Current Issues in Language Planning

ISSN: 1466-4208 (Print) 1747-7506 (Online) Journal homepage: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/rclp20

Global flows in local language planning:

articulating parallel language use in Swedish
university policies
Francis M. Hult & Marie Kllkvist
To cite this article: Francis M. Hult & Marie Kllkvist (2016) Global flows in local language
planning: articulating parallel language use in Swedish university policies, Current Issues in
Language Planning, 17:1, 56-71, DOI: 10.1080/14664208.2016.1106395
To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/14664208.2016.1106395

Published online: 27 Nov 2015.

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Date: 07 September 2016, At: 08:36

Current Issues in Language Planning, 2016

Vol. 17, No. 1, 5671, http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/14664208.2016.1106395

Global ows in local language planning: articulating parallel

language use in Swedish university policies
Francis M. Hult* and Marie Kllkvist
Centre for Languages and Literature, Lund University, Lund, Sweden
(Received 28 May 2015; accepted 8 October 2015)

In this paper, the language policies of three Swedish universities are examined as
instances of language planning in local contexts. Although Sweden has the national
Language Act of 2009 (SFS 2009:600) as well as a general Higher Education
Ordinance (SFS 1993:100; SFS 2014:1096), language planning for higher education
is left to the purview of individual institutions. Since language planning in local
contexts often involves the intersection of locally situated communication needs and
wider circulating ideologies, the present study considers how national language
planning goals are taken up and reinterpreted by higher education institutions. In
particular, the focus is on universities whose policies are framed using the Nordic
language planning concept of parallel language use, which has emerged over the
last 20 years as a way to theorize a sociopolitical balance between English and
Scandinavian languages. The concept indexes a range of issues related to the relative
position of Swedish and English, including linguistic tensions surrounding
international aspirations and national responsibilities for universities and the
mitigation of purported domain loss by Swedish to English. Drawing upon a
discourse analysis of policy approach, we analyze the policies of these three
universities as examples of local language planning, focusing on how they engage
with ideas related to parallel language use while also expanding upon the concept to
include the linguistic needs of local students and staff.
Keywords: bilingual education; educational policy; discourse; higher education;
language acquisition; language of instruction; language planning; language policy

Introduction
The concept of parallel language use (parallellsprkighet in Swedish) has been developed and applied in the Nordic countries over the past 1520 years. It appears to have originated in print in a 1998 draft action program for the promotion of the Swedish language
(Kuteeva, 2011). At the time, there was a strongly perceived need to promote the national
languages of Nordic countries since the continued use of these languages in all domains of
society was perceived to be under threat. In particular, concerns were voiced about the
increasing use of English in higher education and in commerce, both in external contacts
and within Sweden, due to processes of globalization (Hyltenstam, 2002; Teleman &
Westman, 2003). The draft action program was the prelude to a series of government
reports from 2002 to 2008 (e.g. SOU 2002:27; Prop. 2005/06:2; Prop. 2008/09:153;
SOU 2008:26) that culminated with the Language Act of 2009 (SFS 2009:600). In its

