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Hey Nørdar! Investigating Faroese-English Language Contact

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Hey Nørdar! Investigating Faroese-English Language Contact 35 Hey nørdar ! Investigating Faroese-English Language Contact in Computer-Mediated Communication Hey nørdar! Føroyskt-enskt málsamband í teldusamskifti Laura Zieseler Institut für Fennistik und Skandinavistik, University of Greifswald, Hans-Fallada-Str. 20, 17487 Greifswald, Germany . Email: [email protected] Abstract ad-hoc gender assignment, < ð> as a means of breaking the hiatus etc. As the virtual absence The purpose of this empirical study is a de - of normative pressure in computer-mediated tailed examination of the use of English nouns communication seems to be pivotal in this in the context of written Faroese in computer- context, the role of language ideology will also mediated communication. The data is derived be discussed in this paper. from one of the biggest Faroese online forums, Kjak.org . As this approach is unprecedented in the linguistic study of the Faroese language, Úrtak the methodology will be based on comparable investigations into Faroese and other Scandi - Ætlanin við hesi empirisku rannsóknini er at navian languages. However, the focus will be gera eina nágreiniliga kanning av nýtsluni av original in nature, due to the phenomena ob - ensk um navnorðum í føroyskum skriftmáli. served in the data. Paying attention to various Kann ingin byggir á teldusamskifti, og kemur variables that come into play in computer-me - til farið frá einum av teimum størstu føroysku diated communication in general, such as the on line støðunum, sum eru til, t.e. Kjak.org . Av influence of features found in spoken language, tí at ein slík tilgongd til ensk lán ikki fyrr er as well as complex multilingualism, this paper gjørd, er kanningarhátturin heintaður frá líkn - will scrutinise aspects of both morphological andi kanningum av føroyskum og øðrum and orthographical integration of English skand i naviskum málum, men kortini soleiðis, nouns. Most strikingly, unlike in previous stud - at fokus í greinini er serstakt, og kemur tað av ies on English loanwords in Faroese, the lan - teim um fyribrigdum, sum koma fram í til far - guage material investigated here displays a in um. Við at gáa um teir ymisku variablarnar, wide range of creative ad-hoc strategies for sum hava týdning í samskifti við teldum al - solving a number of linguistic problems, such ment, til dømis ávirkan frá talumálseyðkennum as the marking of morphological boundaries, um framt ógviliga samansettum fleirmæli, so Fróðskaparrit 64. bók 2017: 35 -66 - DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.18602/fsj.v0i0.100 36 HEY NØRDAR ! INVESTIGATING FAROESE:ENGLISH LANGUAGE CONTACT IN COMPUTER:MEDIATED COMMUNICATION hev ur verið granskað væl og virðiliga í hesi search area for those interested in getting grein ini bæði, hvussu navnorðini eru tillagað an in vitro insight into ongoing contact-in - til bendingarskipanina, og hvussu tey eru til - duced language change. From a sociolin - lag að til skriftmyndina. Fram kemur sjónliga, guistic point of view, the results also con - og tað er ikki sætt fyrr í granskingini av ensk - um lánorðum í føroyskum, at fleiri kreativar firm the fact that the Internet appears to be ad-hoc loysnir eru valdar fyri at loysa ymiskar one of the strongest promoters of English trup ulleikar, sum markeringin av marki ímill - as a World language (henceforth EWL) um morfem, ad-hoc kynstillutanir og at <ð> with regard to the Faroese speech commu - verður sett inn í ljóðglopp o.s.fr. Av tí at nity. So far, this has only been measured in normativt trýst næstan ikki er til staðar í teldu - terms of language attitudes by Jacobsen samskifti sum hesum, er leikluturin hjá mál - (2012: 68f.), who noted in his study that røkt ini eisini tikin til umrøðu. acceptance towards English loans and 1. Introduction even a predilection for them over their Faroese equivalents was highest among 20 years ago, Jóansson (1997: 217) obser - those informants who owned a computer ved that “[o]nly some of the most recent with Internet access. not-naturalised loanwords do not comply The following research questions are with the [...] conventions [of Faroese spel - central to this paper: ling and grammar] so far; therefore they are in most cases avoided in the written lan gu - a) To what extent and in which regards do age”. A decade later, Simonsen and Sandøy Faroese language users in the context of (2008: 60) hypothesised that the absence of CMC integrate English loanwords or certain inflectional forms in their data may code-switches into their mother-tongue? have been caused by a reluctance on the Which observations can be made re gar - part of the respective language user(s) to ding e.g. inflectional classes, gender as - implement morphological modifications sign ment and orthographic adaptation when the orthographic form of the loan - processes? word contained certain features such as a b) Does this