Phonological and lexical markers in Southwestern Norwegian children’s role-play registers

This paper examines phonological features and lexical aspects from a Central Eastern Norwegian variety in the role-play registers of eleven Southwestern Norwegian preschool children. Within this register, the children switch between their local Southwestern Norwegian dialect and a Central Eastern Norwegian variety similar to the Oslo dialect. Although most of the children (with the exception of four) use the Central Eastern Norwegian variety in role-play, two children exhibited a significantly greater degree of usage compared to the others. Consequently, these two were selected for an in-depth analysis. The detailed analysis shows that both children use Central Eastern Norwegian variants as in-character markers, indicating that the use of this variety in the role-play register serves a (social) function in the play. However, the extent to which they switch to Central Eastern Norwegian varies depending on the specific linguistic feature and the individual child. The observed variations across different features and between the two children are examined and discussed in the paper.