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Bilde av Anderssen, Merete Brendeford
Bilde av Anderssen, Merete Brendeford
Professor/Leader of the Learning Domain/Deputy leader of the AcqVA-Nor research group Department of Language and Culture merete.anderssen@uit.no +4777644254 Tromsø You can find me here

Merete Brendeford Anderssen

Job description

Professor of English Linguistics who primarily teaches courses in language acquisition and multilingualism at the BA and the MA in English

Leader of the C-LaBL Learning Domain

Deputy head of the research group AcqVA-Nor

  • Merete Brendeford Anderssen, Helene Jensberg, Terje Lohndal, Björn Lundquist, Marit Westergaard :
    Verb second word order and finite verb placement in North American Norwegian
    2025 ARKIV
  • Jade Jørgen Michael Sandstedt, Maki Kubota, Merete Brendeford Anderssen, Jeannique Darby, Stig Jarle Helset, Elaheh Tavakoli et al.:
    Bidialectal language representation and processing: Evidence from Norwegian ERPs
    Journal of Memory and Language 2024 DOI / ARKIV / ARKIV / ARKIV
  • Helene Ruud Jensberg, Merete Brendeford Anderssen, Terje Lohndal, Björn Lundquist, Marit Kristine Richardsen Westergaard :
    Verb placement in embedded clauses in heritage Norwegian
    International Journal of Bilingualism 2024 DOI / ARKIV / ARKIV
  • Maki Kubota, Jorge Gonzalez Alonso, Isabel Nadine Jensen, Alicia Luque, Sergio Miguel Pereira Soares, Yanina Prystauka et al.:
    Bilectal Exposure Modulates Neural Signatures to Conflicting Grammatical Properties: Norway as a Natural Laboratory
    Language Learning 2023 DOI / ARKIV / ARKIV / ARKIV
  • Jade Sandstedt, Maki Kubota, Merete Brendeford Anderssen, Stig Jarle Helset, Björn Lundquist, Øystein Alexander Vangsnes et al.:
    The impact of sociolinguistic variation on language processing: Tracing individual differences in on-going language change in ERPs
    11. June 2025 DOI / ARKIV
  • Jade Sandstedt, Maki Kubota, Merete Brendeford Anderssen, Jeannique Darby, Stig Jarle Helset, Elaheh Tavakoli et al.:
    Mapping individual differences in cross- dialectal language representation and processing: An ERP study of Norwegian bidialectalism
    11. June 2025 DOI / ARKIV
  • Brechje Antonet van Osch, Rosalinde Stadt, Nadine Kolb, Alicia Luque, Merete Brendeford Anderssen, Marit Westergaard :
    Cross-linguistic influence in early stages of L3 French and L3 German: An empirical study on Dutch-English bilinguals in the Netherlands
    2025 ARKIV
  • Brechje Antonet van Osch, Nadine Kolb, Alicia Luque, Merete Brendeford Anderssen, Marit Westergaard :
    Linguistic and extra-linguistic factors affecting the production and processing of adverb placement in L3 French, German and Spanish in Norwegian-English bilingual high school students
    2025 ARKIV
  • Yulia Rodina, Merete Brendeford Anderssen, Natalia Mitrofanova :
    Flere språk til flere branch poster
    2025 ARKIV
  • Brechje van Osch, Nadine Kolb, Merete Brendeford Anderssen, Terje Lohndal, Sergey Minor, Jason Rothman :
    Processing, production and interpretation of grammatical gender in Spanish and Syrian Arabic child heritage speakers
    2025 ARKIV
  • Brechje van Osch, Nadine Kolb, Alicia Luque, Rosalinde Stadt, Merete Brendeford Anderssen, Marit Westergaard :
    Cross-linguistic Influence in Norwegian-English Bilinguals Learning L3 Spanish, French, or German
    2025 ARKIV
  • Merete Brendeford Anderssen, Marta Velnić :
    Hva kan reaksjonstid fortelle oss om objektsveksling i norsk?
    2024 ARKIV
  • Brechje Antonet van Osch, Nadine Kolb, Alicia Luque, Merete Brendeford Anderssen, Marit Kristine Westergaard :
    Cross-linguistic influence from Norwegian and English in the production and processing of adverbs in L3 Spanish and French
    2024 ARKIV
  • Rosalinde Stadt, Brechje Antonet van Osch, Nadine Kolb, Alicia Luque, Merete Brendeford Anderssen, Marit Kristine Richardsen Westergaard :
    Cross-linguistic influence at the initial stages: Influence from L1 Dutch and L2 English on verb placement in L3 French and L3 German
    2024 ARKIV
