Linguistic diversity is growing in Higher Education, driven by factors like internationalization and digitalization. This trend necessitates a reevaluation of language practices within academic communities. Language Centres play a crucial role in modelling effective practices and reshaping these practices to address the multilingual needs of…

This study focuses on students' orientations towards multilingualism in a Swedish-speaking educational degree program in Finland. Swedish is one of the two national languages in Finland and basic education is provided separately in Finnish and Swedish, even if the current national policies strongly support multilingualism in education. We analyzed…

Informed by Spolsky's language policy model and the notion of audience design, this study addresses the under-researched context of the multi-generational family originating in the old Polish migration to Sweden. Two families were studied with a focus on (i) intra-familial language choice, and (ii) language policies derived from this choice and…

This essay reports on the findings of a study of Swedish teenagers who have a free-time interest of creative writing in English. The essay includes extracts from interviews in which the participants explain their motivations to start their writing activity and continue with it over a longer period. Having been inspired initially by a desire to…

This article investigates how a contemporary urban vernacular (CUV) called Ortensvenska is used for social positioning at a prestigious inner-city Stockholm school. Previous studies have indicated that CUV is often a feature of those on the societal margins, but little research has focused on prestigious spaces where high-achieving students…

Linguistic diversity emerging from international student mobility, in non-anglophone universities, is typically eclipsed by the existing tensions between the national language(s) and English as 'Lingua franca'. Through a series of semi-structured interviews with university lecturers, this study highlights the tensions surrounding national…

Sweden is often commended for the inclusion of home languages in the formal education system: both mother tongue instruction (where a pupil's home language is taught as an optional school subject) and study guidance (where a pupil is given content support in their home language or prior language of schooling) are offered. Still, while many…

International mobility has caused a need for language education where adults can learn the language(s) used in their new country. In Sweden, the language programme SFI (Swedish for immigrants) provides basic second language education for adult immigrants. For those learners who are not yet functionally literate, basic literacy education is…

The study compares the uses of the native-speaker concept as a legitimizing resource in language-standard ideologies and normative discourse in five languages of European origin. Much research and international discussion has focused on the native speaker of English, a symbolically international language. We aim to show how the native-speaker…

Drawing on the ethico-political framework of hospitality, this paper investigates the communicative practices of three administrative support staff as they attempt to manage the twin challenges of working in adherence to state and institutional language policies while communicating ethically in an internationalising workplace. Academic…

This paper studies how transnational children and their distantly located but emotionally close family members recreate their relationship using applications for online video calling. The focus is on the interaction of bodies and language, and if/how proximity of any kind is enabled. A critical posthumanist applied linguistics is embraced and…

This paper explores family language policy in Turkish-speaking families in Sweden. Questionnaires were administered to the parents of 105 Turkish/Swedish children (age 4-7), targeting family language practices (including parent-parent, parent-child, child-parent, child-and-sibling conversation and language-fostering activities such as joint book…

We examined factors determining parental success in transmitting heritage language (HL) and literacy in Russian-speaking migrant families of comparable socioeconomic status (SES) in Cyprus, Ireland, Israel and Sweden. A total of 345 Russian speakers completed a questionnaire about their language use and home language practices. Of those, we chose…

The authors investigate the sociolinguistic dynamics in multilingual families from the point of view of speakers' linguistic trajectories, ideologies, and repertoires. Drawing on interview data from intermarried couples of different generational and linguistic profiles of two families in Sweden, the authors examine how speakers' lived experience…

The dominance of English in scientific production raises issues in relation to certain responsibilities of Swedish universities, linked to the dissemination of knowledge and the development of the Swedish language. In light of this, the article deals with Swedish-language summaries (SLSs) in English-language doctoral theses. It treats the SLS as…