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The role of dialect exposure in receptive multilingualism

The role of dialect exposure in receptive multilingualism Abstract Previous investigations of inter-Scandinavian intelligibility have shown that, in general, Norwegians are better at understanding the closely related languages Danish and Swedish than Danes and Swedes are at understanding Norwegian. This asymmetry is often explained by the strong position that dialects hold in Norway as opposed to in Denmark and Sweden. In Norway, the general public is more exposed to language variation than in Sweden and Denmark. Due to this exposure Norwegians are assumed to have higher language awareness and more possibilities for linguistic transfer than Swedes and Danes. This could make it easier for them to understand closely related language varieties. The aim of the present investigation is to get an answer to the question whether Norwegians are better at understanding Nordic varieties relative to linguistic distances than Danes. If it is indeed the case that Norwegians have more language awareness, we would expect them to be better than Danes at understanding varieties with the same linguistic distance to their native variety. Our results show that Norwegians are generally better at understanding Nordic language varieties than Danes are. However, this can be explained by linguistic distances and knowledge of the language varieties in the test. No evidence was found for more general language awareness among Norwegians than among Danes. http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png Applied Linguistics Review de Gruyter

The role of dialect exposure in receptive multilingualism

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Publisher
de Gruyter
Copyright
Copyright © 2014 by the
ISSN
1868-6303
eISSN
1868-6311
DOI
10.1515/applirev-2014-0011
Publisher site
See Article on Publisher Site

Abstract

Abstract Previous investigations of inter-Scandinavian intelligibility have shown that, in general, Norwegians are better at understanding the closely related languages Danish and Swedish than Danes and Swedes are at understanding Norwegian. This asymmetry is often explained by the strong position that dialects hold in Norway as opposed to in Denmark and Sweden. In Norway, the general public is more exposed to language variation than in Sweden and Denmark. Due to this exposure Norwegians are assumed to have higher language awareness and more possibilities for linguistic transfer than Swedes and Danes. This could make it easier for them to understand closely related language varieties. The aim of the present investigation is to get an answer to the question whether Norwegians are better at understanding Nordic varieties relative to linguistic distances than Danes. If it is indeed the case that Norwegians have more language awareness, we would expect them to be better than Danes at understanding varieties with the same linguistic distance to their native variety. Our results show that Norwegians are generally better at understanding Nordic language varieties than Danes are. However, this can be explained by linguistic distances and knowledge of the language varieties in the test. No evidence was found for more general language awareness among Norwegians than among Danes.

Journal

Applied Linguistics Reviewde Gruyter

Published: Apr 1, 2014

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