  • Merete Brendeford Anderssen, Kristine Bentzen, Natalia Mitrofanova, Yulia Rodina :
    Flerspråklighet i barnehagen​ Språkets utfordringer, muligheter og gleder​
    2024 ARKIV
  • Brechje Antonet van Osch, Nadine Kolb, Alicia Luque, Merete Brendeford Anderssen, Marit Kristine Richardsen Westergaard :
    Cross-linguistic influence in adverb placement in L3 Spanish: comparing offline and online measures
    2024 ARKIV
  • Nadine Kolb, Merete Brendeford Anderssen, Sergey Minor, Jason Rothman :
    The impact of (extra-)linguistic variables on the development of Syrian-Arabic and German
    2024 ARKIV
  • Jade Jørgen Michael Sandstedt, Maki Kubota, Jason Rothman, Øystein Alexander Vangsnes, Merete Brendeford Anderssen, Björn Lundquist :
    Linking production and comprehension: ERP insights into variable grammatical processing
    2024 ARKIV
  • Jade Jørgen Michael Sandstedt, Maki Kubota, Merete Brendeford Anderssen, Øystein Alexander Vangsnes, Jason Rothman, Björn Lundquist :
    The neurophysiological correlates of language change: Insights from on-going dialect levelling in Sunnmøre Norwegian
    2024 ARKIV
  • Nadine Kolb, Brechje Antonet van Osch, Merete Brendeford Anderssen, Alicia Luque, Sergey Minor, Marit Kristine Richardsen Westergaard et al.:
    (Extra-)linguistic variables in multilingual language development in children and adolescents
    2024 ARKIV
  • Brechje Antonet van Osch, Nadine Kolb, Rosalinde Stadt, Alicia Luque, Merete Brendeford Anderssen, Marit Kristine Richardsen Westergaard :
    Cross-linguistic influence from English in beginner learners of French and German as an L3 in the Netherlands: Comparing offline knowledge and online processing of adverb placement
    2024 ARKIV
  • Nadine Kolb, Merete Brendeford Anderssen, Sergey Minor, Jason Rothman :
    The impact of (extra-)linguistic variables on the development of Syrian-Arabic as a heritage language
    2024 ARKIV
  • Brechje Antonet van Osch, Rosalinde Stadt, Nadine Kolb, Alicia Luque, Merete Brendeford Anderssen, Marit Kristine Richardsen Westergaard :
    Cross-linguistic influence at the initial stages: Influence from L1 Dutch and L2 English on adverb placement in L3 French and German
    2024 ARKIV
  • Nadine Kolb, Brechje Antonet van Osch, Alicia Luque, Merete Brendeford Anderssen, Marit Kristine Richardsen Westergaard :
    Cross-linguistic influence in the production and processing of adverbs in L3 Spanish, French and German: Exploring individual differences
    2024 ARKIV
  • Brechje Antonet van Osch, Nadine Kolb, Rosalinde Stadt, Alicia G. Luque, Merete Brendeford Anderssen, Marit Kristine Westergaard :
    Understanding L3 Acquisition Through the Lens of Cross-Linguistic Influence: Integrating Online and Offline Measures to Assess the Processing of Adverb Placement Across Beginner L3 Learners of French and German in the Netherlands
    2024 ARKIV
  • Brechje Antonet van Osch, Nadine Kolb, Alicia G. Luque, Merete Brendeford Anderssen, Marit Kristine Westergaard :
    Cross-linguistic influence from Norwegian and English in the production and processing of adverbs in Spanish and French.
    2024 ARKIV
  • Jade Jørgen Michael Sandstedt, Maki Kubota, Merete Brendeford Anderssen, Jeannique Darby, Stig Jarle Helset, Elaheh Tavakoli et al.:
    Bilectal language representation and processing: Evidence from Norwegian ERPs
    2024 ARKIV
  • Jade Sandstedt, Maki Kubota, Merete Brendeford Anderssen, Jeannique Darby, Stig Jarle Helset, Yanina Prystauka et al.:
    The role of grammatical alignment, engagement, and exposure in cross- dialectal influence on bilectal processing
    2023 ARKIV
  • Jade Sandstedt, Maki Kubota, Merete Brendeford Anderssen, Jeannique Darby, Stig Jarle Helset, Yanina Prystauka et al.:
    The distinct grammars of bilectal processing: Evidence from Norwegian ERPs
    2023 ARKIV
  • Nadine Kolb, Merete Brendeford Anderssen, Sergey Minor, Jason Rothman :
    Syrian Arabic as a Heritage Language in Germany
    2023 ARKIV
  • Francesca Festi, Serena Dal Maso, Merete Brendeford Anderssen :
    Reading Comprehension in L2 Italian: Connecting Psycholinguistic Research and Pedagogical Practice