*Corresponding author. Email: francis.hult@englund.lu.se

2015 Taylor & Francis

Current Issues in Language Planning

57

analysis of the language situation in Sweden, the Swedish Language Council (then
Sprknmnden, now Sprkrdet), the agency primarily responsible for addressing language
planning issues in Sweden, stated that Swedish and English will co-exist in many areas
of society (Swedish Language Council, 1998, p. 15), and that encouragement should
be given to educational development work aimed at enhancing students ability to
use Swedish and English in parallel in their subjects (Swedish Language Council,
1998, p. 17).
The concept of parallel language use has been seen by researchers and institutional
language planners as especially relevant to higher education, which is a sector that
encourages international mobility of students and staff as well as national and international
research collaboration and dissemination (Sal & Josephson, 2013). A growing body of
research has begun to examine university classroom practices in settings where English
and Swedish are used in parallel following various congurations (e.g. Airey, 2011;
Bolton & Kuteeva, 2012; Meek, 2013; Pecorari, Shaw, Irvine, & Malmstrm, 2011a;
Sderlundh, 2012). Less attention, however, has been paid to the application of parallel
language use as a language planning construct in the development of institutional policies.
Accordingly, our aim here is to examine institutional policies in which parallel language use
is explicitly drawn upon in order to explore how the concept is applied to frame language
policy provisions. Moreover, we draw on principles of language planning in local contexts (e.g. Baldauf, 2008; Liddicoat & Baldauf, 2008) because Sweden is a context with
no national language policy for higher education, leaving language planning in this
sector to local actors who engage with both nationally circulating ideals like parallel
language use and the needs of local stakeholders. Analyzing the application of parallel
language use in the policies of individual institutions, then, is a fruitful illustration of
local language planning. We begin by situating the concept of parallel language use, including the background of its development and contemporary issues, followed by a brief discussion of language planning in local contexts and the approach to the present study. We then
turn to an analysis of policy texts, exploring the intersection of nationally and locally situated planning concerns. Finally, we consider how this Swedish case exemplies local
language planning as well as how such planning contributes to developing the concept
of parallel language use.
Parallel language use
A central aspect of parallel language use is that more languages than one can be used in
parallel in the same domains, making no language inferior to another, thus counteracting
domain loss and the development of diglossia, which are assumed to pave the way for
language death (Davidsen-Nielsen, 2008; Harder, 2008; Josephson, 2004, 2005; Linn,
2010). Olle Josephson, then chair of the Swedish Language Council, dened the
concept: two or more languages can be used in parallel within one domain, noting that
parallel language use does not refer to individuals; individuals are bilingual or multilingual, whereas parallel language use refers to the choice between different standard
language varieties on occasions when choice is possible (2005, p. 3). In a recent publication, the concept has been dened as the simultaneous use of more than one language
in one or more domains (Sal & Josephson, 2013, p. 3).
On the national scale in Scandinavia, the concept has received strong support in a
number of government reports about the need for language policies in Denmark (Kulturministeriet, 2008; Universitets-og Bygningsstyrelsen, 2009; cf. Tange, 2012), Norway
(Kultur-og kyrkjedepartementet, 2008; cf. Linn, 2010), and Sweden (SOU 2002:27;

58

F.M. Hult and M. Kllkvist

Prop. 2005/06:2; SOU 2008:26) as well as in reports produced by the Nordic Council of
Ministers (a joint, intergovernmental body for the Nordic countries: Denmark, the Faroe
Islands, Finland, Greenland, Iceland, Norway, Sweden, and land) (Nordic Council of
Ministers, 2007).1 It has also been promoted as a solution to the tension between the use
of the local language (Swedish) and an international language (viz. English) for disseminating research in a series of articles (Josephson, 2005, 2006; Melander & Thelander, 2006;
Norn, 2006a, 2006b) published in Sprkvrd, a journal on language planning published
by the Swedish Language Council between 1965 and 2007, and focusing on Norway
by Linn (2010).
Parallel language use in practice
Following the promotion of the concept of parallel language use in the government texts
that were forerunners to the Swedish Language Act (SFS 2009:600), there have been a
number of studies carried out at universities in Sweden, Denmark, and Norway where parallel language use in some form has been applied to tertiary-level teaching and learning
(Airey, 2011; Airey & Linder, 2008; Bolton & Kuteeva, 2012; Ljosland, 2011; Meek,
2013; Pecorari et al., 2011a, 2011b; Shaw, Irvine, Malmstrm, & Pecorari, 2010; Sderlundh, 2010, 2012). These studies have focused on parallel language use in relation to
English as the medium of instruction or the language of textbooks.
Studies of students have shown that they interacted less with their teachers when
the medium of instruction was English rather than Swedish and spent more effort on
note-taking during lectures rather than on comprehending the subject content (Airey,
2009, 2011), that students often resort to their rst language (L1) when possible (Ljosland,
2011; Sderlundh, 2010, 2012), that as many as 74% of students included in a survey
study at three Swedish universities found it harder to read in English than in Swedish
(Pecorari, Shaw, Malmstrm, & Irvine, 2011b; cf. Sderlundh, 2005), that 44% of
them would refrain from choosing a course book that was in English (Pecorari et al.,
2011b), that blended language use (e.g. course books in English but lectures and/or
examinations in Swedish) can be perceived as confusing among students (Bolton &
Kuteeva, 2012), and that the majority of students who are second-language (L2) users
of English read more slowly than their native-English peers (Meek, 2013; Shaw &
McMillion, 2011).
Several studies have also examined the issue from the point of view of university
instructors at Swedish universities (e.g. Airey, 2011; Bolton & Kuteeva, 2012; Pecorari
et al., 2011a; Shaw et al., 2010). Aireys (2011) study of university instructors perceptions
of changing the medium of instruction from their L1 (Swedish) to their L2 (English) builds
on a number of previous studies of the same phenomenon. He found that there is lack of
training in teaching in English at the university level and that instructors need more preparation time, provide less detail, and are less exible and uent than when lecturing in their
L1. Pecorari et al. (2011a) examined the attitudes among approximately 21% of all university instructors in Sweden and found that they were in general positive toward the use of
English-language textbooks in their courses, but that language-learning objectives were
seldom stated in the course syllabi. Bolton and Kuteeva (2012) and Sal (2010) found
that the amount of English use varied considerably across academic disciplines, showing
that English is considered a common choice in the natural sciences, much more so than
in the humanities, in law, and in the social sciences. In their study of university instructors
at Stockholm University, Bolton and Kuteeva (2012) found that around 90% of university
instructors in the natural sciences reported very little difculty when teaching in English,

