1st Edition

Minority Language Learning for Adult Migrants in Europe

Edited By James Simpson, Sari Pöyhönen Copyright 2025
    232 Pages 6 B/W Illustrations
    by Routledge

    This collection examines the learning and teaching of minority languages for adult migrants in Europe, with studies featuring perspectives from adult migrants themselves as well as local authorities, teachers, education planners and representatives from working life.

    The volume provides context on the attitudes and ideologies which inform adult migrant language education in different minority languages in Europe. Adult migrant language learners are understood here as newcomers settling and living in regions where the minority language is politically acknowledged and societally significant. The studies presented in the chapters are all original, and most are based on qualitative data such as interviews, ethnographic observations and policy documents. Some authors draw upon census and register data and surveys. The book is designed to be relatable to policy formation and implementation in other national contexts, in Europe and beyond.

    This book will be of interest to postgraduate students and researchers in language education, language and migration, language and mobility, minority language studies, language policy and linguistic ethnography, as well as language policy professionals.

    Contents

     

    Contributors

    Acknowledgements

     

    1. Adult Migrants Learning Minority Languages in Europe: An Introduction

    Sari Pöyhönen and James Simpson

     

    2. The Absence of Indigenous languages in Norwegian, Swedish, and Finnish immigrant introduction Programmes

    Nina Carlsson

     

    3. Learning Swedish in Contexts of Migration to Finland

    Linda Bäckman and Saara Haapamäki

     

    4. The Situated Nature of Investment in Language Learning: The Case of Two New Speakers of Faroese 

    Anna-Elisabeth Holm

     

    5. Can Frisian Cure? The Role of Frisian Language Policy and Education in Migrant Healthcare Professionals’ Integration in Fryslân

    Charlie Robinson-Jones, Ydwine R. Scarse and Joana Duarte 

     

    6. Developing Personal Integration Projects Through a Welsh Language Provision for Adult Migrants in Wales

    Gwennan Higham

     

    7. Adult Migrant Learners of Irish: An Exploration of Motivational Factors 

    Colin J. Flynn

     

    8. Adult Migrants’ Investment When Learning a Minoritised Language: Challenges and Opportunities In The Basque Country

    Maria Orcasitas-Vicandi, Gorka Roman-Etxebarrieta and Alexia Antzaka

     

    9. Boundary-Maintenance and Unwillingness to Learn Catalan: Ideologies of Multilingualism Among Hungarians in Catalonia

    Gergely Szabó

     

    10. Afterword

    Martha Bigelow

     

    Index

     

     

     

     

     

    Biography

    James Simpson is Associate Professor in the Division of Humanities at The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, where he directs the Masters programme in International Language Education.

    Sari Pöyhönen is Professor and Deputy Head of Research at the Centre for Applied Language Studies, University of Jyväskylä, Finland.