linguistic nativisation occur silent final <-e>, e.g. in interface . The more or less frequently in CMC than in purpose of this study is to investigate the language material examined in pre - whether hypotheses like this one could be vious studies (i.e. “traditional” print verified or falsified in the context of Faro - media such as newspapers or novels)? If ese-English computer-mediated com muni - so, why? Do notions of language ideo - ca tion. logy have any bearing on how foreign The results indicate that computer me - langu age material is treated by the Faro - diated communication (henceforth CMC) ese in the context of CMC? with its conceptionally oral nature does in - deed exhibit strikingly different language In order to find adequate answers, we will use patterns. This paper also aims to de - first explore the relationship between the mon strate how CMC is a worthwhile re - two languages involved. Then, a distinc - 37 HEY NØRDAR ! FØROYSKT:ENSKT MÁLSAMBAND Í TELDUSAMSKIFTI tion between code-switching and borrow - a world language in the second half of the ing will be made, before CMC and its dis - 20 th century. tinctive features will be outlined. In the At the beginning of the 21 st century, main chapter 5, the language material will the global spread of English has reached be analysed, with a particular focus on cer - an unparalleled scale, since no other tain morphological and orthographic inte - known language can be said to have had a gration patterns. Finally, these will be sum - gain of up to one-and-a-half to two billion marised and discussed in the wider context speakers within a period of 400 years of language contact, ideology, and change. (Kachru, 1985: 11; Crystal, 2003: 110; Jenkins, 2003: 2; Melchers and Shaw, 2. Contact between Faroese 2003: 8). English does not only act as a and English foreign language in many countries, but also serves intranational purposes in vari - During the Second World War, the Faroe ous social, cultural, commercial and edu - Islands came into very close contact with cational domains (Berns, 1995: 8f.; Jenk - the English speech community as they ins, 2003: 14). As it is used more often in were occupied by the British from 1940 to non-native-speaker contexts than in those 1945, whose military airbase in Vágar be - involving native speakers (Modiano, 1999: came the country’s first and only civil air - 22; Graddol, 2006: 29; Berns, 2009), it is port in the 60s (Jóansson, 1997: 164). best described as English as a lingua Their impact on the locals is not to be un - franca (henceforth ELF), i.e. “basically a derestimated, since back then, the islands mode of communication […] which can only counted around 30,000 native inhab - have various varieties” and which “en - itants (Jóansson, 1997: 164). Many loans compasses all types of communication from this era bear witness to the intimate among bilingual users of English in the language contact during that period (Jóans - Expanding Circle” (Cogo, 2008: 58). son, 1997: 164f.). In fact, the impact the ELF has entered Europe from two di - English language has had on Faroese goes rections, namely top-down and bottom-up back further than the 20 th century. In his (Seidlhofer et al. , 2006: 5). In this context, comprehensive lexicological study, Jóans - the top-down dimension involves more or son (1997) lists loans that had entered the less officially institutionalised, normative Faroese language even before the 17 th cen - language contact in all kinds of educa - tury. Some of them are actually highly fre - tional or professional domains; while bot - quent in everyday usage – e.g. trupul/ tom-up refers to the mostly unregulated trupulleiki ‘trouble’, an old loan borrowed contact at the individual level “through from between 1600 and 1800 (Thráinsson popular music, dance, sports, or comput - et al. , 2004: 446). Nevertheless, the most ers” (Seidlhofer et al. , 2006: 5). Indeed, intense period of language contact be - “[p]art of the explanation for the strength tween Faroese and English arguably of the popularity of English is this synergy started when the latter gained its status as between top-down and bottom-up 38 HEY NØRDAR ! INVESTIGATING FAROESE:ENGLISH LANGUAGE CONTACT IN COMPUTER:MEDIATED COMMUNICATION processes” (Phillipson, 2003: 89). The contributing lexical elements (Myers-Scot - Scandinavian countries can be regarded as ton, 2006: 243). In the present study, a prime example of the extent to which Faroese serves as the matrix language, EWL can permeate and dominate the mass while English fills the role of the embed - media from below, its most important ve - ded language. hicle being products of popular culture In contrast, lexical borrowing is the in - such as TV series, movies and online en - corporation of lexical items derived from tertainment (Preisler, 1999: 241f.). It is one language, the donor language , into an - therefore not uncommon for native speak - other, the recipient language (Myers-Scot - ers of the same language, e.g.
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