Current Issues in Language Planning

59

whereas around 50% of instructors in the humanities and in law reported that they were
better able to discuss their subject in Swedish (p. 438).

Problematizing parallel language use

The concept of parallel language use has become problematized in recent studies of students
and instructors at Swedish universities. In particular, the concept appears to be loosely
dened, invoking a wide range of terminology: parallel language environment (Pecorari
et al., 2011a; Shaw et al., 2010), bilingual environment (Pecorari et al., 2011a; Shaw
et al., 2010), parallel language education (Airey, 2011), parallellingualism (Linn,
2010), the European parallel-language university (Pecorari et al., 2011a; Shaw & McMillion, 2011), parallel-language practices (Pecorari et al., 2011a), parallel-language
context (Pecorari et al., 2011a, 2011b), an English L2 environment (Pecorari et al.,
2011a), parallel-language courses (Meek, 2013), the academic parallel-language
environment (Meek, 2013), and parallel-language universities (Meek, 2013). Airey
and Linder (2008) have argued that parallel language use refers to
the language used when educating students rather than the language competences that we
would like graduates to attain with respect to their subject of study. Clearly, the former is
intended to imply the latter; however we believe that it is dangerous to assume that there is
a one-to-one relationship between teaching and learning in this way. (p. 150, emphases in
original)

On the basis of a series of students learning of physics through the medium of English, they
advance the notion of bilingual scientic literacy as a goal to be attained by students upon
graduation. Pecorari et al. (2011b) refer to the three universities included in their survey study
as parallel-language tertiary education, in their case meaning that the primary language of
instruction is the local language, but some materials are in English (p. 314). They problematize the issue by stressing that far too little is known about the impact of coursebooks in
L2 (English) on students comprehension, learning, and reading habits, and they point to
the need for language and comprehension support for students through modules in
English for Academic Purposes. Bolton and Kuteeva (2012), whose study is also a survey
investigation of the use of English and attitudes to it by staff and students at a major
Swedish university, stress the complexity of the issue of parallel language use, including
how such use might manifest itself in different ways across disciplines.
In sum, parallel language use is strongly promoted in policy documents in Sweden,
Norway, and Denmark where it has come to represent a kind of idealized linguistic
power balance, especially with respect to Nordic languages and English. As a concept
for guiding language-in-education planning, however, it is a notion in ux (Linn,
2010, p. 299). In practice, as shown in studies of parallel language use, it has been used
to cover a range of somewhat different phenomena, with particular attention being paid
to medium of instruction issues. Parallel language use, then, is a concept that appears
simple at rst blush, but that becomes more complex as it is applied to managing language
choices (cf. Airey & Linder, 2008; Bolton & Kuteeva, 2012; Sal & Josephson, 2013).
Accordingly, we focus here on how parallel language use is employed as a framing
concept in Swedish university language policies, with an eye toward how it encompasses
both the sociopolitical issues that were inherent in the early development of the concept
and the issues of language usage that have been highlighted in recent studies of parallel
language use in practice.

