Language choice among Finnish-Norwegian youth in the Greater Oslo Area
Keywords:
bilingualism, domain, Finnish, language choice, NorwegianAbstract
The aim of the study is to examine language choice among six Finnish-Norwegian youth aged 17 to 22 years within three domains: home, free time and mass media and how this has changed during the eight years’ time. Also examined are the factors that may influence language choice. The material consists of interviews and questionnaire. The study has been conducted with a sociolinguistic approach. The results show that Norwegian is the predominant language among the subjects in all domains, except at home where the informants also speak Finnish. During the study, some changes in language choice, especially in home domain, have occurred. The main factors influencing the language choice are the subject’s social network and a change in language identity. The findings confirm that some adolescents show more bilingual activity than others.
