Er vitterligt det nye literally?
En undersøgelse af vitterligts udvikling til forstærker blandt unge københavnere
Nøgleord:
Keywords: Vitterligt, language development, language contact, epistemic adverb, intensifier, scope increase, online language, Contact Induced GrammaticalizationResumé
Abstract
With the Danish epistemic/intensifying adverb vitterligt as a case, this article investigates the effects of online language contact on recent developments in Danish. Drawing on theories of semantic layering, and contact induced grammaticalization, three hypotheses are tested: (1) Young speakers more often use vitterligt with an illocutionary scope than older speakers. (2) a. Young speakers have more contact with English language than older speakers. b. Speakers with high levels of contact more often translate vitterligt to literally. (3) Vitterligt with illocutionary scope is perceived as less formal and intelligent than propositional vitterligt. Data comes from an online survey, where participants from two age groups are compared when solving an adverbial gap-filling test, translating vitterligt to English, estimating their language contact and judging three different functions of vitterligt. The results are as follows: (1) Young speakers use intensifying vitterligt significantly more than older speakers, tending to front it. (2) Despite equal contact, only young speakers consistently translate vitterligt with literally, suggesting different stylistic types of contact. (3) Only older speakers perceive intensifying vitterligt as less formal and intelligent. The case study puts contact induced grammaticalization in a context of online language development, making it relevant to many linguistic contexts.
Referencer
Ammon, U. (red.). 2011. The dominance of English as a language of science: Effects on other languages and language communities (Contributions to the sociology of language [CSL] 84). Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. DOI: 10.1515/9783110869484.
Becker-Christensen, C. 2022. Dansk syntaks: indføring i dansk sætningsgrammatik og sætningsanalyse. Frederiksberg: Samfundslitteratur.
Boye, K. 2023. Propositions and State-of-Affairs: A cognitive linguistic approach. Propositionale Argumente im Sprachvergleich / Propositional arguments in cross-linguistic research: Theorie und Empirie / Theoretical and empirical issues (Studien zur Deutschen Sprache 84), 85–114. Tübingen: Narr Francke Attempto Verlag.
Boye, K., A. Andersen & E. Engberg-Pedersen. 2020. Kognitionsverber og kontrasten mellem indikativ- og infinitivkomplement. Ny forskning i grammatik (27). DOI: 10.7146/nfg.v0i27.122128.
Calhoun, K. 2015. ”It is the worst of our time”: Youth language, language attitude, and arguments about literally. Proceedings of the 23rd annual symposium about language and society, Austin 58. 1–10.
Cambridge Dictionary. u.å. https://dictionary.cambridge.org (tilgået 17. Juni 2026)
Den Danske Ordbog (DDO). u.å. https://ny.ordnet.dk/ddo/ (tilgået 17. juni 2026)
Engberg-Pedersen, E., K. Boye & P. Harder. 2019. Semantik. 1. udgave. Frederiksberg: Samfundslitteratur.
Engberg-Pedersen, E. & D.B. Thomsen. 2016. The socio-cognitive foundation of Danish perspective-mixing dialogue particles. B. Dancygier, W. Lu & A. Verhagen (red.), Viewpoint and the Fabric of Meaning, 125–142. De Gruyter. DOI: 10.1515/9783110365467-006.
Grice, H.P. 1975. Speech Acts. Syntax and semantics, vol. 3. Academic Press.
Heine, B. & T. Kuteva. 2003. On contact-induced grammaticalization. Studies in Language 27(3). 529–572. DOI: 10.1075/sl.27.3.04hei.
Heine, B. & T. Kuteva. 2005. Language contact and grammatical change. 1. udg. Cambridge University Press. DOI: 10.1017/CBO9780511614132.
Hengeveld, K. 1989. Layers and operators in functional grammar. Journal of linguistics 25(1). 127–157. DOI: 10.1017/S0022226700012123.
Hengeveld, K. 2017. A hierarchical approach to grammaticalization. K. Hengeveld, H. Narrog & H. Olbertz (red.), The grammaticalization of tense, aspect, modality and evidentiality, 13–38. De Gruyter. DOI: 10.1515/9783110519389-002.
Huang, Y. 2014. Pragmatics. 2nd ed. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Israel, M. 2002. Literally speaking. Journal of pragmatics 34(4). 423–432. DOI: 10.1016/S0378-2166(01)00048-0.
Lønsmann, D. m.fl. 2024. Engelsk i Danmark: What’s the story? Aarhus University Press. DOI: 10.2307/jj.21900477.
Mortensen, J. 2010. Epistemic stance marking in the use of english as a lingua franca : A Comparative study of the pragmatic functions of epistemic stance. Roskilde University PhD.
Nielsen, M., N. Trondhjem & K. Boye. Under bedømmelse. Lexical affixes.
Rathje, M. 2020. Hvor har de unge det fra?: Kommer det vitterligt fra Fie Laursen, Anders Breinholt eller Morten Olsen? Politiken.
Thøgersen, J. & B. Preisler. 2023. Danskerne og det engelske sprog – dengang og nu. NyS, Nydanske Sprogstudier (64). 8–50. DOI: 10.7146/nys.v1i64.141688.
Downloads
Publiceret
Citation/Eksport
Nummer
Sektion
Licens
Copyright (c) 2026 Author and Journal of Language Works
Dette værk er under følgende licens Creative Commons Navngivelse – Ikke-kommerciel – Ingen Bearbejdede Værker (by-nc-nd).
Forfatteren/forfatterne har ophavsret til de artikler der bringes i tidsskriftet, og har ret til at genbruge dem hvis de nævner LWorks som oprindelig udgiver.
