Chapter 6. Metaphorical expressions in L2 production

To what extent do learners of Norwegian use metaphorical expressions in Norwegian? What types of expression are used, in which context, and by whom? What are the learners’ characteristics? Does their mother tongue influence their use of certain expressions? Using data from the ASK corpus at the University of Bergen, this chapter examines metaphorical expressions involving the high frequency nuclear verb ta (English: ‘take’) in the writing of learners with German, Spanish and Russian as their first language. All the expressions are compared with frequencies of these expressions in written Norwegian used by native speakers. The findings of this study reveal the importance of the topic in comparative studies of this kind.