Monolingual, bilingual, trilingual? multi-layered language policy pressures of Finnish universities

This presentation analyses the tensions on monolingual, bilingual and trilingual language policies in Finnish higher education, reflecting on these from the position of Swedish in one monolingually Swedish university (Åbo Akademi University) and one bilingual university (University of Helsinki), both with explicit policies on using English as second or third language. It contributes to an understanding of the position of minority languages in universities in times when the use of English has increased on one hand and neo-nationalist tendencies stressing the importance of national language(s) are on the rise on the other. The presentation is based on an analysis of a primary data of 19 interviews in University of Helsinki and Abo Akademi University, and is grounded on the author’s earlier work on higher education language policies in Finland. The results suggest that a combination of societal, higher education, and language policy developments have now challenged the Finnish higher education language policy, having implications also to the Finnish constitutional bilingualism. First of all, policies of internationalization and profiling higher education institutions based on their disciplinary specialization or other orientation stretch the boundaries of the university language policies and challenge language policies based on primarily language arguments. Second, contradicting views exist also in higher education about the applicability of the notion that monolingual institutions support societal bilingualism; a principle known as “Taxell’s paradox” in Finnish language policy and the ideology of constitutional bilingualism. Third, neo-nationalist discourses that are becoming more apparent in the Finnish society tend to tilt the discussion towards a concern for the position of Finnish rather than Swedish, thus making Swedish invisible in language political debates where it had previously been a contested entity.