Emotions in Norwegian language debate

Abstract

Norway has two official Norwegian languages, Bokmål and Nynorsk. The majority of Norwegians use Bokmål as their written language (ca. 80%) which makes Nynorsk a minority language or lesser used language. Ever since the legal decision to have two official written languages (1885) there has been a public debate in Norway which may be fierce and emotional at times. After having investigated emotional expressions regarding the two written languages in the newspaper corpus of the Norwegian National Library we found that emotions are associated with Nynorsk to a much larger extent than with Bokmål. While Nynorsk may be associated with both love and hate, Bokmål can be said to be more default and neutral when it comes to opinions or emotions. /Keywords: language attitudes, language debate, emotions, affective filter