Pakkomuuttajat ruotsin kielen oppijoina ja käyttäjinä – kielellisen kansalaisuuden teemoja suomenruotsalaisissa sanomalehdissä
Forced migrants as learners and users of Swedish: Themes of linguistic citizenship in Finnish-Swedish newspapers
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.30661/afinlavk.157250Avainsanat:
pakkomuuttajat, kielellinen kansalaisuus, ruotsin kieli, sanomalehdetAbstrakti
In this article, we examine the ways in which the learning and use of Swedish by forced migrants is discussed in the three prominent Finnish Swedish-language newspapers Hufvudstadsbladet, Vasabladet and Västra Nyland. We focus on themes emerging in newspaper articles about the language choices of asylum seekers mainly from the Middle East (years 2015–2016) and of beneficiaries of temporary protection from Ukraine (years 2022–2023). First, we review forced migration and integration in Finland via Swedish from the perspectives of terminology, statistics, legislation and previous media research. We then consider the premise of linguistic citizenship (Stroud 2001, 2018; Stroud & Heugh 2004) and review key features of media discourses of immigration in research literature. In the analysis, we examine four main themes in our data – (1) who get to speak about Swedish in the articles, (2) the perceived easiness of Swedish, (3) Swedish as an alternative to Finnish, and (4) the wider Swedish-language area. Finally, we discuss the findings in a broader societal context.
