Norwegian Learners Research Articles

“We learn it [mathematics] at school so one thinks that one will use it …”

In this study, we explore Norwegian learners’ beliefs about the relevance and importance of learning mathematics. The data material consists of semi-structured interviews with nineteen lower secondary school learners (13-14 years old). The analyses indicate that the learners believe in the relevance of learning secondary level mathematics though they struggle to give examples of this relevance in their personal lives. Further, learning mathematics is also believed to be important for their lives but the sources of these beliefs are often statements heard from others. The analyses also suggest that the learners seldom reflect, evaluate, or question the relevance and importance of learning mathematics critically. A scarcity of such reflections indicates a tension between learners’ beliefs and the curriculum’s aim to empower learners to think critically and contribute to the decisions concerning their own mathematics learning process. We discuss the implications of this tension for learners’ empowerment and development as critical citizens, who can participate and voice their opinions in discourses about the significance and roles of mathematics education in their personal lives and society.

Regard sur quelques facteurs de sélection des subordonnants relatifs du français par des apprenants norvégiens

Abstract Acquisition of relative is subject to the Accessibility Hierarchy developed by Keenan and Comrie (1977), and should not be subject to mother tongue transfer effects, even if these are documented. The tension between transfer and hierarchy is therefore explored on the basis of the acquisition of French relatives by Norwegian learners. These are interesting because Norwegian has a different relative system from French, and Norwegian speakers are generally multilingual, multiplying the sources of transfer. The guided and free productions of beginner and intermediate Norwegian learners make it possible to establish not only the error rate, but also the position of the erroneous relative on the accessibility hierarchy. However, the relatives used incorrectly are not necessarily more accessible in the hierarchy than the relative which should be used. There are nonetheless potential interfering effects from the animacy value of the antecedent.

Noun-phrase complexity in the texts of intermediate-level Norwegian EFL writers: stasis or development?

This paper examines the longitudinal development in noun-phrase complexity in English texts written by Norwegian learners in school years 8-10. The study is based on material from the TRAWL (Tracking Written Learner Language) corpus (Dirdal et al., 2017; Dirdal et al., 2022), comprising longitudinal data from nine pupils. The study tests the hypothesis proposed by Biber et al. (2011) that noun-phrase complexity increases gradually as writers develop, and answers the following research question: To what extent can longitudinal development in noun-phrase complexity in accordance with Biber et al.’s (2011) stages be traced in the written production of intermediate-level Norwegian EFL writers in Years 8-10? The results indicate that there is very little evidence to suggest an increase in sophistication as regards phrasal modification over the three years. Instead, the pupils primarily rely on the types of modifiers that are acquired in early developmental stages, such as attributive adjectives and prepositional phrases. Thus, there should be a greater pedagogical focus on developing pupils’ skills in using more sophisticated noun-phrase modifiers, to prepare them for the future demands placed on their academic-writing skills.

A Bigram-Based Exploration of Phraseological Development in Norwegian Secondary School Students’ Writing in English L2

This study investigates phraseological units produced by Norwegian secondary school students (aged 13 to 17) writing in English L2. The study employs association measure as a way of calculating the collocational strength and certainty of words in word pairs (bigrams) in the L2 learners’ writing. The association measures MI and t-score have been shown to be reliable measures for telling learner language apart from native language. Durrant and Schmitt (2009) and Granger and Bestgen (2014) found a higher proportion of high MI-scoring bigrams to be a marker of more advanced language, native or nativelike, while a higher proportion of high t-scores was associated with less advanced language. The present study includes language from a lower proficiency level than has previously been investigated. The pattern of association measures found for intermediate Norwegian learners of English does not match the previous findings for advanced learners. Instead, an initial decline is uncovered, in that the students produce a higher proportion of bigrams with high MI scores and high t-scores in the first year than they do one and two years later. At higher levels of proficiency, the scores increase again, the pattern resembling previous findings. The article considers possible explanations and discusses applications for teaching.

Cross-linguistic influence in the acquisition of relative clauses by Norwegian learners of English

This paper reports on an exploratory study of cross-linguistic influence in the acquisition of relative clauses by young Norwegian learners of English, comparing L1 Norwegian and L2 English material from the TRAWL (Tracking Written Learner Language) Corpus to L1 English material from the GiG (Growth in Grammar) Corpus. Previous reports of cross-linguistic influence in this domain have usually involved language pairs that have very different relativization strategies. This study investigates whether similarities between relative clause systems may lead to more subtle effects in the choice of relativizer, the type of head nominal, the syntactic function of the relativized item, the extent of relativization from embedded clauses and the use of relative clauses in special constructions such as existentials and clefts. Although the material is limited, the study found traces of the Norwegian system in the learners L2 English, signalling that this is an area worth further investigation. The learners struggled with the choice between who and which, but used that/zero in a very similar way to their L1 English peers. The L2 English group also had slightly higher frequencies of relative clauses belonging to existentials and clefts, and where the relativized item stemmed from a further embedded clause. These results are consistent with a usage-based theory of second language acquisition, where learners are assumed to transfer features of constructions from their L1 when they are similar enough for them to make a cross-linguistic identification.

