Address forms and anaphoric pronouns in historical plays in the early 20th century

Abstract

Theatre language has had a central place in descriptions of Norwegian public spoken language in the 19^th century. For example, Knud Knudsen’s work with the stage language in a theatre in former Christiania has been highlighted as an example of the linguistic interest of the 1850s. The changes in theatre language were an important contribution to the Norwegianization of the colloquial language in the Ausbau process from the middle of the 19th to the middle of the 20th century. In this article, the question is asked how certain linguistic features were used by playwrights and directors in the middle of this period to give the audience an experience of the language in the 16th and 18th centuries, respectively. As a historical linguistic study, it is primarily an investigation of the linguistic awareness of the theatre workers in a linguistically turbulent time, but they also had to take into account the audience’s familiarity with both older and newer forms in order to use them as artistic devices. The analysis sheds light, not only on the perceived distance between the 16th and the 21st century, but also on the distance between the 20th and the 21st century. In addition to the historical linguistic aspect, the article contributes to the understanding of linguistic variation and linguistic choices as a tool in theatre productions within a realistic tradition.