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F.M. Hult and M. Kllkvist

A study of language planning in local contexts

While there is national legislation in Sweden governing universities, most notably the
Higher Education Ordinance (SFS 1993:100; SFS 2014:1096),2 and the Language Act
(SFS 2009:600) contains provisions for government agencies,3 which include most
Swedish universities, language planning for higher education is left to the purview of individual institutions. A report by the Swedish Higher Education Authority shortly before the
passage of the Language Act, for example, specically encouraged institutions to develop
their own language policies, noting that what such a policy should include is not selfevident but must be determined based on an institutions circumstances, goals and priorities
(HSV, 2008, p. 37). Accordingly, the development of language policies by Swedish universities falls under what can broadly be termed language planning in local contexts (Liddicoat
& Baldauf, 2008, p. 11). This kind of language planning, as Baldauf (2008, p. 26) explains,
refers to cases where businesses, institutions, groups or individuals hold agency and create what
can be recognised as a language policy and plan to utilise and develop their language resources;
one that is not directly the result of some larger macro policy, but is a response to their own needs,
their own language problems, their own requirement for language management.

Local language planning, then, includes developing language policies for the kinds of administrative and educational issues that universities must manage (Baldauf, 2008, pp. 3234: Van
der Walt, 2008). Of course, such local planning4 does not occur in isolation. Societally circulating ideologies and national language planning objectives may be variously taken up, reformulated, or resisted locally (Liddicoat & Baldauf, 2008, p. 11). Local language planning, in
this sense, involves (re)imagining national language planning ideals as they intersect with
local communication needs in the development of situated language policies (Baldauf,
2008, p. 33). As such, local language planning often involves drawing on similar principles
of status planning (about language functions), corpus planning (about language form), and
language-in-education planning (about language learning) that are involved on a national
scale because local institutions contend with the full range of language and communication
issues that must be managed (Baldauf, 2008, p. 29; Kaplan & Baldauf, 1997, p. 117)
Accordingly, it is within the frame of language planning in local contexts that we
examine how the nationally circulating Swedish language planning ideal of parallel
language use has been taken up and (re)imagined locally by individual universities in
their language policies. In particular, we explore how specic universities have operationalized the concept in applying it to their institutional contexts and to the needs of their
constituents. We show how, as Baldauf (2008) suggests, universities do not merely
adopt national orientations to parallel language use as set forth by language planners
(e.g. Josephson, 2005), but also adapt and expand upon the concept to encompass their
own institutional objectives and aspirations for language use.
At the time of our study, eleven Swedish universities had crafted institutional language
policies. We began by obtaining all of these policy documents, which are public record.
After an initial analysis of these texts, we determined that three of them apply the Nordic
language planning concept of parallel language use. Since our aim was to investigate the
policy application of parallel language use, we centered our close textual analysis on the policies of these three universities5: the Royal Institute of Technology (KTH), Stockholm University, and Ume University (see Bjrkman, 2014 for a broader analysis of language policies
across multiple universities). Drawing upon principles of the discourse analysis of language
policy (e.g. Ajsic & McGroarty, 2015; Hult, 2010, 2015; Johnson, 2011, 2015; Scollon,
2008), we analyzed the texts inductively, coding them with a focus on orientations to

Current Issues in Language Planning

61

language use and language learning that were indexed with parallel language use. Deductively, we also considered how the policies included approaches to status planning, corpus
planning, and language-in-education planning in order to examine how the concept of parallel language use aligned with these fundamental aspects of language planning. In the next
section, we turn to the policies of the three universities.
Parallel language use in three Swedish university policies
By opting to invoke the concept of parallel language use in their policies, each of the three
universities explicitly orients its institution to the wider Nordic language planning discussion whence the concept emerged. The policies take up nationally circulating issues including the relative positions of Swedish and English and tensions between the international
aspirations and national responsibilities of universities. The policies also address practical
aspects of parallel language use, particularly medium of instruction issues and, to a certain
extent, the relationship between societal multilingualism and higher education.
English and Swedish in parallel language use
The concept of parallel language use in the Scandinavian context, as noted earlier, developed from concerns about the threat of English to the status of Scandinavian languages
(Josephson, 2004, 2005). In the rst Swedish government proposal for a national language
policy, Speech Draft Action Programme for the Swedish Language, the text reads:
The most important question with respect to Swedish being a complete language serving
society is whether English pushes out Swedish by language use in certain situations becoming
completely English dominant. (SOU 2002:27, p. 48)

