Development in Southwestern Norwegian Children’s Role-Play Register

In Norway, it is common for children to switch between their local dialect and a Central Eastern Norwegian variety in role-play to signal role characters. This article examines how the use of Central Eastern Norwegian variants in the role-play register develops across 11 Southwestern Norwegian children and in individual children. The group-level analysis shows generally positive age-related trends, with significant increases for two properties—the present tense of be and what —indicating development beyond random variation. However, the use of Central Eastern Norwegian variants varies considerably across participants, and only a minority of the children employ Central Eastern Norwegian frequently. Individual analyses of the two children who use Central Eastern Norwegian the most reveal few significant effects and a mix of marginally positive and negative trends. Changes in play behaviour over time, including reduced in-character speech, may have affected children’s opportunities to use Central Eastern Norwegian within role-play. Patterns across play sessions raise the possibility that children’s engagement in particular play scenarios could be relevant for understanding the developmental patterns observed. Taken together, the results show that bidialectal competence and register acquisition are closely intertwined in children’s language development.