The relationship between topic and metaphor in second-language learners’ essays

AbstractIn this article I investigate to what extent the use of metaphorical expressions in language learners’ texts vary according to the topic they have chosen to write about. The data come from the Norwegian learner corpus ASK, where the texts are from written assignments produced by adult second-language learners as part of an official Norwegian test and texts. Texts from two different prompts are selected, which are related to friendship and nature. Metaphors are defined according to conceptual metaphor theory and a triangulation of methods is used, alternating between a manual and an automatic extraction method.The results confirm the hypothesis that the two different prompts given to the learners in a language test not only triggers different metaphorical expressions but also influences the amount of metaphor used in the learners’ writing. This knowledge is important to researchers for comparing the use of metaphors between different groups, such as between different learners or between students in different stages of education. It is also important for test designers who decide on topics to be used in tests and teachers who help learners prepare for their tests. In addition, it is of interest for researchers, educators in general and the learners themselves who are interested in the effect the use of metaphors in texts have on raters’ evaluations in high-stake tests.

Young Greek Cypriot and Norwegian EFL learners: Pragmalinguistic development in request production

Situated within the field of developmental interlanguage pragmatics, this cross-sectional study examines pragmalinguistic development in the request production of two groups of young English learners: Greek Cypriot and Norwegian, aged roughly 9, 11 and 13. Specifically, it focuses on learners' request head acts and modification across the three proficiency levels within the Greek and Norwegian groups, and across the two L1 contexts. Eighty-eight Greek and 79 Norwegian learners participated in the study. The data was elicited through a video-based oral discourse completion task, performed in groups of 3–5. Overall, a clearer developmental path was observed in the Norwegian learners' pragmatic performance, whose requests displayed significant differences between the age groups regarding head act sub-strategies, use of modal verbs, lexical downgrading and supportive moves. While also showing a clear linear development in head act sub-strategies, Greek Cypriot learners' only other area of development was the head act directness. A comparison of corresponding age groups from the two contexts revealed both areas of convergence (head act strategies and modal verbs) and divergence (lexical downgraders and supportive moves) with increasing age and proficiency, as well as areas that remained similar throughout (syntactic downgraders), suggesting different underlying influences on young learners’ request development.

The use of refusal strategies in interlanguage speech act performance of Korean and Norwegian users of English

The present paper describes a contrastive study of interlanguage refusal strategies employed by Korean and Norwegian learners of English as an additional language. The data were collected from multilingual first-year students at an American university in South Korea and in an English-medium program at a Norwegian university by means of an online open discourse completion task and analyzed using the coding categories based on Beebe, Takahashi, and Uliss-Welts (1990), and Salazar Campillo, Safont-Jordà, and Codina Espurz (2009). The data were analyzed to compare the average frequencies of refusal strategies used by the two groups, and the types of direct, indirect, and adjunct strategies that they employed. Independent samples t-tests revealed significant differences in the use of direct and indirect strategies with small effect sizes. The differences in the use of adjunct strategies were not statistically significant, and the effect sizes were negligible. Descriptive statistics of the differences in the types of direct, indirect, and adjunct strategies also revealed interesting patterns. The findings suggest that multilinguals’ pragmatic performance is a complex phenomenon that cannot be explained by the differences in cultural and pragmatic norms of their first language alone.

Hedging in spoken conversations by Norwegian learners of English

Hedging is an important aspect of pragmatic competence, but it is also a complex phenomenon that is difficult to master. This has resulted in underuse of hedging strategies by language learners, and many learners limit their hedging repertoire to a few strategies. This study compares the use of 10 hedging expressions commonly used in informal spoken English, a bit, I mean, I think, just, kind of/kinda, like, might, probably, thing(s), and you know, in data from LINDSEI-no, a corpus of Norwegian advanced learners, and LOCNEC, a comparable corpus of native English speakers. Norwegian learners typically show a high level of grammatical competence, but research on their pragmatic competence is limited. This study adds to the empirical research on Norwegian advanced learners by comparing the use of these expressions in native and learner language. The results indicate that as a group, Norwegian learners underuse hedging strategies, but when each expression and individual variation are considered, the picture is more nuanced. In fact, several of the Norwegian learners’ hedging practices partially overlap with several of the native speakers’ practices concerning hedging frequency and types of hedging strategies used.

