrowings, namely pragmatic borrowings. The second chapter focuses on the sociolinguistic factors that induce Norwegians to embrace English words in their vocabulary and what are the most affected domains, with a special focus on the audio-visual area. In order to show how frequent Anglicisms are in Norwegian – especially between young people – I will provide some examples drawn from Norwegian teen dramas, from the most famous one, Skam (2015-2017), to less-known ones like Blank (2018-present) and Lovleg (2018-2019). The third and final chapter deals with the concept of language purism. In particular, it focuses on how the use of Anglicisms is perceived by language purists, who acknowledge the ever-increasing presence of English as a threat to the preservation of the Norwegian language, and the attitudes of Norwegians towards English.