English as a Transcultural Language in Swedish Policy and Practice

Hult, Francis M.

doi:10.1002/tesq.19

Cited by 121 publications

(76 citation statements)

References 58 publications

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“…The growing presence of English in teaching (Wächter & Maiworm, 2014) and research publication (Lillis & Curry, 2010) has become a source of concern for many stakeholders. This is particularly true in the Nordic countries , since English has made important inroads in the societies of these countries also outside the academia (Hult, 2012). Increasingly, this seems to be the case also in the Baltic states, although their level of engagement with English in higher education has become apparent only more recently (Wächter & Maiworm, 2014).…”

Section: Theory Data and Methodsmentioning

confidence: 98%

Multilayered perspectives on language policy in higher education: Finland, Estonia, and Latvia in comparison

Soler

Saarinen

Kibbermann

2016

Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development

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This article analyses language policies in higher education in Finland, Estonia and Latvia, as well as the European Union. We take a multilayered approach to language policies in order to illuminate the complex and intertwined (and sometimes contradictory) nature of local, national and international language policies in higher education. We are particularly interested in the construction of national or local language(s) and the language(s) of internationalisation in our case countries. Finland, Estonia and Latvia share common features as relatively small non-Anglophone countries in the Baltic region, while simultaneously having somewhat differing political and cultural histories. The results of our discursive analysis indicate that while the three countries have relatively different national language policies, regarding e.g. the position of the national language(s), the institutional policies are more similar in the three cases. For universities, the positioning of English as the de facto language of internationalisation turns the ideology of language choice in higher education into a practical rather than political question. However, at the state level, the promotion of English runs contrary to national policies. The European Union higher education language policy seems to acknowledge the institutional level's practical demands of English as de facto language of internationalisation rather than follow its own formal language policy of official languages.

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Section: Theory Data and Methodsmentioning

confidence: 98%

Multilayered perspectives on language policy in higher education: Finland, Estonia, and Latvia in comparison

Soler

Saarinen

Kibbermann

2016

Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development

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“…The natural use of English that teachers describe as distinguishing English from other foreign language subjects suggests, as Hult (2012) found in Sweden, that teachers imagine the English classroom as a space to learn more about content and less about language use as influenced by social norms. While metacultural awareness through reflection on cultural and historical knowledge is evident in what teachers describe, this awareness seems influenced by Norwegian history and the belief that English is owned by the nations who speak it.…”

Section: Strong Cultural But Weak Linguistic Orientationmentioning

confidence: 90%

“…In Sweden, for example, Hult (2010Hult ( , 2012 found that pre-service teachers and their instructor viewed the English classroom not as a space where language was used for functional communication influenced by social norms but instead as a space where these norms were suspended for the purpose of learning. Instead, participants in the study viewed situated and meaningful use of English as occurring in society and distinct from the use of English in school.…”

Section: Literature Reviewmentioning

confidence: 99%

What are the core aims of English as a school subject? A study of teacher understanding in lower secondary school

