English in contact with "the most difficult language in the world": the linguistic Situation of Americans living in Finland

Abstract

Several aspects of the language use of Americans living in Finland, of second-language learning, and offirst-language maintenance are discussed. Most of this discussion is based on the results obtained in a joint Nordic research project called Development of Immigrant Languages in the Nordic Region. First, a brief outline of the project, the group under study — Americans in Helsinki — and its language-use pattern is given. Second, the linguistic climate, for example the significance of Finnish and English, in Finland is described. The third section deals with Americans' second-language-learning opportunities, both in and outside the classroom. In the fourth section, the informants' reports of changes in their mother tongue are analyzed and commented on. Finally, the main results of two followup studies on Americans in Finland are described briefly.