This presentation reports on a segment of a larger study of the phraseology of the three English-Norwegian verb pairs enjoy-nyte, love-elske and like-like. Emotion verbs such as these are interesting both from a cross-linguistic point of view and from a native/learner perspective, as their usage is governed at least in part by cultural norms in the language community. It is thus likely that the non-native usage of these verbs will be influenced by the learners’ first language. The larger study seeks to find out what correspondence patterns and translation paradigms may reveal about lexico-grammatical similarities and differences between the lexemes in the two languages, how similar meaning is conveyed in the two languages, and how English native speakers and Norwegian learners of English use and understand the English lexemes similarly and differently in context. The current paper will present the initial results of the comparison of native data and learner data, seeking to answer the following two questions:
- Do English native users and Norwegian learners of English use the verbs enjoy, love and like similarly?
- If there are differences in usage, are they likely to be the result of differences between the English and Norwegian verbs?
The study is corpus-based, and material for the investigation presented here is extracted primarily from the Norwegian part of The International Corpus of Learner English (ICLE-NO, learner data), and the Louvain Corpus of Native English Essays (LOCNESS, native data). This material is occasionally compared to data from the Lexicographic Corpus of Bokmål Norwegian (LBK) to look for potential transfer, and data from the British National Corpus (BNC) as an additional reference for the native data.
The methodology used is based on Granger’s (1996: 47) Integrated Contrastive Model with a few additions by Gilquin (1999/2001), in which Contrastive Analysis (CA) of languages is combined with Contrastive Interlanguage Analysis (CIA), i.e. comparisons of native and non-native usage of a given language, in order to detect and explain transfer in the interlanguage of non-native users. In addition to a qualitative analysis of a selection of examples and a lexicogrammatical categorisation of the material inspired by Hunston and Francis’ (2000) Pattern Grammar, the material is analysed from the point of view of appraisal theory as presented in Martin & White (2005). More specifically, the material is classified according to what kind of Attitude (Affect, Appreciation or Judgement) is expressed in utterances containing the verbs, as well as how frequently and how each verb is graduated. Based on the definitions in Martin & White (2005: 42), Appreciation typically evaluates objects, natural phenomena, actions, states, abstract notions etc., Affect typically describes feelings towards/between sentient beings able of reciprocating emotion, and “Judgement deals with attitudes towards behaviour, which we admire or criticise, praise or condemn” (ibid), in other words typically ethical or moral evaluations. Graduation describes how the force of an utterance may be influenced in various ways, and this study focuses on lexical infusions that either increase or decrease the force of the emotion.
The CIA thus compares a) the distribution of the verbs across various lexicogrammatical patterns, b) the distribution across types of attitudinal meaning, c) how frequently and how the verbs are graduated and d) points out some specific collocations for each verb in the native material and the learner material respectively. The preliminary investigation indicates that the patterns LOVE + to-infinitive and LIKE + to-infinitive are over-represented in the Norwegian learner data, which is consistent with the popularity of the corresponding patterns ELSKE + å-infinitive and LIKE + å-infinitive in the Norwegian material. Furthermore, the pattern LOVE + PersPron and the attitudinal meaning Affect are underrepresented in the Norwegian learner data, and the original texts indicate that the Norwegian LBK informants are more concerned with talking about how much they enjoy sex, alcohol and the sun than the English BNC informants are.
These observations support the notion suggested above that the usage of emotion verbs is culturally conditioned, and the tentative answers to the research questions are thus that a) English natives and Norwegian learners of English do use enjoy, love and like similarly, but not identically, and b) at least some of the differences in usage are likely to be the result of (cultural) transfer from Norwegian.
References
Gilquin, G. (1999/2001). “The ICM: Spicing up your data”. In S. Bernadini, H. Hasselgård & S. Johansson (Eds) Languages in Contrast. Vol 3 (1), pp. 95-123.
Granger, S. (1996). “From CA to CIA and back”. In K. Aijmer, B. Altenberg and M. Johansson (Eds), Languages in Contrast: Papers from a Symposium on Cross-linguistic Studies, pp. 37-52.
Hunston, S., & Francis, G. (2000). Pattern grammar: a corpus-driven approach to the lexical grammar of English. Studies in Corpus Linguistics Vol. 4. Amsterdam: J. Benjamins
Martin, J. R. & White, P. R. R. (2005). The Language of Evaluation. Appraisal in English. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.