Language Policies in Finland and Sweden

This excellent book provides a state of the art account of language issues in Sweden and Finland, presented in an interesting theoretical frame. The authors’ view that language policy is multi-sited and in constant dialogic development results in a cohesive volume which reveals both the origins and the current complexities of Northern language policy and practice.

-- Sue Wright, University of Portsmouth, UK

Thanks to multiple perspectives, the present volume offers valuable insight into how problems caused by different languages have been felt at the grass roots level – among immigrants, in classrooms, during job interviews and in other every-day situations – and how politicians and legislators have sought to solve them. This coherent and well-edited book is definitively worthwhile reading for all who are interested in Scandinavian societal policies or language issues in general.

-- Marko Lamberg, Stockholm University, Sweden

This methodologically innovative volume carefully exposes the construal nature of ‘language’ vis-à-vis ‘national language’, ‘minority language’ or ‘home language’. It broadens our understanding of the interconnectedness of local practices and larger policies, and shows how macro level language policies are remodelled, experienced, and acted upon in individual life experiences.

-- Taru Nordlund, University of Helsinki, Finland

The book promotes interdisciplinary and constructivist approach in research. Some of the comments by the authors on links between academic subjects are startlingly true: history and linguistics are close for the simple fact that research in history is mainly based on written documents. For someone who is a linguist, the book contains a great deal of complex theorising, and argumentation for a new approach to language policy research, probably designed to break intra- or interdisciplinary barriers.

-- Simo Mannila, Centre for International Affairs, Helsinki * NJMR, 6(3), 2016, 183-191 *

Instead of merely calling for more language policy research of an ethnographic nature, this volume takes a step in this rather recent direction. With these well elaborated examples of ethnographically-oriented language policy research and the focus on multi-sitedness that respects the interconnectedness of policy discourses, the book comes some way closer to a multidimensional and holistic view of language policy.

-- Adrian Lundberg, Malmo University, Sweden * Language Policy (2017)