Native and non-native perceptions of Norwegian accents

Kamil Malarski, Magdalena Wrembel, Kamil Kaźmierski, Witosław Awedyk

57th Annual Meeting of the Societas Linguistica Europaea

August 21st, 2024, Helsinki

norwegian-accents-sle2024.netlify.app

Accent and dialect variation in Norway

  • High dialectal variation across all linguistic domains i.e. morphosyntax, phonology, lexicon
  • Four broad dialect areas, in fact many more, including sociolects (Helleland and Papazian 2005)
  • South-Eastern accents seen as the most standard (Johnsen 2015)
  • Inclusivity towards dialects

Dialectal areas

  • Western Norwegian (Vestnorsk)
  • Eastern Norwegian (Østnorsk)
  • Trøndelag dialect (Trøndersk)
  • Northern Norwegian (Nordnorsk)

Kristoffersen, Gjert. 2000. The phonology of Norwegian. Oxford: OUP.

Why some accents are seen as better or worse than others

  • Accents as indexes of how people from the region are seen
  • Dependent on salient, easily identifiable linguistic features (Llamas et al. 2016)
  • The person “down the street” will always have a stronger accent than the person you are talking to (Preston and Niedzielski 2003)
  • Voice parametrics (f0 especially, creaky voice)
  • Intelligibility + mergers potentially causing misunderstandings (Labov 2010)

Perceptions of Norwegian accents (1/2)

  • Stratified socially (Johnsen 2015)
  • Western Oslo accents more prestigious than working-class or multicultural Oslo accents (Aasheim 1995, Johnsen 2015, Svendsen and Røyneland 2008)
  • Northern Norwegian accents perceived more negatively than Southern (Sollid 2014)

Perceptions of Norwegian accents (2/2)

  • Mixing or switching between dialects seen negatively (Røyneland 2017)
  • Non-Oslo dialects viewed as more Norwegian (Røyneland 2017)
  • Boys with foreign appearance seen as less Norwegian when using Oslo dialect than when using other dialects (Røyneland 2017: 101)

Previous studies :: methods

  • A lot of studies on how upper / West Oslo accents and dialects are perceived, both using the verbal guise technique, as well as surveys in different forms (Dahl 2002; Jensen 2006: 73, Lund 2006, Hult 2008, Kristiansen 1995)
  • Nine Norwegian accents tested on a scale from ‘nice’ to ‘ugly’ (Voje 1979)

Previous studies :: findings

  • Positive attitudes in Tromsø towards other dialects (Satermo and Sollid 2021)
  • Changing one’s dialect seen as incorrect (Satermo and Sollid 2021)
  • Negative attitudes by urban Vika speakers towards upper Oslo dialects (Jensen 2006, Lund 2006)

Our Study

Research questions

  1. Are some accents of Norwegian perceived differently than others?
  2. Do L2/L3 learners of Norwegian attribute similar aesthetic judgments to Norwegian speech as Norwegian listeners do?
  3. Are there any acoustic correlates of these judgments (e.g. high-pitched voice, female/male voice, the presence of uvular [ʁ]) ?

Design

  • Online survey in Qualtrics
  • Reading passage in Norwegian (Nordavinden og sola from the Norwegian dialects database www.hf.ntnu.no/nos)
  • Selected speech samples \(N=14\)
    • 10 middle-aged native Norwegians (5 f, 5 m) from five dialect areas: the Tromsø area, Trondheim, Stavanger, Kristiansand, and Oslo
    • 4 controls: non-native accents of Norwegian of different strength (L1 Polish)

Our data (L1 NO)

      
 



Our data (L3 NO)

   


Procedure

7-point Likert scale:

  • Education level
  • Pleasantness
  • Intelligence
  • Prestige
  • Friendliness
  • Self-confidence
  • Distance / proximity

Open questions:

  • Likes / dislikes
  • Characteristic features
  • Region of origin of speaker

Samples presented in randomized order
Duration: ca. 20 mins

Participants :: 3 groups

  • Polish instructed learners of Norwegian living in Poland \(n = 47\)
  • Polish naturalistic learners of Norwegian residing in Norway \(n = 25\)
  • Norwegian native speakers as controls \(n = 45\)

Participants :: profiles

  • Gender (72 f, 39 m, 2 non-binary, 2 undisclosed), Age (mean = 33.5)
  • Residence in Norway (present or past)
  • Length of learning Norwegian
  • Language use frequency
  • Proficiency level in Norwegian, English, Polish

Analyses

  • Likert scale ratings
    • Joint group analysis
    • Across-group comparison
    • Across-accent comparison
  • Attitudes to individual accents (likes/dislikes)
  • Accent identification
  • Characgeristic features of accents (qualitative)

PCA :: Component 1

tinytable_a8slpw2lv1h16uq9iiz1
trait R² p-value
intelligent 0.87 < 0.001
educated 0.80 < 0.001
pleasant 0.79 < 0.001
self-confident 0.73 < 0.001
prestigious 0.73 < 0.001
friendly 0.67 < 0.001

PCA :: Component 2

tinytable_0dyra1a72ms13kz2uqnd
trait R² p-value
friendly 0.63 < 0.001
pleasant 0.40 < 0.001
intelligent -0.12 < 0.001
educated -0.37 < 0.001
prestigious -0.47 < 0.001

Open answers (identification)

  • Few learners were guessing correctly the origin of the accent
  • Not all native speakers were able to guess the locations
  • Over 100 responses per voice
  • Mandal :: (corr) : Mandal (2), Kristiansand (8), Flekkefjord (2), Vest-Agder (7), Sørlandet (22), (incorr) : Bergen (6), Stavanger (5)
  • Kristiansand :: (corr) : Kristiansand (11), southern Norway (18), Vest-Agder (7), (incorr): Bergen (6), Stavanger (5), Trondheim (8), Hamar (2), Lindesnes (1), Hordaland (1), Førde (1)

Open answers (attitudes)

  • In all cases, comments were :: positive > neutral > negative
  • Over 100 comments for each accent
  • Many listeners commented on uvular [ʁ] sounds when they occurred (Kristiansand, Mandal, Stavanger)
  • Other features noticed: prosody, ka - hva replacement
  • In general, comments on likes, dislikes, “flow”, “melody”, softness and friendliness

Conclusions

  • Different accents in Norway are given different aesthetic and social attributions
  • Oslo viewed most positively
  • Perceptions are aligned along different criteria (Components), e.g. Tromsø friendly but not prestigious, Oslo prestigious but not that warm or pleasant
  • In Component 2 (warmth vs. prestige), 3 groups of respondents differed in their responses; learners rated all accents more prestigious but less friendly / warm
  • With more exposure and social context, non-native speakers seem to be more inclusive towards accentual variation

Next steps

  • Sociolinguistics vs. Language acquisition perspective
  • f0 correlates ~ perception scores
  • Potentially stigmatised features (e.g. tjukk l [ɽ], word-final palatalisation of /n/) + deviation from standard ~ perception scores
  • Suggestions?

Acknowledgments

Thanks to Jørn Almberg for access to the speech sample database and to Jacques Koreman for consultations.

The research leading to these results has received funding from Norway Grants - the Norwegian Financial Mechanism 2014-2021 project number 2019/34/H/HS2/00495.

Thank you!

norwegian-accents-sle2024.netlify.app

kamil.malarski@amu.edu.pl