1st Edition
English in the Nordic Countries Connections, Tensions, and Everyday Realities
Chapter 1. English in the Nordic countries: An introduction
Elizabeth Peterson and Kristy Beers Fägersten
Part I: Background and critical perspectives
Chapter 2. The role of English in the Nordic language system
Johan Strang
Chapter 3. Shifting connections between English and the languages of the Nordic region
Elizabeth Peterson
Chapter 4. Anglicization of the languages of the Nordic countries: Popular culture and everyday discourse
Kristy Beers Fägersten
Chapter 5. Language contact and language change: Impact on the languages of the Nordic countries
Helga Hilmisdóttir and Elizabeth Peterson
Chapter 6. Beyond threat or opportunity: English and language ideological tensions in the Nordic countries
Janus Mortensen
Part II: English in different settings
Chapter 7. Parallelingualism, translanguaging, and English-medium instruction in Nordic higher education
BethAnne Paulsrud and Una Cunningham
Chapter 8. English in the Nordic workplace: Practices, policies, and ideologies
Dorte Lønsmann
Chapter 9. English in Norway’s multilingual North: A rhizomatic view on encounters with historical and transnational diversity
Florian Hiss
Chapter 10. Metapragmatics of "bad" English in Finnish social media
Samu Kytölä
Chapter 11. English in Nordic multilingual families: Couple and family language practices
Kaisa S. Pietikäinen and Louisa Gühr
Chapter 12. English in the Nordic countries: Conclusions
Elizabeth Peterson and Kristy Beers Fägersten
Biography
Elizabeth Peterson is a senior university lecturer in the Department of Languages at the University of Helsinki. She is a sociolinguist who specializes in variation, language contact, language attitudes, and ideologies. An American migrant to Finland, she is especially interested in the dynamics of multilingualism, language rights, and language change.
Kristy Beers Fägersten is Professor of English Linguistics at the School of Culture and Education at Södertörn University, Sweden. Her research disciplines include pragmatics, discourse analysis, sociolinguistics, and conversation analysis. Her publications feature analyses of the language of media and popular culture, with a special focus on language play, humor, and swearing.
The Nordic languages have a millennium of spatial co-existence, but it is only through a view from outside, from the perspective of the influence of English for less than a century that it has gained social, cultural, and linguistic unity as a coherent place. This volume is an exciting and innovative take on the Nordic languages, with each chapter showcasing the latest research in its respective subfield and forming an indispensable set of readings for a deeper understanding of the Nordic mentality. The editors' final chapter not only successfully brings the findings by the respective authors together, but also in a creative fashion presents the views of ten eminent Nordic scholars on the relation between English and the Nordic languages.
Jan-Ola Östman, prof. em. University of Helsinki, Finland
