Abstract.

This book examines medium-sized linguistic communities in urban contexts against the backdrop of the language policies which have been implemented in these respective areas. The book aims to improve our understanding of how and why languages live and decay, and of how intercultural cities, where communities show interest in each other's culture and language, can be better built and encouraged.

This book presents, for the first time, an overarching, trans-Scandinavian, comprehensive and comparable account of linguistic developments and practices in late modern urban contact zones. The book aims to capture the multilingual realities of all young people in urban contexts, whether they are of migrant descent or not. Taking a multi-layered approach to linguistic practices, chapters in the book include structural and phonological analyses of new linguistic practices, examine how these practices and their practitioners are perceived, and discuss the sociolinguistic potentials of speakers when constructing, challenging and negotiating identities. The book also contains three short overview articles describing studies of multilingual practices in Sweden, Denmark and Norway. The editors have aimed to make Scandinavian research on urban multilingualism accessible to scholars and students who don’t speak Scandinavian languages, and also to make a valuable contribution to the global study of multilingualism.

This volume provides a systematic comparative treatment of urban contact dialects in the Global North and South, examining the emergence and development of these dialects in major cities in sub-Saharan Africa and North-Western Europe. The book’s focus on contemporary urban settings sheds light on the new language practices and mixed ways of speaking resulting from large-scale migration and the intense contact that occurs between new and existing languages and dialects in these contexts. In comparing these new patterns of language variation and change between cities in both Africa and Europe, the volume affords us a unique opportunity to examine commonalities in linguistic phenomena as well as sociolinguistic differences in societally multilingual settings and settings dominated by a strong monolingual habitus. These comparisons are reinforced by a consistent chapter structure, with each chapter presenting the linguistic and social context of the region, information on available data (including corpora), sociolinguistic and structural findings, a discussion of the status of the urban contact dialect, and its stability over time. The discussion in the book is further enriched by short commentaries from researchers contributing different theoretical and geographical perspectives. Taken as a whole, the book offers new insights into migration-based linguistic diversity and patterns of language variation and change, making this ideal reading for students and scholars in general linguistics and language structure, sociolinguistics, creole studies, diachronic linguistics, language acquisition, anthropological linguistics, language education and discourse analysis.

More than half a million Swedes – one in twenty – is of Finnish descent. This book explores Finnishness, multilingualism and identities of young people with Finnish background in Sweden. What does it mean to grow up in a Finnish family in Sweden? Who are ‘real Finns’ and what does it take to be(come) one? Is a shared minority language essential for the survival of the minority, or can a minority culture stay viable without it? What is Finnishness and who, in the end, can define ethnicity? How to make sense of, and how to present interviews that are rich with imitations of accents, jokes and laughter? Representations of Finnishness is Sweden is an ethnographic interview study in the domain of applied language studies. This book is aimed at readers interested in sociolinguistics, linguistic ethnography, and the study of identities. Interviewees’ voices take a central position in this book and interview excerpts are used not only as illustrations, but also serve as starting points for discussing broader theoretical concepts.

The Sociolinguistics of Urbanization.

Linguistic Choices in the Contemporary City focuses on how individuals navigate conversation in highly diversified contexts and provides a broad overview of state of the art research in urban sociolinguistics across the globe. Bearing in mind the impact of international travel and migration, the book accounts for the shifting contemporary studies to the workings of language choices in places where people with many different backgrounds meet and exchange ideas. It specifically addresses how people handle language use challenges in a broad range of settings to present themselves positively and meet their information and identity goals. While a speaker’s experience runs like a thread through this volume, the linguistic, cultural and situational focus is as broad as possible. It runs from the language choices of Chinese immigrants to Beijing and Finnish immigrants to Japan to the use of the local lingua franca by motor taxi drivers in Ngaoundéré, Cameroon, and how Hungarian students in their dorm rooms express views on political correctness uninhibitedly. As it turns out, language play, improvisation, humour, lies, as well as highly marked subconscious pronunciation choices, are natural parts of the discourses, and this volume provides numerous and extensive examples of these techniques. For each of the settings discussed, the perspective is taken of personalised linguistic and extra-linguistic styles in tackling communicative challenges. This way, a picture is drawn of how postmodern individuals in extremely different cultural and situational circumstances turn out to have strikingly similar human behaviours and intentions. Linguistic Choices in the Contemporary City is of interest to all those who follow theoretical and methodological developments in this field. It will be of use for upper level students in the fields of Sociolinguistics, Pragmatics, Linguistic Anthropology and related fields in which urban communicative settings are the focus.

This second edition of Finnish: An Essential Grammar has undergone profound revisions. The chapter on basic sentence structure has been rewritten and syntax has been given more space. Sections have been added on phrase types, simple clause types, and types of complex sentences. A section on discourse particles has been added. The vocabulary of the copious example sentences has been updated to give it a touch of the twenty-first century. The section on modern colloquial Finnish has been considerably expanded. Internet addresses helpful for any learner of Finnish are provided which make is possible to automatically analyse the grammatical structure of any Finnish words and sentences. It gives not only a systematic account of the structures of the written language, but also features the characteristics of colloquial Finnish. No prior knowledge is assumed on the part of the reader and grammatical rules are clearly explained without jargon. Features include: pronunciation guide, including the tendencies in present-day colloquial Finnish thorough descriptions of morphology (word structure) and syntax (sentence structure) clear rules and an abundance of concrete examples inflection tables subject index internet addresses to online software for grammatical analysis of Finnish. This is the ideal reference source both for those studying Finnish independently and for students in schools, colleges, universities and adult classes of all types.

In this volume, authors from four disciplines join forces to develop an analysis of political discourse on a comparative and multidisciplinary basis. Theoretically the book draws on the concept of language policy, operationalising it through the politics and policies of Finland and Sweden.