In applying the concept of parallel language use in their language policies, it is not surprising, then, that Swedish higher education institutions index it with status planning (Kaplan &
Baldauf, 1997, p. 30) for Swedish and English. Stockholm Universitys language policy, for
instance, reads:
The university shall strive towards being parallel lingual to as high a degree as possible, which
means that Swedish and English function as parallel scientic languages. (Stockholm)

The parallelism of Swedish and English presented here seems to posit equal status where
the two languages function side by side at the institution, particularly in its research (scientic) activities. Parallel language use, thus, in part, can be said to encompass territorial
bilingualism (Sridhar, 1996, p. 48) on an institutional scale. Indeed, the use of copular
BE in the above excerpt from the Stockholm policy further suggests parallel language
use as an element of institutional identity.6 Similarly, Ume Universitys policy presents
EnglishSwedish parity as well as its salience for institutional identity:
The universitys departments, centers, and administrative units shall have Swedish and English
designations.
The universitys educational programs and degrees shall have Swedish and English designations. (Ume)

Both English and Swedish are designated for the public and indexical functions of naming the
universitys intellectual (programs and degrees) and physical (departments, centers, and

62

F.M. Hult and M. Kllkvist

administrative units) spaces, projecting a bilingual sense of place onto the universitys linguistic
landscape (cf. Dressler, 2015). This, in turn, reects the wider ideological tension of reconciling
the duality of major universities as simultaneously international and national spaces. Indeed,
the above excerpt from Umes policy appears in a section with the heading Ume University
is a Swedish-language University.7 As Gregersen and Josephson (2014) remark,
parallel language use represents a language policy conviction that a domain or activity can be
maintained as both international (that is to say conducted in a non-Nordic language, in most but
not all cases English) and national, that is to say conducted in a society-supporting Nordic
language. (pp. 4950)

How this national/international tension should be linguistically managed was a recurring

theme in the policies of the three universities.
National and International interests
In Scandinavia, English is often taken as axiomatically indexed with internationalization
(Haberland, 2008). A longstanding language planning concern has been that increased
attention to internationalization and the concomitant use of English means that special
attention also needs to be paid to what niche Swedish should occupy so that it remains
vibrant as an academic language (Hyltenstam, 2002). This status planning issue
(Baldauf, 2008, p. 29) about the relative functions of English and Swedish is expressed
explicitly in Ume Universitys policy: The one-sided use of English as a scholarly
language can result in the Swedish language being perceived as less useful. From a national
citizenship perspective, the use of English can have an isolating effect. Similarly, KTH in
its policy states that The University should not contribute towards Swedish becoming a
low language and English a high language. Both languages are needed, while Stockholms
policy notes that parallel language use means that a concerted effort to strengthen international elements of education are combined with efforts to develop Swedish terminology
and Swedish-language rhetorical patterns in respective elds. In this way, the three
institutions acknowledge that universities are spaces of language contact. Parallel language
use provides a specied order of indexicality (Blommmaert, 2010, p. 22) for this contact
that is aligned with tensions about the relative positions of Swedish and English in longstanding Swedish language policy debate (e.g. Josephson, 2004, 2005; Teleman &
Westman, 2003). The policy documents of each university, in turn, set forth specic orientations to both English and Swedish, specifying what their use in parallel means for these
institutions in relation to internationalization and nationalization.
Internationalization
In the policies of the three universities, English is clearly aligned with international activities and ambitions. The function of English in relation to both research and education is
particularly emphasized:
In research situations English is often the international language and the use of English is a prerequisite for Swedish researchers to be able to participate in international research work.
(Stockholm)
Parallel language use means that students and researchers alongside a living, Swedish body of
specialized terminology should have such good abilities in English that they (students and
researchers) can participate in, and on the part of researchers even contribute to, the international research community. (Ume)

Current Issues in Language Planning

63

As a consequence of the increasingly international labour market it is a strict quality requirement that graduated engineers and architects should be able to use English as a work language.
(KTH)

The position of English as the sine qua non for research activities is reinforced in all of the
university policies, echoing more globally circulating values about the role of English in
science and research (Ammon, 2001; Tonkin, 2011). As reflected in both the Stockholm
and the Ume documents, knowledge of English is closely aligned with the ability of
Swedish researchers to become active members of the international research communities
of their fields. Moreover, echoing neoliberal discourses of competition (e.g. Holoborow,
2012), all universities also align English with competitiveness and attractiveness on the
international knowledge market both for the universities as a whole and, as indicated in
the above excerpt from KTHs policy, for students on the job market, in particular.

