Íslenskt mál og almenn málfræði - 2020, Blaðsíða 210

summary
‘Digital language contact between Icelandic and English’
Keywords: digital language contact, input, attitudes, English use
In recent years the Icelandic language community has changed due to fundamental societal
changes and technological advancements. These changes have brought Icelandic into
increased contact with English, e.g. through “digital language contact”. This term refers to
the situation in which speakers come in contact with another language in the digital
domain as opposed to eye-to-eye contact in more traditional domains. Recipients of
English digital contact in Iceland now include young people whose use of English is not
only receptive but also increasingly more productive than in older times. In this paper, we
present results from an online survey which was conducted within the research project
“Modeling the Linguistic Consequences of Digital Language Contact” in 2016–2017. We
analyze the digital language input of the 1,615 13–98 year old participants who answered
our online survey (41% response rate), as well as their use of English and their attitudes
towards English usage. Research shows that these two factors, digital language input and
positive attitudes towards English, can have various language related effects in contact sit-
uations, e.g. increasing the use of English and English language skills.
The survey results show that all participants are exposed to a large quantity of digital lan-
guage input (DLI). Older speakers (31–98-year-olds) mainly get DLI from watching televi-
sion, i.e. receptive input, most likely in Icelandic or in English with Icelandic subtitles, where-
as younger speakers (13–30-year-olds) get more input from the internet and content pro -
viders such as YouTube and Netflix, and from playing computer games, which can be inter-
active and are most likely in English. Younger participants, in particular the 13–20-year-olds,
are also very positive towards the use of English, more so than older generations. All partic-
ipants use English a lot, both receptive English (reading and listening) and productive English
(writing and speaking), although receptive use dominates in all age groups. However, the 13–
15-year-olds are most likely to use productive English and the factors that best predict their
English usage are their productive DLI, i.e. playing interactive computer games, and positive
attitudes towards English. Thus, a logical next step within the project is to connect these
results to the participants’ English skills in order to shed a better light on the effects that digi -
tal language contact with English has on Ice land ers’ knowledge of English.
Dagbjört Guðmundsdóttir
Háskóla Íslands
Gimli
IS-102, Reykjavík
dagu@hi.is
Eiríkur Rögnvaldsson
Stofnun Árna Magnússonar í íslenskum fræðum
Þingholtsstræti 29
IS-101, Reykjavík
eirikur@hi.is
Dagbjört Guðmundsdóttir o.fl.210
Sigríður Sigurjónsdóttir
Háskóla Íslands
Árnagarði v/ Suðurgötu
IS-102, Reykjavík
siggasig@hi.is