This paper presents results of work in progress which investigates the discourse distribution of cleft sentences in English and Norwegian. Examination of clefts in the Norwegian novel Sofies verden and its English translation supports informal observations that clefts are more commonly used in Norwegian than in English. Absolute restrictions and constraints on the discourse distribution of clefts do not differ in the two languages, and the information structural properties of English and Norwegian clefts are the same as well. It is proposed that the frequency difference results from a stronger tendency to map information structure directly onto syntactic structure in Norwegian. Specifically, there is a stronger preference in Norwegian for encoding presupposed material in the cleft clause and for keeping focal material out of subject position.