Gamers, influencers and language contact: An empirical study of Anglicisms in Icelandic conversation

The paper presents an empirical study of the use of Anglicisms in Icelandic conversation. The aim of the study is to investigate the way popular culture shapes the vocabulary used by young Icelanders (cf. Fägersten 2024 on the Nordic languages and popular culture). The data comprises 4 hours and 30 minutes of recordings from two sets of data: 1) an online conversation between two fifteen-year-old boys playing a computer game (19,206 words), and 2) a conversation between two young women hosting a podcast on fashion, lifestyle and entertainment (15,282 words). The research questions are as follows: 1) What kind of Anglicisms occur in the data, i.e. what is the distribution between the parts-of-speech? 2) What interactional functions do these items have in the conversations? The study begins with brief overview of the distribution of Anglicisms in the data, but the main emphasis is on the qualitative analysis of segments of talk.
The study shows that there are some differences between the use of Anglicisms in the two sets of data. Anglicisms used by the boys playing the computer games are often connected to the game itself, e.g. words and phrases that appear on the screen or have occurred elsewhere in the context of the game (e.g. flying motorcycle, mission). Typically, these units are phonetically adapted to Icelandic, the matrix language. Around 26% of the Anglicisms consist of pragmatic items such as discourse particles, swearwords and address markers (e.g. fokk ‘fuck’, yeah).
Anglicisms in the podcast seem to be mainly connected to the construction of identity. The English units create connotations to television shows and international pop-culture. Often, the young women use Anglicisms that are prosodically marked with stretched sounds and staged American accent (e.g. crazy). Furthermore, syntactically organized utterances are common. Typically, these utterances function as assessments or closing comments that show the speakers’ attitude to the topic of discussion (e.g. haven’t we all).
Another topic of interest are the changes in the pronunciation of Anglicisms. In earlier studies of spoken Icelandic, researchers have shown that English borrowings typically adapt to the Icelandic phonetic system. The present study suggests that this is no longer the case. This is particularly clear in the podcast, in which 11.5% of all words are pronounced with an American accent (or at least as it is interpreted in the Icelandic context).
The comparison between the two sets of data shows that the use of Anglicisms is a complex question. The use may vary based on issues such as age and gender of the speakers, English fluency, and the nature of the conversation (e.g. private vs. entertaining an audience).

References
Fägersten, Kristy Beers (2024), Anglicization of the languages of the Nordic countries, in E Peterson and K B Fägersten (eds), (2024), English in the Nordic Countries. Connections, tensions and everyday realities, London: Routledge, 65-83.