Can a True Finn Speak Swedish?

The Swedish Language in the Finns Party Discourse

Authors

  • Hasan Akintug University of Helsinki

Keywords:

Rhetoric, Nationalism, Populism, Identity, Discourse

Abstract

This paper aims to analyse the rhetorical utilisation of Swedish language in the discourse of the Finns Party. This contribution will provide an overview of the history of Swedish language in Finland and will attempt to analyse the relationship between the two language groups. This contribution will analyse the rhetorical uses of Swedish language within the discourse of the Finns Party with the intention to highlight the consistently negative portrayals of Swedish language and its status. It will be argued that the historical experience of the inequality of status between the Swedish and Finnish languages have been politicised by the Finns Party as a part of its ethno-nationalist and populist conceptualisation of the Finnish identity.

Author Biography

Hasan Akintug, University of Helsinki

Hasan Akintug holds a bachelor’s degree in Political Science and Public Administration from Hacettepe University and is currently a student at the University of Helsinki, European and Nordic Studies Master’s program. He has worked as a research assistant at IKME Sociopolitical Studies Institute, the Åland Islands Peace Institute and the Centre for European Studies at the University of Helsinki. His main research interests include minorities, autonomous regions.

 

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Published

01.06.2019

How to Cite

Akintug, H. (2019). Can a True Finn Speak Swedish? : The Swedish Language in the Finns Party Discourse. Journal of Autonomy and Security Studies, 3(1), 28–39. Retrieved from https://jass.ax/index.php/jass/article/view/32

Issue

Vol. 3 No. 1 (2019): Journal of Autonomy and Security Studies

Section

Articles

License

Copyright (c) 2019 Journal of Autonomy and Security Studies

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.