During the last two decades, the Nordic languages have seen a large increase of pragmatic borrowing from English in everyday conversation, in particular among the younger generation. The borrowed items include both single words such as 'what' and 'sorry', and phrases such as 'Oh my god'.

Recent studies have shown that pragmatic items borrowed from English often adapt to the new language with respect to form and function, and they can be used to index social and cultural values. The aim of this workshop series is to conduct a cross-linguistic study on the Nordic languages and Finnish. The project will contribute to our knowledge about the influence of the world language English on smaller languages.

The workshop series consists of three events: 1) a workshop on discourse particles held in Reykjavik in November 2021, 2) a workshop on routinized sequences such as apologies and greetings held in Gothenburg in May 2022, and 3) a summarizing workshop held in Helsinki in November 2022.

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(Photo by Dough Maloney)