Language as a resource: public sector discourse on the role of regional minority and community languages in integration and employment

ABSTRACT

This paper presents a thematic analysis of public sector discourse on the values assigned to regional minority and community languages within the UK and Finland. This paper draws from semi-structured interviews conducted in Manchester, Cardiff, Helsinki, and Rovaniemi. Two key themes emerged from the interview data: Language as a Resource for Integration and Language as a Resource for Employment. The findings demonstrate that the concept of language as a resource is multidimensional and complex, as majority, regional minority, and community languages are valued differently within macro-policy and service provider discourse. In the public sector discourse, the majority language skills were positioned as necessary resources for migrants’ integration into society. However, the regional minority languages, Welsh in Wales and Swedish in Finland, were framed as providing additional integration benefits. Community language skills were acknowledged as resources for meeting the diverse language needs of the public sector. However, both regional minority and community languages were positioned as ancillary to the majority languages for employment opportunities. Overall, these patterns reveal a hierarchical attribution of value based on underlying ideologies that emphasise the civic and economic benefits of multilingualism.

KEYWORDS:

• Language policy
• public sector discourse
• language as a resource
• thematic analysis
• integration

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 The language-as-resource orientation has been critiqued by scholars, such as Petrovic (2005) and Ricento (2005), for its use in promoting militarisation and economic goals, rather than ensuring bilingual education for minority speakers (Ruíz, 2010).

2 See Pöyhönen and Simpson (2020) for an account of an asylum seeker in Finland, who started a business and learned Swedish in order to achieve de facto integration into the community, despite the official authorities’ preference for integration in Finnish.

3 Many scholars have pointed out the commodification of English in the global linguistic marketplace (Cameron, 2012) and the complex and often exclusionary hierarchies of language use within international workplaces (Lønsmann, 2014).

4 In contrast, multiple recent studies have focused on how language as a resource is managed and negotiated in ‘blue collar’ workplaces (Gonçalves, 2020; Strömmer, 2020; Sherman & Homoláč, 2020).

5 In other contexts, such as Norway and Sweden, the language discourse surrounding the values of Sámi language skills can be significantly different to those prevalent in Finland (Nyseth & Pedersen, 2014).

6 The use of volunteers or ‘lay interpreters’ is a wide-spread phenomenon, particularly in contexts where funding is limited and legal obligations are minimal. It could be argued that languages are positioned in the discourse as being valued but are not prioritised financially.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by Multilingual Manchester as part of the research consortium Cross-Language Dynamics: Re-Shaping Community, which is funded by the AHRC under the Open World Research Initiative.

Notes on contributors

Kathleen Easlick

Kathleen Easlick is a Postdoctoral Researcher at Multilingual Manchester. She received a PhD from the University of Manchester in 2018. Her research explores the relationship between language policy and practice and the challenges of multilingualism in public administration. She is also interested in comparative perspectives on language policy and service provision in relation to regional minority and community languages. Her research interests include agency in language policy and practice, multilingualism in the private sector, and the relationship between language rights and language needs.