L2 transfer of L1 island-insensitivity: The case of Norwegian

Norwegian allows filler-gap dependencies into embedded questions, which are islands for filler-gap dependency formation in English. We ask whether there is evidence that Norwegian learners of English transfer the functional structure that permits island violations from their first language (L1) to their second language (L2). In two acceptability judgment studies, we find that Norwegians are more likely to accept ‘island-violating’ filler-gap dependencies in L2 English if the corresponding filler-gap dependency is acceptable in Norwegian: Norwegian learners variably accept English sentences with dependencies into embedded questions, but not into subject phrases. These results are consistent with models that permit transfer of abstract functional structure. Norwegians are still less likely to accept filler-gap dependencies into English embedded questions than Norwegian embedded questions. We interpret the latter finding as evidence that, despite transfer, Norwegian speakers may partially restructure their L2 English analysis. We discuss how indirect positive evidence may play a role in helping learners restructure.

Competition and its potential negative effect on safety in powered two-wheeler (PTW) training seen from a system perspective

Competition is, in many ways, a source related to quality in the sense that less competitive firms will be outdistanced through a balance in supply and demand. In high-risk industries, however, safety must be balanced with production, which is not always an easy choice. In the rider training industry, driving schools and instructors teach others how to behave and think in and relate to a complex road traffic system while being vulnerable on a powered two-wheel (PTW) vehicle. Knowing which training is optimal is not easy, but the Norwegian learner curricula and regulations serve as guidelines. However, in competition with other driving schools, this training might be adjusted because of competitive elements in addition to the intentions of the curricula. Thus, our research question is ‘How can competition affect the quality of the rider training system and thus road safety in Norway?’ For this research, sixteen interviews were conducted, and thematic analysis was used for analysing the data. The findings in this study were that competition affects three factors of the rider training system related to safety. These were (1) course-related training, (2) less strict assessment, and (3) test-oriented training. The conclusion is that competition partly has a negative effect on safety in the rider training industry in Norway.

La notion de transfert appliquée au français comme langue étrangère

Our main objective in this paper is to show how linguistic properties can be transferred from one system to another. Consequences of transfer are evaluated, both positive and negative, for the acquisition of possessives in French L2 or L3 by Norwegian learners. We take as a starting point a comparative description of the possessive systems in French and Norwegian and examine interlanguage grammars of adult learners of French both in a Norwegian university setting and in an immersion context. On the basis of results from production-comprehension tests we can predict and explain interlanguage errors in the students' L2-grammar (negative transfer) using comparative grammatical constraints (reflexive-irreflexive contrasts, binding constraints, explicit marking of the possessor, orientation towards the possessor or the possessum, etc.). We can also predict cases where the learners make fewer errors or no errors at all (positive transfer). In this way we are able to measure the importance of transfer, both negative and positive, for the acquisition of French as foreign language by Norwegian adult learners.

The Bottleneck Hypothesis in L2 acquisition: L1 Norwegian learners’ knowledge of syntax and morphology in L2 English

The Bottleneck Hypothesis (Slabakova, 2008, 2013) proposes that acquiring properties of the functional morphology is the most challenging part of learning a second language. In the experiment presented here, the predictions of this hypothesis are tested in the second language (L2) English of Norwegian native speakers. Two constructions are investigated that do not match in English and Norwegian: One involving functional morphology, subject–verb (SV) agreement, which is obligatory in the L2 but non-existent in the first language (L1), and one involving syntax, verb-second (V2) word order, which is obligatory in the L1, but restricted to specific contexts in the L2. The results of an acceptability judgement task indicate that the participants struggled more with identifying ungrammatical SV agreement than ungrammatical word order. We conclude that the findings lend tentative support to the Bottleneck Hypothesis.

Speaking about the past from different perspectives: the acquisition of Italian L2 by Norwegian and Russian learners

This study investigates the influence of L1 language-specific patterns on the acquisition of L2 structures. The lack of certain grammatical categories is often compensated for at another level of linguistic structure. This study analyses how Italian past tenses (connected with the category of aspect) are acquired by Russian and Norwegian learners. In Norwegian, in contrast to Russian and Italian, there is no grammatical aspect.
 The data analyzed contain a written narration of a short story presented through four pictures and were collected from several groups of informants: Russian and Norwegian native speakers, learners of Italian (levels B1 and C1), and Italian native speakers (the control group).
 The results obtained show that Norwegian learners, independently of their level, use more temporal connectors in their narratives. However, verbal semantics or temporal connectors (usually considered to be triggers of Italian past tenses) do not help them use the correct form. Russian learners performed better on the test. Their errors show that the textual function of the verb is more important for them than its semantics. However, they overuse coordinative connectors (e ‘and’ and ma ‘but’) at the beginning of sentences. These results lead to further discussion of textual features in the three languages and the role of the tense-aspect category in text structure.

