Drawing on the ethico-political framework of hospitality, this paper investigates the communicative practices of three administrative support staff as they attempt to manage the twin challenges of working in adherence to state and institutional language policies while communicating ethically in an internationalising workplace. Academic…

This article deals with the politics of classification in contemporary Sweden. It analyses the language political dispute that has developed over the language political regulation of Övdalsk, a non-standard form of Scandinavian spoken in Älvdalen in northern central Sweden. The analysis focuses on the ways in which a discursive exchange over…

The research question of the present paper is the following: to what degree (if any) is gender relevant as an explanatory factor in, firstly, the process of assimilation and later, the process of (re)vitalisation of indigenous and minority languages in northern Fenno-Scandia (the North Calotte)? The assimilation of the ethnic groups in question…

In the wake of the enactment of Sweden's Language Act in 2009 and in the face of the growing presence of English, Swedish universities have been called upon by the Swedish Higher Education Authority to craft their own language policy documents. This study focuses on the discursive negotiation of institutional bilingualism by a language policy…

This report discusses and compares language planning and the Swedish-speaking minority in Finland and the English-speaking minority in Quebec. The report discusses four issues: historical minorities and the demographic dynamic; municipalities; the language of work; and other minority language groups. It is concluded that, despite numerous surface…

Language cultivation includes any activity aimed consciously at influencing a language so that it improves or does not deteriorate. Three dilemmas face Swedish language cultivators: (1) the complexity of societal ideology; (2) the complexity of language itself as a social institution; (3) the balance between social integration and individual…

This study attempts to give an account of the position of English in Finland, where both Swedish and Finnish are official languages and taught in the schools of both Swedish and Finnish areas of the country. To provide a better understanding of the position of English, a brief historical sketch is provided, with emphasis on the development of…

This article discusses language planning in Sweden. The Swedish Academy has as its goal to develop the purity, strength and nobility of the Swedish language by means of dictionaries, grammars, and the codification of vocabulary. Sweden also has a National Language Committee, one of a network of such committees existing in the Scandinavian…

This book focuses on the minority languages of Europe, those other than the national languages of European Union member states, by looking at the demographic, sociolinguistic, and educational aspects of both regional and immigrant languages. Empirical evidence for the status of these other languages of multicultural Europe is brought together in a…