Conference on the Languages of the Nordic Countries as a Second Language

The program for the conference will be published during the spring of 2026.

• Cecilie Hamnes Carlsen (Western Norway University of Applied Sciences)
  • about developments in test research, in Norwegian
• Benjamin Lyngfelt and Julia Prentice (University of Gotheborg)
  • about construction grammar and second language teaching, in Swedish
• Minna Suni (University of Jyväskylä)
  • about vocational language education

The abstracts can be found on the Norwegian version of the website.

There are eight thematic panels (A-H).

PANEL A: Bridging Languages: Translanguaging and Mother Tongue Education in Nordic Schools

Anna Tokmilenko

This panel explores how mother tongue instruction (modersmålsundervisning) in Nordic schools can act as a bridge between pupils’ heritage languages and the school’s majority language, and how translanguaging practices can support both language development and inclusion. While multilingualism is growing across the Nordic region, pedagogical frameworks and age-appropriate models for structured biliteracy development are still emerging, particularly for newly arrived students.

The panel takes as a starting point the role of mother tongue teachers as linguistic and cultural mediators who enable pupils to use their full linguistic repertoires. By validating and systematically activating pupils’ first language (L1), mother tongue instruction strengthens vocabulary, conceptual development, identity, and confidence, and builds foundations for academic language in the majority language (L2). This aligns with Cummins’ interdependence hypothesis (2000), translanguaging pedagogy (García & Wei, 2014), and sociocultural perspectives on scaffolded learning (Vygotskij, 1987; de Oliveira & Westerlund, 2022).

The panel welcomes contributions that present classroom-based practices, innovative bilingual teaching materials, early literacy models, or small-scale empirical studies showing how translanguaging and mother tongue instruction promote inclusion, motivation, and language development among multilingual learners. Examples may include bilingual workbooks, structured teaching cycles, collaboration between modersmål and SVA/mainstream teachers, and digital resources for multilingual support.

Both research-based and practice-oriented presentations are invited, with the aim of connecting classroom experience to theoretical perspectives and creating dialogue between teachers, researchers, school leaders, and municipal coordinators in the Nordic region. Through shared insights, the panel seeks to strengthen mother tongue instruction as an integral and research-informed part of multilingual education in Nordic schools, consistent with curriculum frameworks (e.g., Lgr22).

References

Cummins (2000); García & Wei (2014); Vygotskij (1987); Black & Wiliam (1998/2009); de Oliveira & Westerlund (2022); Skolverket (2022)

PANEL B: Critical perspectives on second language learning, race and education in the Nordics

Jonas Yassin Iversen, Vander Tavares

Critical perspectives on language and race, such as decolonial and raciolinguistic perspectives, have received increased attention in second language education research in recent years (Makoni et al., 2023). This research illustrates how the languages and language practices of racialized teachers and students are often devalued in the education system, which contributes to the reproduction of social inequalities (Flores & Rosa, 2015). Critical perspectives challenge established ideologies about language, including monolingual, standard, and academic language ideologies.

Although decolonial and raciolinguistic perspectives have so far had a limited presence in the Nordics, they provide important tools for reassessing established truths and critically analyzing the education system. This is particularly relevant in light of societal changes such as increased immigration and the ongoing struggle of the Sámi people for language and identity. Critical perspectives contribute to more inclusive spaces and just understandings of language and identity in education.

Since 2024, Nordand has had a thematic series on critical perspectives on second language learning, race, and education in the Nordics. Several critical studies have already been published in the series (Meek-Bøe & Kjelaas, 2024; Monsen & Steien, 2025). In this thematic panel, we want to bring together researchers who share an interest in critical perspectives on language and race within research on second language learning. We are interested in theoretical and empirical contributions, both with a direct anchoring in second language teaching or with implications for the field that can help expand our understanding of the interaction between language, race, and education in the Nordics.

References

Flores, N. & Rosa, J. (2015). Undoing appropriateness: Raciolinguistic ideologies and language diversity in education. Harvard Educational Review, 85(2), 149-171.

Makoni, S., Madany-Saá, M., Antia, B. E., & Gomes, R. L. (2023b). Decolonial voices, language and race. Multilingual Matters.

Meek-Bøe, S. C., & Kjelaas, I. (2024). «Jeg er heldig, fordi jeg kan jobbe som pleieassistent». Konstruksjonen av innlæreridentitet i læreboka På vei for voksne innvandrere i Norge. Nordand, 19(2), 129-142.

