Individual variation and linguistic choices in new dialect formation processes: a case study from Narvik

Abstract This article exemplifies how the first in-migrants to places where a new dialect is being formed speak after a lifetime in the new town. In the present study, the speech of three migrants to the new town Narvik, who gave interviews when they were aged 90–100 years old, is analyzed, in particular their choice of linguistic features from the available feature pool. The study is placed within the theoretical framework of new dialect formation and also draws on perspectives from third-wave sociolinguistics, giving new insight into the role of individual variation in new dialect formation processes. The ideologically linked meanings of linguistic features that were relevant in (Northern) Norway at that time provided the inhabitants of the new town of Narvik with potential variants to choose from, but they also set limits. The analysis shows that the informants’ personal histories and the sociohistorical context influenced which linguistic choices they made.