Nationalization
While English is indexed with international interests, Swedish is aligned with the function
of universities on the national scale as producers and repositories of knowledge as well as
administrative agencies. The Swedish protectionism element of parallel language use (e.g.
Josephson, 2004, 2005) becomes particularly salient with respect to corpus planning for
specialized terminology (Kaplan & Baldauf, 1997, p. 42) in Swedish, which emerged as
an issue in earlier political discussions about language planning and is now stipulated in
the Swedish Language Act (SFS 2009: 600). Special attention to the administrative function
of Swedish is also tied closely to the Language Act.
Corpus planning for specialized Swedish terminology is noted by the three universities:
In the language planning goals that are the foundation for the Swedish Language Act it is put
forward that Swedish shall be a complete language serving and uniting society8, which means
that it should be possible to use it in all domains of society. For this to be possible the development of language must follow the development of society more broadly for example with
respect to vocabulary, terminology and concepts in different areas. (Stockholm)
Swedish specialist language is to be created and maintained within all research and education
areas at KTH, alongside the English specialist language. (KTH)
The universitys Swedish-speaking researchers therefore have a major responsibility with
respect to the development and usage of Swedish technical terminology. (Ume)

Perceptions about the encroachment of English in higher education and research were
among the primary concerns voiced in turn of the millennium debates about the need for
a national language policy in Sweden (e.g. Gunnarsson & hman, 1997; Teleman &
Westman, 2003; cf. Hult, 2005). A key point in this regard is the maintenance and development of specialized technical and scientic terminology such that the Swedish lexicon
is protected from the borrowing of English terms. In the government bill setting forth
language planning goals (Prop. 2005/06:2, p. 16), for instance, it is argued that a dearth
of Swedish terms and expressions can create communication problems in society and
even inuence attitudes towards ones own language, thereby threating the planning objective that Swedish shall be a complete language serving and uniting society, which is intertextually referenced in the Stockholm policy and reverberates in the others as well. Thus,
the three universities take up corpus planning as an element of the Swedish dimension of
parallel language use in line with section 12 of the Language Act:

64

F.M. Hult and M. Kllkvist

Government agencies9 have a special responsibility for ensuring that Swedish terminology in
their various areas of expertise is accessible, and that it is used and developed.

Language use in the day-to-day operation of institutions is also taken up in the three university language policies. In particular, they all emphasize the function of Swedish for
administration:
The administrative language of KTH is Swedish. The work is controlled by laws and regulations in Swedish, and all local decisions should be worded in Swedish. (KTH)
For the university this [Swedish Language Act] means that regulations, decisions, proceedings,
syllabi and other documents that the university is responsible for providing are written in
Swedish. (Stockholm)
Essential information, important central decisions of a public agency nature and other ofcial
documents shall always be available in both Swedish and English. (Ume)

Here, too, the universities align their policies with the status planning objectives of the
Swedish Language Act which, in section 10, codies the function of Swedish as a language
for government administration:
The language of the courts, administrative authorities and other bodies that perform tasks in the
public sector is Swedish.

Thus, the administrative domain (Baldauf, 2008, p. 32) is one where the status of Swedish is
rmly established, not least due to the many textual documents that universities qua government agencies are required to produce, as outlined specifically in the Stockholm text
noted above. Another aspect of language use in the day-to-day work of universities,
however, is somewhat slipperier medium of instruction.
Medium of instruction and language-in-education planning
The Language Act is explicitly clear on the function of Swedish for administrative purposes
by public agencies; however, it is silent on the issue of medium of instruction. This silence
is likely by design, as it is explained in the government bill (Prop. 2008/09:153, p. 20)
immediately preceding the Language Act that the intention was not to limit possibilities
for English in research and teaching:
In the proposed language act, there are no demands per se that the language of research and
education shall be Swedish. What shall apply in research and education is determined by the
institutions after reection about factors relevant to their operation.