Monsen, M., & Steien, G. B. (2025). Prekarisering gjennom Introduksjonsprogrammet for voksne innvandrere: En kritisk tilnærming. Nordand, 20(1), 40-54.

PANEL C: Nordic Second Languages in Health and Care Professions

Nana Clemensen, Trude Bukve

Across the Nordic countries, the healthcare sector is increasingly characterized by linguistic and cultural diversity, due to growing presence of adult migrants from non-Nordic countries. Whether employed as unskilled or skilled care workers, enrolled in social and healthcare education programs, or practicing as nurses, dentists, or physicians – individuals are expected to navigate complex communicative demands, such as oral, written, and non-verbal competencies, in interaction with patients/citizens, next of kins, and colleagues. We thus need to understand language use in healthcare settings across the Nordic countries – how it is practiced, interpreted, and negotiated in everyday settings such as care homes, home care services, hospitals, general practices, and healthcare education programs. We also need to understand the linguistic challenges and potentials that characterize the involvement of employees and students in the sector. Particular attention will be given to the linguistic challenges and affordances experienced by migrant professionals and students, and to the implications these have for identity formation, professional authority, and epistemic access.

This panel seeks to advance scholarly inquiry into the role of second language acquisition and use within the institutional and pedagogical contexts of Nordic healthcare services. We aim to explore the dynamics of formal and informal workplace language practices in health-related domains, multilingual communicative strategies across diverse clinical and caregiving contexts, structural and interactional barriers to linguistic inclusion and professional development.

We welcome interdisciplinary perspectives and discussions that draw on fields such as migration studies, educational research, health anthropology and sociology, applied linguistics, sociolinguistics, and second language research.

PANEL D: Construction-based Approaches to Second Language Learning and Teaching of Nordic Languages

Olaf Anker Mikkelsen, Snorre Karkkonen Svensson

This thematic panel welcomes contributions that discuss second language acquisition within usage-based frameworks in accordance with the CREED principles (Ellis 2006), which state that second language learning is “Construction-based, Rational, Exemplary-based, Emergent and Dialectic”.

Construction-based here refers to Construction Grammar, a family of theoretical frameworks that share the following fundamental assumptions (Ungerer & Hartmann 2023):(i) language does not sharply distinguish between vocabulary and grammar; everything from morphemes to abstract patterns can be characterised as constructions;(ii) these constructions are organised in a dynamic network of associations;(iii) they are learned through usage (generalisation over concrete usage events);(iv) without a universal grammar.

Since the beginning of the millennium, Construction Grammar has proven to be a fruitful analytical tool for research on second language acquisition (Ellis & Wulff 2020) and can also be applied in second language teaching (Herbst 2016).

Our focus is particularly directed towards the following questions:

• How can the fundamental assumptions of usage-based linguistics and/or Construction Grammar be tested in second language research?  How can usage-/construction-based perspectives enrich second language teaching?
• How can electronic resources that represent language as a network, i.e., constructicons (Lyngfelt et al. 2018), be used for teaching purposes?

References

Ellis, Nick C. ‘Cognitive Perspectives on SLA: The Associative-Cognitive CREED’. AILA Review 19(1): 100–121.

Ellis, Nick C. & Stefanie Wulff. 2020. ‘Usage-based approaches to L2 acquisition’. In VanPatten, Bill, Gregory D. Keating & Stefanie Wulff (eds.). Theories in Second Language Acquisition: An Introduction. Abingdon: Routledge, 63–82.

Herbst, Thomas. 2016. ‘Foreign language learning is construction learning – what else? Moving towards Pedagogical Construction Grammar’. In De Knop, Sabine & GaëtanelleGilquin (eds.). Applied Construction Grammar 32: 56–96.

Lyngfelt, Benjamin, Lars Borin, Kyoko Ohara & Tiago Timponi Torrent. 2018. Constructicography. Constructicon development across languages. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.

Ungerer, Tobias & Stefan Hartmann. 2023. Constructionist Approaches. Cambridge University Press. 

PANEL E: The language of work: Constructing relations of language and work in the Nordics

Kamilla Kraft, Verónica Pájaro, Charlotte Sun Jensen

Through studies of language and work in different contexts, language scholars have demonstrated the shifting relations between language and work (Boutet, 2011), how the notion of workers has changed from workforce to wordforce in capitalist societies (Heller, 2011), and how such notions privilege some workers, e.g. ‘wordsmiths’ (Thurlow, 2020), while exploiting others, often migrant workers (Duchêne 2011). Importantly, they have also explored how individual motivations and actions are part of reproducing and challenging relations of work and language, captured e.g. in the theory of language investment (Norton Pierce, 1995). Together this scholarship provide a framework for how the intersection between language and work, and system and individual, creates social order.

