ordbruk

Ordbruk refers to the practical use of words in a language. It encompasses how speakers choose words (vocabulary), how words combine with others (collocation), and how idioms and figurative expressions operate. It also covers how meaning shifts with context, audience, genre, and register. The field sits at the intersection of linguistics, lexicography, and corpus linguistics and is closely related to semantics and pragmatics. While semantics studies word meanings in isolation, ordbruk focuses on actual usage patterns in real discourse and how these patterns vary across time and communities.

Linguists study ordbruk through corpora, dictionaries, and field observations, examining phenomena such as lexical preference, collocation and expected word partners, semantic shift, connotation and evaluative meaning, euphemism, taboo language, and shifts due to social change. It also covers formal versus informal registers and domain-specific language, including technical jargon and professional style.

Knowledge of ordbruk informs dictionary compilation, language teaching, and natural language processing, where models aim to reproduce human-like word usage. It highlights that language is dynamic and context-dependent, with regional dialects and social variables shaping word choice.

See also: lexicography, corpus linguistics, semantics, pragmatics, sociolinguistics, language variation.