Thus, language-in-education planning (Baldauf, 2008, pp. 3334; Kaplan & Baldauf, 1997,
pp. 122123) is left to institutions themselves, leaving room for exibility in what parallel
language use might mean for classroom instruction and for the language development of
individual students. Although parallel language use as a language planning concept has
been theorized as applying to institutions rather than individuals (Josephson, 2005, p. 3),
the three universities expand the concept of parallel language use to encompass language
skills and language acquisition goals:
Parallel language use means that instructors and students have satisfactory [fullgod] Swedish
together with an English of high quality. The development and use of one of the languages
should not be such that knowledge and skills in the other language are impaired. (Stockholm)

Current Issues in Language Planning

65

Research students shall be given the opportunity to develop their parallel language use further
with the goal of being able to function on an international level. (Ume)
Graduates from KTH, therefore, need to master their subjects both in Swedish and English, in
other words, have parallel language competence. (KTH)

With individual bilingualism framed as a learning objective within the scope of parallel
language use, each of the three universities articulate aspirations for language-in-education
planning to facilitate it:
Those departments that currently conduct a large portion of their work in English also need
strategies to give students both Swedish technical language and language for practicing a
profession in Swedish settings. However, departments that currently conduct all their
teaching in Swedish and use only a small number of texts and other materials in English
or in another language should strive to develop international features in various ways.
(Ume)
Education at the basic level is provided rst and foremost in Swedish At the advanced level
and at the doctoral level English should be used to a greater extent than at the basic level.
(Stockholm)
During undergraduate education to the Bachelor level, the greater part of the teaching should be
in Swedish, with components in English or another language Education at advanced level
should normally be taught in English In research the common language is English and dissertations at KTH will normally be written in English. (KTH)

Notably, each of these policies encourages an increasing use of English as a medium of

instruction as the level of education progresses. KTH sets forth the most stringent
expectations for English, which seems to suggest developmental, or possibly even transitional, bilingual education (cf. Cenoz, 2012; Garca, 2009, pp. 124128) from Swedish
to English as one advances from undergraduate to doctoral and postdoctoral work. On
the other hand, the Ume policy leaves room for unintended consequences such as
expecting elds of study that have strong national foundations (inter alia Swedish
history, folklore, law, and real estate) to integrate English-medium materials when not
essential in order to align with circulating neoliberal discourses of globalization and
international competitiveness that are indexed with the English language (cf. Phillipson,
2011; Tonkin, 2011).

Two or more in parallel?

Finally, although SwedishEnglish bilingualism is most strongly aligned with parallel
language use in the policies of the three universities, it must be noted that they also
provide for the inclusion of other languages. Stockholm offers the most robust treatment
of multilingualism in its document:
A large number of students at Stockholm University have neither Swedish nor English as their
mother tongue but are rather multilingual with Swedish as their second language. How large the
number of multilingual students or employees is varies among different programs and research
areas The possibility of using languages other than Swedish and English varies among
subject areas and in certain subjects languages such as French, Spanish, and German are the
dominant ones. The university wants to highlight the value of publishing and disseminating
research results in languages other than Swedish and English when other languages have
immediate relevance for the research topic. (Stockholm)

66

F.M. Hult and M. Kllkvist

Accordingly, the Stockholm policy acknowledges the multilingual reality of being situated
in an urban context of cultural and linguistic diversity. It also recognizes the function of
other languages for academic purposes, and is the only one of the three institutions to
name specic languages other than Swedish and English explicitly in its policy. Both the
other universities include general statements about multilingualism; for example,
KTH must offer a balance between Swedish-language and English-language courses and
degree programmes. Furthermore, students are to be encouraged to learn other foreign
languages. (KTH)
Ume University shall be a language-friendly university that encourages linguistic diversity
among students and employees.
With good knowledge of foreign languages the university as well as its students, instructors and
researchers become attractive both nationally and internationally. (Ume)