In this panel, we propose to further explore the relations of language and work in the Nordic region by focusing on the notion of how 'langauge of work' or ’professional language’ is imagined across different sectors and against the backdrop of increased internationalisation and labour shortage. The contributions investigate how notions such as ”fagspråk” or ”arbeidsinnretting” are imagined, organised, and operationalised at/for work by exploring practices, ideologies and policies. The discussion will aim at problematising how these practices interrelate with ideologies of democratisation, multilingualism, efficiency, safety, Nordic exceptionalism, welfare, etc. The panel will thus contribute with new knowledge on how Nordic languages are used as second languages across a range of work settings and how multilingual work repertoires are intertwined with social valuation processes.

In order to tackle the depth and complexity of professional language in the Nordic region the panel showcases different types of studies, qualitative methodologies and sites. Papers could present e.g. discourse analytical studies of guidelines and documents about language at/of work, ethnographic studies of multilingualism in various workplaces, or action research on language classes and language awareness for workers in different industries.

PANEL F:  Multilingualism and Language in Conflict Situations – Historical and Contemporary Perspectives

Vendula V. Hingarová, Nataša Ristivojević-Rajković

This panel invites contributions that explore how multilingualism and second language learning develop and how they are practiced in various conflict situations – both in historical and contemporary contexts. Drawing on a historical sociolinguistic approach, we aim to investigate how language contact, language use, and language ideologies are shaped under conditions marked by war, coercion, migration and unpredictable power relations.

We invite papers that examine linguistic experiences among deportees, refugees, interpreters, civilians and military personnel in contexts of migration, political unrest or humanitarian crisis. The focus is on how language functions as a survival strategy, a means of communication, and an expression of resistance in asymmetrical power relations.

The key objective is to show how insights from historical contexts can contribute to understanding and discussing multilingualism and second language learning in contemporary Nordic societies. Experiences from past conflicts can provide valuable perspectives on how linguistic practices are shaped and negotiated in modern situations characterized by conflict, integration and social inequality.

The panel is grounded in historical sociolinguistics (Rambø 2010; Hernández-Campoy & Conde-Silvestre 2012; Auer et al. 2015) and builds on functional perspectives on multilingualism (Baker 2001). Language is understood here as a form of social practice, closely tied to time, space and power. The aim is to contribute to an interdisciplinary discussion on how conflict and unequal power relations influence language use, second language development and language policy on Nordic contexts – both past and present.

References

Auer, Anita, Peersman, Catharina, Pickl, Simon, Rutten, Gijsbert and Vosters, Rik. "Historical sociolinguistics: the field and its future" Journal of Historical Sociolinguistics, vol. 1, no. 1, 2015, pp. 1-12. https://doi.org/10.1515/jhsl-2015-0001

Baker, Colin. Foundations of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism (3. ed.). Clevedon: Multillingual Matters, 2001.

Hernández-Campoy, Juan M. & Juan Camilo Conde-Silvestre (eds.). 2014. The Handbook of Historical Sociolinguistics. Chichester and Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell. ISBN: 978118798027

Nesse, A. (2020). Historisk sosiolingvistikk: En fruktbar utvidelse av språkhistoriedisiplinen. Målbryting, (11), 1–22. https://doi.org/10.7557/17.4813

Rambø, Gro-Renée. Historiske og sosiale betingelser for språkkontakt mellom nedertysk og skandinavisk i seinmiddelalderen – et bidrag til historisk språksosiologi. Oslo: Novus Forlag 2010.

PANEL G: International employees and the local language(s) at universities in the Nordic countries

Katja Årosin Laursen, Janus Mortensen

A large proportion of employees at Nordic universities have an international background, and for most of them, the local Nordic language(s) is a foreign or second language. It is often considered sufficient for international employees to be able to speak English, but experience shows that the local language also plays an important role, e.g. Danish in Denmark (Kirilova & Lønsmann 2020).

In the Nordic countries, the internationalisation of universities has led to an increased focus on the use of English. In recent years, however, the (language) policy debate has increasingly focused on the local language(s), and many Nordic universities now have language policies that require international researchers and teachers to learn the local language(s) (Mortensen & Haberland, 2021; Salö et al., 2022).

