Slavic and Norwegian Language and Culture in Contact: the Influence of the Norwegian Language and Culture on Immigrant Youth from the Former Yugoslavia

This paper is in fact an extensive summary of the author’s dissertation, which focuses on the immigrant children’s life in migratory existence in Norway. The dissertation is divided into two main parts: Part I – Cultures in Contact and Part II – Languages in contact. The main purpose of this dissertation was to find out what happened with the first language of the former Yugoslav immigrant youth in Norway, while under the influence of the Norwegian environment and language. It has been an aim to understand and analyse these immigrant children’s bilingual and bicultural lives as immigrants in Norway. The term immigrant children are here defined as children of first generation of immigrants where both parents are ex-Yugoslavians. Among these immigrant children were those who were born in Norway, and those who arrived in Norway as babies, as preschoolers, and as school age children. Research on immigrants’ language and culture indicates that it is possible for immigrant children to identify themselves with two cultures and two languages. The dissertation tries to give answer to what extent the immigrant children in this study have become bilingual and bicultural.