Bror Magnus Strand

Master Bror Magnus Strand disputerer for ph.d.-graden i humaniora og samfunnsvitenskap, fagområde språkvitenskap.

“The roles role play plays: The form and function of bilectal codeswitching in North Norwegian pre-school children’s role play”

Publikum kan også følge disputasen via denne lenken:

https://uit.cloud.panopto.eu/Panopto/Pages/Sessions/List.aspx?folderID=6a6b54dd-2b40-4636-9b42-aeee008e8cbf

Prøveforelesningen holdes samme dag og sted kl. 10.15

Populærvitenskapelig sammendrag:

It is well known that Norwegian children code-switch from their native dialect to something resembling Central or Standard East Norwegian in their in-character role utterances during role play. Despite this, the structural aspects of the phenomenon are not exhaustively studied and understood, and the function of this role-play register as a tool for communication in role play deserves further exploration. This thesis represents a contribution to both of these research topics. Based on video recordings of seven children from Tromsø who participate in spontaneous and free play, I answer questions such as: (i) for which linguistic variables children use the East Norwegian variant and (ii) whether some variables are used more consistently in their East Norwegian variant than others, and, lastly, (iii) what the communicative function of the role play register is in the role play setting and how this may relate to its form. The thesis consists of three papers that investigate the use of East Norwegian in the morphology (free morphemes, i.e. pronouns, and bound morphemes, i.e. inflection) in the role play register (Paper 1), the form and use of Norwegian tonal accents in the role play register (Paper 2), and the creative use and manipulation of voice and its communicative function in role play (Paper 3).

In the study, I find, among other things, that there is variation (i) in the variables when it comes to whether they use the East Norwegian variant and (ii) how consistent children are in the use of the East Norwegian variant. In addition, they appear to become more consistent in the use of the East Norwegian variants with age. I also argue that (iii) the function of the role play register is to mark the role-expressions as performances. I take a view of performance where potentially involves several communicative functions, a view that fits well with the form of the role the utterances which can vary in how many features they are marked with, linguistically or para-linguistically (with the use of East Norwegian, voice pitch and quality, the use of song, etc.). 

The Summary article discusses the results based on previous findings and relevant theories in light of three topics or aspects of language: the functional, the structural and the social aspect. I also discuss what the  possible sources for the East Norwegian that children use in role play may be, and how the East Norwegian they use can and should inform our discussion of the whether there is a standard spoken variety of Norwegian (“Standard East Norwegian”) and if so, which variety this is.

Avhandlingen er tilgjengelig i Munin.

Veiledere:

professor Merete Andersen, UiT Norges arktiske universitet (hovedveileder)

professor Øystein A. Vangsnes, UiT Norges arktiske universitet (biveileder)

Bedømmelseskomite:

professor ph.d. Jennifer Smith, University of Glasgow (førsteopponent)

professor ph.d Tomas Riad, Stockholm universitet (andreopponent)

førsteamanuensis ph.d. Carola Kleemann, UiT Norges arktiske universitet

Disputasleder:

Instituttleder Gustav J. Pedersen, institutt for språk og kultur, UiT Norges arktiske universitet i Tromsø.

 

When: 25.08.22 at 11.15–15.00
Where: SVHUM E-0101
Location / Campus: Digital, Tromsø
Target group: Employees, Students, Guests, Invited
Contact: Kari Torill Guldahl
E-mail: kari.t.guldahl@uit.no
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