Diskurser om språkbruk och hemkänsla i ett enkätmaterial om finlandssvensk intern migration

Abstract

This article investigates discourses on language accommodation and senses of regional belonging among Swedish-speaking in-migrants (i.e. those who move within the same country) in Finland. It focuses on people who have moved from a small municipality in western Nyland to other parts of Finland. In the study, a material consisting of answers to open-ended questions in a web survey on the in-migrants’ perceptions of their language change is examined using discourse-theoretical analysis (Laclau & Mouffe 2001). The aim of the analysis is to pinpoint how discourses about the language varieties involved (i.e. standard Finland-Swedish, the local western Nyland dialect and other Finland-Swedish dialects), the process of language accommodation and the perceptions of regional belonging are constructed in the material. The analysis indicates that only the discourse on standard Finland-Swedish as the correct and most widely understood variety is unchallenged. A more complex picture emerges regarding discourses about local dialects, changes in linguistic behaviour and perceptions of regional belonging over time. In these cases, discourses that are diametrically opposed, although equally strong are constructed. The study’s qualitative overview contributes to the knowledge of the specific mobile group in question, while also proposing a complementary methodological perspective to the prevailingly variational linguistic studies of language change in connection with geographical mobility.