Projects
American Norwegian Sound Systems in Contact (2019–2021)
Marie Skłodowska-Curie Fellowship (no. 838164), Center for Multilingualism in Society Across the Lifespan, University of Oslo.
This project investigated variation and change in Norwegian and English sound patterns as the result of generations of bilingualism in Norwegian-American immigrant communities. This work integrated perspectives in heritage language linguistics, sociolinguistics, and formal phonology by examining the interactions between linguistic and social pathways for contact-induced language change. Primary results show the maintenance of the core Norwegian phonological system that constrains English-influenced phonetic variation.
Westby, WI. Photo by Joseph Salmons.
Contrast, variation, and change in Norwegian vowel systems (2015–2018)
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This project was partially funded by the American Scandinavian Foundation and the University of Wisconsin Graduate School.
My dissertation research focused on the relationship between phonological representations and sociophonetic variation in Norwegian vowels. Based on fieldwork conducted in four cities in Norway – Oslo, Bergen, Trondheim, and Stavanger – in 2016, speakers were strikingly consistent in which acoustic characteristics of vowels were stable, and which were variable, regionally and socially. Results support the view that formal representations that minimally encode phonological contrast restricts the range of potential surface-level variation. The findings furthermore are consistent with a common, abstract Norwegian vowel system across dialects.