Browsing by Subject "Swedish"

International degree students sojourning in Finland’s Helsinki Capital Region may acquire skills in two official languages: Finnish and Swedish, respectively spoken natively by 79.9% and 5.8% of the region’s population. This study uses 114 web survey responses from students enrolled in English-medium Master’s programmes to determine whether they report knowledge of Finnish and especially of Swedish, a minority language. The likelihood a respondent reports knowledge of a local language is predicted by a model of language acquisition used on immigrant populations in bilingual countries, a model in which local language skills are considered to be a source of both social and economic capital. Over 90% of participants stated they had Finnish abilities while 21% reported having non-native Swedish skills. Almost all of those who declared being able to speak some Swedish could also speak some Finnish, a language for which they generally reported higher skills. Knowledge of Finnish was primarily associated with having a Finnish-speaking partner, living outside of a student neighborhood and originating from Russia or Central Asia. Knowledge of Swedish was mainly associated with studying in a primarily Swedish-language institution, being male and regarding as likely to live in a Nordic country in 5 years. While Finnish dominates most spheres of social life in the Helsinki Capital Region, it appears an institution of study provided sufficient exposure to the minority language of Swedish to explain in part its acquisition by international degree students. While learning Swedish was not compulsory in their study programme, respondents enrolled at a Swedish-language institution were as much as 16 times more likely than those studying at a Finnish-language institution to report knowledge of Swedish. Consequently, for newcomers like international degree students to adopt the minority language of their bilingual host community, involvement in institutions where the language is dominant might be key.