    UiT Norges arktiske universitet 07. September 2023 ARKIV
  • Francesca Festi, Maria Vender, Merete Brendeford Anderssen, Serena Dal Maso :
    Sentence Processing in Language Minority Bilingual Pupils in L2 Italian
    2023 ARKIV
  • Francesca Festi, Maria Vender, Merete Brendeford Anderssen, Serena Dal Maso :
    Reading Comprehension and Morphological Processing in Italian Minority Bilingual Pupils in L2 Italian
    2023 ARKIV
  • Brechje van Osch, Nadine Kolb, Merete Brendeford Anderssen, Rosalinde Stadt, Alicia Luque, Marit Kristine Richardsen Westergaard :
    Cross-linguistic influence from English as a heritage language in L3 acquisition
    2023 ARKIV
  • Brechje van Osch, Merete Brendeford Anderssen, Natalia Mitrofanova, Ludovica Serratrice :
    Cross-linguistic influence from L1 and L2 in Ln Norwegian: Comparing offline and online measures
    2023 ARKIV
  • Marit Kristine Richardsen Westergaard, Merete Brendeford Anderssen, Helene Ruud Jensberg, Terje Lohndal, Björn Lundquist :
    Embedded V2 in Norwegian Heritage Language
    2023 ARKIV
  • Helene Ruud Jensberg, Merete Brendeford Anderssen, Terje Lohndal, Bjorn Lundquist, Marit Kristine Richardsen Westergaard :
    Embedded V2 in American Norwegian
    2023 ARKIV
  • Nadine Kolb, Merete Brendeford Anderssen, Serge Minor, Jason Rothman :
    Predictive Processing in HL Syrian Arabic and cL2 German
    2023 ARKIV
  • Nadine Kolb, Merete Brendeford Anderssen, Serge Minor, Jason Rothman :
    Language experience predictors of heritage language trajectories in 6- to 12-year-old Syrian Arabic-German bilinguals
    2023 ARKIV
  • Brechje Antonet van Osch, Merete Brendeford Anderssen, Natalia Mitrofanova, Ludovica Serratrice :
    Cross-linguistic influence from L1 and L2 in Ln Norwegian: comparing offline and online measures
    2023 ARKIV
  • Nadine Kolb, Merete Brendeford Anderssen, Sergey Minor, Jason Rothman :
    Investigating Proxies for Understanding Trajectories: An empirical study on Syrian Arabic as a heritage language and German as a second language
    2023 ARKIV
  • Nadine Kolb, Merete Brendeford Anderssen, Sergey Minor, Jason Rothman :
    Heritage language and child second language development in Syrian Arabic and German in the European refugee context
    2023 ARKIV
  • Brechje van Osch, Merete Andersen, Natalia Mitrofanova, Ludovica Serratrice :
    Cross-linguistic influence in Ln processing: Gender agreement in Norwegian possessives
    2022 ARKIV
  • Brechje van Osch, Merete Andersen, Natalia Mitrofanova, Ludovica Serratrice :
    Cross-linguistic influence in Ln processing: Gender agreement in Norwegian possessives
    2022 ARKIV
  • Guro Busterud, Merete Andersen :
    Gender and declension class in Ln Norwegian speakers
    2022 ARKIV
  • Jorge González Alonso, Maki Kubota, Alicia Luque, Sergio M. Pereira Soares, Yanina Prystauka, Øystein Alexander Vangsnes et al.:
    Grad av eksponering påvirker hvor følsomme talere er for motstridende grammatiske trekk i nært beslektede varieteter: en ERP-studie
    2022 ARKIV
  • Øystein Alexander Vangsnes, Merete Andersen, Maki Kubota, Jorge Ángel González, Yanina Prystauka, Isabel Nadine Jensen et al.:
    Bidialectal Exposure Modulates Neural Signatures to Conflicting Grammatical Properties: Norway as a Natural Laboratory
    2022 ARKIV / SAMMENDRAG / OMTALE
  • Brechje van Osch, Merete Andersen, Natalia Mitrofanova, Ludovica Serratrice :
    Cross-linguistic influence in Ln processing: Gender agreement in Norwegian possessives
    2022 ARKIV
  • Maki Kubota, Jorge González Alonso, Merete Andersen, Isabel Nadine Jensen, Alicia Luque, Sergio Miguel Pereira Soares et al.:
    Bidialectal exposure modulates neural signatures to conflicting grammatical properties: Norway as a natural laboratory
    2022 ARKIV
  • Maki Kubota, Jorge González Alonso, Alicia Luque, Isabel Nadine Jensen, Yanina Prystauka, Sergio Miguel Pereira Soares et al.:
    Bidialectal Exposure Modulates Neural Signatures to Conflicting Grammatical Properties: Norway as a Natural Laboratory
    2022 ARKIV