An empirical L2 perspective on possessives: French/Norwegian

The main objective of this chapter is to present empirical evidence for transfer effects between Norwegian (as L1 or L2) and French (as L1 or L2). We start out with theoretical assumptions from a contrastive-comparative treatment of possessives in European languages (chapter 1, this volume) and develop hypotheses for L2-acquisition of possessive systems in Norwegian and French. The various degrees of complexity between the two linguistic sub-systems lead to different kinds of challenges in L2-acquisition based on morphological, syntactic and semantic criteria. Norwegian has a morphologically more complex possessive system than French. The French learner of Norwegian as L2 then has to acquire a system with more formal options than in her mother tongue, whereas the Norwegian learner of French as L2 acquires a system with less formal options. Based on empirical findings, the chapter shows why some parts of the possessive L2 systems are harder or easier to handle than others.

Conditional clauses in novice academic English: A comparison of Norwegian learners and native speakers

This study concerns the syntactic, semantic and pragmatic features of conditional clauses in novice academic English. The material comes from the VESPA corpus, representing Norwegian advanced learners of English, and the BAWE corpus, representing English L1 students in British universities. The learners are shown to overuse conditionals in general, but to mostly master their syntactic and semantic features. The overuse may be associated with the interpersonal functions of conditionals. The epistemic use in argument building is more apparent among the native speakers.

Hvor konservative er polske norskstudenter i sin språkbruk? Hunkjønnsmarkering i norskinnlæreres tekstproduksjon

Abstract The paper examines the phenomenon of the feminine gender, which in Bokmål is optional. The choice between the masculine and feminine forms is nevertheless not without meaning. It has been proved that if some nouns appear in feminine form earlier in a text, it implies the use of feminine gender on other nouns (Dyvik, 2012). Hence, the appearance of feminine marking on different words is mutually related, and may be shown to be consistent or not. The paper analyses texts written by Polish students of Norwegian on three different levels of language command (A2, B2/C1 and C2+) and investigates their use of feminine marking. The results show that the feminine gender is most often used by beginner learners, which confirms the initial hypothesis. Contrary to expectations, the most advanced students show inconsistency in their choice of feminine marking at least as often as beginner learners. The general conclusion is that the majority of Norwegian learners are not fully aware of the implications which come with the use of the feminine gender.

Difficult contrasts: an analysis of phonemic distinctions in the English of young Norwegian learners seen against the backdrop of incidental foreign language learning

Norwegian children in the 21st century are quite massively exposed to English as an L2, primarily through subtitled television programmes, films and various computer-based activities. The article investigates to what extent this passive exposure influences their basic phonological competence in the L2 by analyzing their ability to actively distinguish between certain phoneme pairs in English which are considered difficult for Norwegian learners, mainly due to interference from the phonemic system in their L1. The data material was collected through 136 recordings of 11-16 year old pupils in ten Norwegian state schools. By comparing the results to similar studies made in Norway 20-35 years ago, at a time when young people's exposure to English was considerably more limited, the article discusses the effects of incidental foreign language acquisition on young people's L2 competence. The discussion is also placed in the light of recent, international research in this field. By critically investigating some of the findings of that research, the article furthermore attempts at problematizing the concept of L2 acquisition by focusing on the distinction between active and passive language competence. The findings indicate that basic L2 phonological competence is in no way automatically enhanced by passive exposure to the language. The article points to the necessity of structured teaching programmes to counterweight the complexity and variations in the L2 input that young people encounter in their media based exposure to the L2.

Being ‘neutral’? English pronunciation among Norwegian learners

ABSTRACTThis study investigates the pronunciation of English among Norwegian adolescents by applying sociolinguistic methods in a second language context. Results from an auditory analysis of seven phonological variables show a blended use of linguistic features from American English and British English, with some additional pronunciations, forming a hybrid and variable L2 accent. The participants’ pronunciation aligns with their self‐expressed target accents. However, American English is the dominant pronunciation, suggesting influence from imported American media. Although the majority of learners aim towards a native accent, a large minority report a wish to avoid native accents and use a neutral variety of English. The variability in the local appropriation of English reflects the transitional status of English in Norway, and contributes to the increasing diversity in the development of English as a global language. The results have implications for English language educators, who must meet the needs of proficient learners in transitional second language environments.

THE ENGLISH -ING PARTICIPIAL ADJUNCTS IN FIRST AND SECOND LANGUAGE WRITTEN DISCOURSE

The study reported on in this article shows that the -ing participial adjuncts are used differently by native speakers of English depending on the genre they occur in. A comparison of data from written re-narrations of a film with the data from argumentative essays shows that these constructions are more frequent in narrative texts. The -ing participial adjuncts are typically used to express temporal succession (e.g. Anteriority) in narrative texts, whereas Means is the most frequent function of these constructions in argumentative essays. The native speaker data is then compared to that of Norwegian learners of English. The non-native-like patterns in the L2 data are attributed to L1 transfer and lack of knowledge about the genre-specific uses of the -ing clauses.