Íslenskt mál og almenn málfræði - 01.01.2023, Page 162

In Figure 1 we see the same status written first in Icelandic and then in German.
In Figure 2 the English phrase “it is” is used in an Icelandic utterance. To me,
these seem to be fundamental differences. Yet, you decided not to make a distinc-
tion between these two categories, that is, translations and English words and
phrases that are integrated into an Icelandic utterance. They all count as equal,
and therefore, this interesting finding that you mention in the summary is not
displayed in the quantitative analysis. So the question is:
Why did you decide not to make a distinction between translations of posts
and items that are integrated into an Icelandic utterance?

Vanessa Isenmann:
In the quantitative analysis, I was primarily interested in the number of
posts that contain any kind of resource, for example English. This means
that I was interested in how many posts contain English, German, Icelandic
and so on. Also, I was interested in the most common features and to what
resource they can be ascribed. I did make a distinction between translations
and integrated features, however, in the qualitative analysis. It is, in fact,
why the combination of quantitative and qualitative analysis is so important.

In your thesis, you explain that posts that show single words, phrases, or para-
graphs typically associated with a specific language were coded as containing the
respective language (p. 74). In case you were in doubt whether a particular word
is associated with Icelandic, you used Íslensk nútímamálsorðabók (Dictionary of
Contemporary Icelandic).
Why did you decide to use a dictionary as a tool to determine whether a word
belongs to the Icelandic vocabulary and not for example the much larger The
Icelandic Morphological Database or text corpora such as The tagged Icelandic
Corpus (MÍM)?

Vanessa Isenmann:
I used Íslensk nútímamálsorðabók for several reasons. The dictionary is pub-
lished and maintained by the Árni Magnússon Institute for Icelandic
Studies, which in my opinion is a credible authority to say what term is part
of the Icelandic lexicon. It is also a fairly new dictionary, so I expected to be
able to find recent terms. This was especially relevant to a context like the
one I researched. Thirdly, the dictionary provides very useful information
about the terms it contains. For example, as for borrowings (or slettur, to use
a common Icelandic term), the lexicon provides information such as “not
fully recognized”, which was very helpful in my research. On the other
hand, I did not find this kind of information, for example, in Íslensk orðabók,
which can be searched online on the dictionary portal Snara.is.
Helga Hilmisdóttir162