The task of learning the local language is often, implicitly or explicitly, and to varying degrees, seen as the responsibility of the individual international employee. Some international employees feel that there are very few opportunities to use the local language at work (Frederiksen, 2013), for example because researchers and teachers in academic environments use English exclusively as their working language, or because communication in the local language is at such a high level that international employees cannot participate actively. It is therefore necessary that language learning and the socialisation it entails is considered a shared responsibility.

For this panel, we are looking for presentations at the intersection of research and practice on language learning and linguistic socialisation among international employees in higher education in the Nordic countries. The purpose of the panel is to increase understanding of how colleagues, managers, students, language teachers, language researchers and others can contribute to creating the best possible conditions for international employees to develop communicative competence in the local Nordic languages so that they can participate actively in everyday life at the university.

References

Mortensen, J. & Haberland, H. (2021). Hvornår kommer ulven? In T. Kristiansen & A. Holmen (Eds.), Sprogs status i rigsfælleskabet 2031 (Københavnerstudier i Tosprogethed. Studier i Parallelsproglighed C13) (pp. 131–144). København: Det Humanistiske Fakultet.

Salö, L., Holmes, L., & Hanell, L. (2022). Language assets, scientific prestige, and academic power. Language Matters in Higher Education Contexts, 112.

Kirilova, Marta & Dorte Lønsmann. 2020. Dansk – nøglen til arbejde? Ideologier om sprogbrug og sproglæring i to arbejdskontekster i Danmark. Nordand. Universitetsforlaget 15(01). 37–57. https://doi.org/10.18261/issn.2535-3381-2020-01-03.

Frederiksen, Karen-Margrete. 2013. ‘At finde sin stemme på dansk’ i Sprogforum, vol. 19, number 57, Subjektivitet og Flersprogethed (pp. 31-37). At finde sin stemme på dansk | Sprogforum. Tidsskrift for sprog- og kulturpædagogik

PANEL H: AI in Second Language Learning

Elena Tkachenko, Kari Mari Jonsmoen

The use of Artificial Intelligence (AI) in second language learning has gained increased attention in recent years as technology offers many new opportunities for language acquisition. This panel will bring together researchers interested in exploring how AI tools can be utilized in second language learning to support both learners in their language learning process and teachers in facilitating learning and adapting second language instruction.

AI tools can perform various tasks, such as generating suggestions for content, text structure, and tone, adapting vocabulary to suit specific purposes, assisting with proofreading and editing, providing word explanations, and functioning in multiple languages. The latest AI models also offer opportunities to use these tools for oral training by supporting the development of speaking skills through interactive conversations, pronunciation practice, concept explanations, and real-time feedback. At the same time, researchers point out challenges with such tools, and we currently know little about how they are being used, and what attitudes and competencies second language users have towards using such tools in language learning.

This panel aims to address both the practical and theoretical aspects of AI in second language learning. Some relevant issues are:

• How can various AI tools, such as chatbots, be tailored to meet individual learning needs and create better language learning experiences?
• What effects does the use of AI have on language learning?
• When should AI be used in language learning?
• How can we examine the learning outcomes of using AI in language learning?
• What ethical and pedagogical challenges are associated with the use of AI?
• What attitudes do teachers and students have toward the use of AI in language learning?
• How do teachers use AI in second language instruction?
• What competencies do teachers need to effectively incorporate AI into second language instruction in a way that promotes learning?   
• How do students use AI for language learning both inside and outside the classroom?

The panel will provide a platform for networking and fostering discussions that can contribute to further research on AI and language learning.

Conference fee: NOK 2200

Conference dinner fee: NOK 750

Registration will open during December 2025.

Participation in the Conference with a Scientific Contribution

There are three ways to contribute to the conference:

• Individual presentation (20 minutes + 5 minutes for questions)
• Individual presentation within a thematic panel (20 minutes + 5 minutes for questions)
• Poster presentation

To ensure a diversity of contributors, we aim to limit the number of presentations for which one can be the main author to one.

Abstract requirements

Abstracts must be written in a Scandinavian language or English, and have a maximum length of 250 words, excluding the reference list.

Evaluation of Abstracts

All abstracts—individual, panel-related, and poster presentations—will be evaluated by two peer reviewers with research competence. 

Deadline for Abstract Submission

Abstracts are to be submitted via https://skjemaker.app.uib.no/view.php?id=19965219. The submission deadline is November 30.

A summary of practical information will be posted here soon.

October 24, 2025: deadline for proposing thematic panels (collaborative groups)

October 31, 2025: publication of the thematic panels on the website

November 30, 2025: deadline for submitting abstracts