The second issue of volume 48 (autumn 2025) of the Nordic Journal of Linguistics will be a special issue dedicated to pragmatic borrowing from English, edited by Helga Hilmisdóttir, Martina Huhtamäki and Susanna Karlsson.
One of the more recent developments in the Nordic languages is the large increase of words and phrases borrowed from English that do not add to the propositional content of an utterance, but, instead, function as a discourse structuring device or index speakers’ attitude. As an umbrella term for this phenomenon, Andersen (Reference Andersen2014:17) has suggested the term pragmatic borrowing, which he defines as ‘the incorporation of pragmatic and discourse features of a source language (SL) into a recipient language (RL)’. Thus, pragmatic borrowing includes the incorporation of items that have been categorized as, for example, response particles, discourse markers, address terms, swearwords, and apologies. In recent years, the term has become used in a broader sense referring to the ‘scientific meeting ground between contact linguistics and pragmatics’, also referring to the pragmatic issues regarding borrowing of lexical items that have a referential meaning (Andersen, Furiassi & Mišić Ilić Reference Andersen, Furiassi and Mišić Ilić2017:72). In addition to direct borrowing of single words and phrases such as yes and oh my god, speakers may also use indirect borrowing or calques, which are word-for-word translations of pragmatic items (e.g. the Icelandic address term gaur ‘dude’), and non-lexical features such as specific prosodic patterns and gestures (see Andersen Reference Andersen2014).
Studies show that pragmatic items borrowed from English often adapt to the new language with respect to form and/or function (Terkourafi Reference Terkourafi2011, Betz et al. Reference Betz, Deppermann, Mondada and Sorjonen2021), and that they can be used to index social and cultural values (Peterson Reference Peterson2017). In addition, the borrowed items have a different status and may be more or less accepted in the borrowing language (see Beers Fägersten Reference Fägersten and Rathje2014 on the use of fuck in Swedish). The Nordic region has strong historic, cultural, and political ties through the Nordic cooperation, and this makes the Nordic languages – including all minority languages – particularly interesting study objects from this perspective. How does a pragmatic item from English adapt to the different languages and what does that tell us about contact linguistics and the influence of the world language English on smaller languages?
In this NJL special issue, we invite contributions that deal with pragmatic borrowing from English in contemporary languages of the Nordic region. We especially encourage submission of papers that focus on spoken language or informal written varieties such as social media. Papers may consider any theoretical perspective that takes into account empirical data, including but not limited to pragmatics, interactional linguistics, sociolinguistics, and experimental linguistics. We also strongly welcome work on minoritized languages and other traditionally underrepresented languages in the field.
The second issue of volume 48 (autumn 2025) of the Nordic Journal of Linguistics will be published in 2025. The deadline for submissions is 1 October 2024 and peer review will take place during late 2024 and early 2025. All submissions should be made through NJL’s ScholarOne/Manuscript Central site https://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/njl. Prior to submission, authors should consult the journal’s Instructions for Contributors, at https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/nordic-journal-of-linguistics/information/instructions-contributors, and follow those guidelines for manuscript formatting. Please contact Helga Hilmisdóttir at [email protected] if you have any questions about this special issue.
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