    • The 50 latest publications is shown on this page. See all publications in Cristin here →

    Research interests

    In short, I’m interested in first, second, third and multilingual acquisition, syntactic variation in adult and child language, language attrition/heritage languages, and especially how the languages of multilinguals affect one another.

    My background is mainly within syntactic theory and monolingual first language acquisition. For my PhD, I investigated the structure of the Norwegian noun phrase, as well as how it is acquired. I collected a longitudinal corpus with three monolingual children between the ages of 1;9-3. In the study I accounted for the semantics, syntactic structure and the prosodic characteristics of early uses of articles and determiners. My main focus was on the phenomenon known as double definiteness. Following on from this, I worked a lot on word order variation, specifically on what determines the choice of word order when such variation is permitted, and how this is acquired. This included work on subject and object shift, double objects, and possessives, which in Norwegian may be pre- or postnominal. Many of these studies were based on elicited production data.


    In recent years, I have expanded my work on the acquisition of noun phrases and word order variation to bilingual acquisition and heritage languages, in addition to continuing my work on monolingual children and adults. A lot of my work on multilinguals has focused on how structural similarity may result in crosslinguistic influence, and how it may be a factor not only in language acquisition, but also in heritage languages and language attrition. For example, I have studied subject shift and object shift in Norwegian heritage speakers in the US and L2 learners of Norwegian.


    In the future, I want to continue working on multilinguals, including second and third language acquisition and heritage language more generally. So far my studies of heritage languages has been based on the elderly speakers in the Corpus of American Nordic Speakers (CANS) and on various bilingual child language corpora. Thus, so far I have worked with very young and very old heritage speakers. In the future my ambition is to study heritage speakers of varying ages.  I am also planning a project on the effect of the word order similarities between English and Norwegian in different populations, including heritage speakers of different ages.

    Researcher profile in Cristin
    ResearchGate
    ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0310-9426

    Member of research group

    AcqVA: Acquisition, Variation & Attrition   Norsk innhold AcqVA Aurora   English content The Psycholinguistics of Language Representation (PoLaR) lab   Norsk innhold C-LaBL   English content C-LaBL   Norsk innhold C-LaBL   Norsk innhold AcqVA-Nor   English content AcqVA-Nor   Norsk innhold

    Member of project

    A Multilingual Approach to Grammatical Gender (MultiGender): Acquisition, Variation & Change - CAS (2019-2022) Microvariation in Multilingual Acquisition & Attrition Situations (MiMS) - RCN (2016-2021) Investigating Proxies for Understanding Trajectories: Heritage Language Maintenance and Child Second Language Acquisition in Refugee Contexts (INPUT) - MSCA (2021-2023) Multilingual Minds (MuMin)    English content Multilingual Minds: Grammar Interaction in Multilingual Acquisition (MuMiN) - RCN (2021-2025) INPUT: Investigating Proxies for Understanding Trajectories    English content
    Fakultet for Humaniora, Samfunnsvitenskap og Lærerutdanning A2018


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