Tests given at the German Institute of the University of Stockholm to 32 Finnish students studying German revealed that both their native language and their Swedish interfered with their learning German, in about equal degree overall. The mother tongue, Finnish, caused more interference errors in pronunciation. (Text is in German.) (IFS/WGA)

Visual recognition of inflected, derived, and morphophonemic Swedish nouns in monolingual Swedish and bilingual Swedish-Finnish speakers was investigated. Bilinguals were slower overall; inflected items yielded disproportionately longer reaction times in the bilingual group. Derived forms elicited fastest reaction times in both groups. The…

Examines three Nordic bilingual programs: (1) immersion, where majority children with a high status mother tongue learn a second language; (2) submersion, where minority children with a low status mother tongue are forced to learn the majority language; and (3) language shelter, where minority children learn the majority language as a second…

Characterizes the perception of stylistic nuances of lexical items in both Swedish and Finnish among members of the Sweden Finnish minority in Sweden, with special emphasis on Swedish. Results are discussed in the context of the ongoing debate on immigrants and integration, and suggest a more similar language use may indicate a higher degree of…

A description of an analysis of 10,000 errors made by Finns and Swedes who were learning Finnish or Swedish as a foreign language. A new classification of errors is established and a precise definition of language mixing is given. Five types of errors are described. (AMH)

Clarifies issues related to the transferability of bound morphology and reports on an empirical investigation of morphological transfer in the spatial expressions of Finnish-speaking and Swedish-speaking adolescent learners of English. Results indicate that both the bound agglutinative morphology of the Finnish spatial system and the free,…

Examined the view that the variation in bilingual short-term memory capacity is determined by differential rates of subvocal rehearsal between the languages. Auditory memory span and articulation time were measured for three bilingual groups who spoke Finnish at home and Swedish at school, and either Finnish of Swedish in both the home and the…

This newsletter reports on a project concerning the linguistic development of immigrant children in Sweden in upper secondary school. The project is part of an extensive program on immigrant children's schooling and attainment of bilingualism conducted by the SPRINS Group at the University of Goteborg (SPRINS in Swedish represents "linguistic…

A study investigating favorable and unfavorable contexts for learning some word order rules in Swedish as a second language is reported. The rules examined are subject-verb inversion after a preposed non-subject in main clauses and the rules for placement of the negative particle. Subjects were 60 adult native speakers of Finnish, Polish, and…

Describes a bilingual education program for Finnish children in Sweden. Analyzes some of the factors influencing the school and language achievement of the Finnish pupils and compares their achievement level with other relevant student groups. (EKN)

Demonstrates the use of a multivariate technique known as logit analysis, applying it to authentic data drawn from Juurakko (1996) which studies the influences of the source language and the target language on the use of prepositions in Finnish pupils' learner Swedish. The interlanguage data for the analysis consist of essays written in Swedish by…

This collection of six essays and one bibliography on second language learning includes: (1) "Transfer in Relation to Some Other Variables in L2-Learning" (Hakan Ringbom); (2) "Word Frequencies in Finnish and Finland-Swedish Learner Language" (Hakan Ringbom); (3) "The Influence of Swedish on the English of Finnish…

This paper discusses the interlanguage conversation as a process in an institutional setting. The interaction type in question is language proficiency interview and the material discussed is a series of interviews of French second language learners whose mother tongue is either Finnish or Swedish. These interviews are compared to non-evaluative…

Analysis of beginning second language textbooks for German, Swedish, English, and Finnish looked at the readability of the contents. Finnish and English texts are examined more closely here as illustrations of the problems found in all four languages. Specific passages are cited and discussed; two are appended. A general framework of text…

Semilingualism is discussed as a sociolinguistic concept and is viewed as a mediating variable when the society reproduces the class structure and vocational structure of suppressed minorities. A Finnish group of immigrant children in Sweden is the minority considered. It was found that the longer the Finnish children were educated in Finnish, the…