Writing practice in a society with codified variation: a correspondence analysis of writing practice in New Norwegian/Nynorsk

Abstract

This paper illustrates the advantages of combining corpus linguistic methods and correspondence analysis when investigating sub-varieties within written languages that have codified variation. Through a study of a large-scale corpus of the written standard New Norwegian/Nynorsk, the paper demonstrates how correspondence analysis is a method that is well-suited to mapping norm clusters consisting of different sub-varieties in actual usage. The study reveals the existence of a norm cluster within the corpus consisting of a moderate sub-variety. Current Norwegian language policy is to base the official norms on developments in observed usage. The paper thus concludes that future standardisation of Nynorsk should be moving towards a narrower, moderate norm in order to be in accordance with the operative norm. The methods presented in this paper may be of value when investigating other written languages with codified variation, such as Irish, or languages without official norms, such as Shona.