Chvala¹

2018

ADNO

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Teachers' interpretations of the core aims of a school subject open or constrain what can be taught and learned in the subject in school. The global spread of English and its changing status in the world have impacted how English as a school subject is understood and what it is meant to achieve. This article explores teachers' understandings of the core aims of English as a school subject at the end of basic English education in Norway. Data consist of interviews with 12 teachers across six schools in a large school district. Qualitative analyses of the data identify four core aims: 1) acquiring content knowledge of English-speaking countries, 2), developing communicative language ability 3) developing linguistic knowledge of English and 4) developing the democratic citizen. While acquiring knowledge and learning to communicate in English are dominant in teacher understanding IntroductionThe spread of English through globalization, technology, and migrationtogether with the rise in non-native users of English -is challenging previous definitions of what it means to know or to be proficient in English (Graddol, 2006;Jenkins, Cogo, & Dewey, 2011). As English increasingly becomes a language of contact for diverse speakers, new understandings of English competence potentially conflict with the established understanding and practices of the English language classroom (Hult & King, 2011;Nauman, 2011;Seidlhofer, 2011). Moreover, in many countries, changes in English education have often been top-down and rapidly implemented, assuming the benefits of early education and underestimating the teaching challenges involved in implementation (Hu, 2007).In anticipating a new subject curriculum for deeper learning of central elements in English as a school subject (Kunnskapsdepartement, 2017), it is timely to investigate how teachers understand these elements and the relationships between them. While much research on English language teaching in Norway has focused on developing specific English language skills -such as reading (Bakken, 2017;Brevik, 2014;Charboneau, 2012), writing (Burner, 2016), speaking (Bøhn, 2015;Bøhn & Hansen, 2017), and vocabulary development (Hestetraeet, 2012) -less research has focused on the overall aims of the subject and even less on teachers' understanding of these aims and how they expand or constrain what can be learned in the subject.The aim of this article is to investigate teachers' interpretations of the central aims of English as a school subject at the end of lower secondary school. The final years of lower secondary represent the culmination of 10 years of mandatory English education for all students in Norway. While the goal is not to The article begins with a discussion of current international trends in English language teaching and how these trends can be seen in Norway. This is followed by a description of the research design and analytical process used to explore teachers' understandings. The patterns in teacher understanding of the core aims of the subject are then presented...

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“…standard Swedish), its five national minority languages and the other mother tongues of its immigrants and their descendants, 4 Ö vdalsk lacks any kind of officialisation. It is not mentioned in the Language Act (SFS 2009:600) nor anywhere else in Sweden's unifying legislation on language (see Hult 2012;Salö 2016: 9-11). The same holds for Sweden's other Scandinavian nonstandards-interchangeably labelled 'vernaculars', 'parish vernaculars', '(local) languages', 'genuine dialects' or 'dialects' 5 -which, just as Ö vdalsk, are in use in some of its rural peripheries.…”

Section: A State Vision Of Linguistic Divisionsmentioning

confidence: 99%

State categories, state vision and vernacular woes in Sweden’s language politics

Karlander

2017

Lang Policy

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This article deals with the politics of classification in contemporary Sweden. It analyses the language political dispute that has developed over the language political regulation of Ö vdalsk, a non-standard form of Scandinavian spoken in Ä lvdalen in northern central Sweden. The analysis focuses on the ways in which a discursive exchange over metalinguistic categories contributes to the efficacy of a state vision of linguistic divisions. In the wake of Sweden's ratification of the European Charter for Regional and Minority Languages (ECRML), and the language political reforms in which the ratification was embedded, Ö vdalsk has emerged as a contentious issue. Over three decades (1990s-2010s), the question of what Ö vdalsk 'is'-a 'language', a 'dialect' or something else-has surged repeatedly in political, public and scholarly deliberations (i.e. in expert reports, in policy documents and in scientific publications). Nevertheless, the interests placed in this muddled taxonomic issue have not yet been subjected to any sociolinguistic analysis. Drawing on Bourdieu's work on the state, the article attends to the ways in which the exchange over Ö vdalsk has paid tribute to an increasingly entrenched symbolic order. Commenting on Sweden's commitment to the ECRML more generally, the article accounts for how and why an officialised vision of linguistic division has been rendered symbolically effective. Accordingly, the article argues that a sensitisation to the forms of tacit agreement that underwrite contention is a suitable lens for grasping the maintenance of a political order as legitimate and effective.

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English as a Transcultural Language in Swedish Policy and Practice

Cited by 121 publications

References 58 publications

Multilayered perspectives on language policy in higher education: Finland, Estonia, and Latvia in comparison

Multilayered perspectives on language policy in higher education: Finland, Estonia, and Latvia in comparison

What are the core aims of English as a school subject? A study of teacher understanding in lower secondary school

State categories, state vision and vernacular woes in Sweden’s language politics

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