suomi
Keywords:
administrative language, Finnish as L2, agency, language socialization at workAbstract
The article explores the language of public administration from an L2 perspective. The main question addressed in the study is how professionals with an L2 background see themselves as users of the administrative registers and how their professional language skills and socialization into the administrative discourses is assessed by their colleagues and citizens as clients. The data for the study consist of interviews with administrative professionals with immigrant backgrounds (Finnish as L2) and their superiors with a majority language background (Finnish as L1). The article discusses the ideals of “good” administrative language (pertinence, clarity and comprehensibility) from the point of view of second language use and language socialization in the workplace. While the interviewees occasionally report on problems in adopting genrespecifc features in everyday administrative communication, the analysis shows that professionals with immigrant backgrounds share the overall knowledge of administrative genres and textual practices with their (L1) colleagues, and that, in their interview talk, they foreground their own agency as users of administrative language.
