Finnish Culture and Language Endangered — Language Ideological Debates on English in the Finnish Press from 1995 to 2007

Abstract

In Finland, foreign languages have frequently been the focus of impassioned public debates — this is evinced in many of the chapters in this volume. In this attitudinal climate English is no exception. In the press, for example, this anxiety manifests itself in frequent avalanches of worry, suspicion and irritation. In these, English is typically depicted as a clear and present danger that can seriously disrupt the purity of the Finnish language and culture. What often seems to lie behind these concerns is a deep-rooted language ideology of the national language/s as a key defining the nation state and determining national and cultural identity and integrity.