Nonetheless, as discussed in previous sections, it is evident in the policies of the three universities that even if other languages are valued in principle, parallel language use is rst
and foremost about the relationship between Swedish and English. Accordingly, as it is
applied in the policies of these three universities, the concept of parallel language use is ultimately about managing the relationship between the two languages at the top of Swedens
linguistic hierarchy (cf. Hult, 2012; Josephson, 2004) and less about managing the full
range of multilingualism and language diversity in higher education.
Discussion and conclusion
In this study, we have examined the application of parallel language use in three Swedish
universities as language planning in local contexts. Baldauf (2008, pp. 2526) makes a distinction between local implementation and local planning, the former focusing on executing
a large-scale plan in a particular local setting, and the latter emphasizing locally situated
planning. There being no central language policy for universities in Sweden, individual
institutions are called upon to make decisions grounded in the language and communication
needs of their constituents and the institutions strategic objectives.
Local language planning has the potential to ll spaces that are left by an absence of
large-scale planning such that local actors assume agency for language planning rather
than attempting to get macro-level agents to develop policy for a particular need (Liddicoat
& Taylor-Leech, 2014, p. 242). This is evident in the way the three university policies
examined here include provisions for medium of instruction and bilingual language development that were deliberately not addressed in the Swedish Language Act (SFS 2009:600;
cf. Prop. 2008/09:153, p. 20). In this way, local language planning has allowed universities
to take into account the practical language needs of their students and instructors which
have also been documented in classroom studies of attempts to apply parallel language
use in practice (e.g. Bolton & Kuteeva, 2012; Meek, 2013; Pecorari et al., 2011b; Sderlundh, 2012). While none of the universities prescribe detailed teaching methodologies,
leaving pedagogical exibility for instructors, it is clear that issues emerging from
locally situated experiences and goals have informed the content of these policies.
At the same time, these local institutions are situated in the international context of
higher education and research, and thus are inuenced by globally circulating values
about learning and knowledge production, as well as by the national context, and therefore
affected by wider language planning debates that have emerged over the past 20 years.
Hence, as the analysis of these three language policies demonstrates, local language

Current Issues in Language Planning

67

planning involves attending to the intersection of situated needs and wider circulating ideologies (Liddicoat & Baldauf, 2008, p. 11). For instance, as Phillipson remarks, concern
about English becoming the sole lter for information from the outside world is a major
one, since the idea that everything is published in English worldwide is false (2011,
p. 120). Nonetheless, although the institutional policies all include positive pronouncements about plurilingualism, the widely circulating ideology of English as the most meaningful language for international scholarship is reied rather than meaningfully resisted, and
discourses that index English with market competition and global engagement are conspicuous. The inuence of the national scale, in turn, is apparent in the invocation of the concept
of parallel language use itself, which brings with it nationally circulating values about
Swedish and English and their respective positions in higher education, to frame local
language planning.
Having emerged in response to concerns about the encroachment of English in Scandinavia, parallel language use indexes a certain set of responses to these concerns (Sal &
Josephson, 2013) which are drawn upon in the three policies examined here as well.
Most notably, parallel language use emphasizes the balancing of Swedish and English in
university settings, foregrounding a functional differentiation between international objectives aligned with English and national responsibilities aligned with Swedish. Each of the
three universities foregrounds these as central language problems to be addressed locally.
They all stress the role of universities in guarding against so-called domain loss (cf.
Boyd, 2011; Haberland, 2008) by Swedish, while at the same time advancing English
for international engagement.
In these policies, there is also evidence of local language planning as a reinterpretation
of ideas and practices in a way that can potentially inuence national-scale language planning (cf. Liddicoat & Taylor-Leech, 2014, p. 243; Pennycook, 2010, p. 54; Schissel, 2014,
pp. 293294). For instance, even though the policies heavily stress the relationship between
English and Swedish, it is noteworthy that the three universities include assertions about
additional languages, which, even if somewhat limited, expands parallel language use to
include multiple languages. The policies further expand the concept of parallel language
use from only a status planning construct, initially developed for preserving Swedish in
certain domains (e.g. Josephson, 2006), to also being a language-in-education construct
that calls for attention to the development of individual communicative repertoires.
These kinds of renements to the concept of parallel language use by major institutions,
such as these established universities, have the potential to inuence the conceptualization
of national language planning, including how parallel language use is understood and possibly how it is taken up and adapted by other institutions in Sweden (see Kllkvist & Hult,
2016 for a recent case) and elsewhere.
Disclosure statement
No potential conict of interest was reported by the authors.
Notes
1.

It should be noted that the Nordic Council of Ministers has been active in advancing an interNordic language policy agenda. For example, the Nordic Language Convention of 1987
focuses on the right of Nordic citizens to use their own national language when communicating
with governments in other Nordic countries, and the 2006 Declaration of Nordic Language
Policy highlights the language policy priorities of Nordic countries, which include the teaching
of neighboring Nordic languages, parallel language use of English and Nordic languages, and

68

2.

3.

4.

5.

6.
7.

8.

9.

F.M. Hult and M. Kllkvist

clear language in government documents, among other issues. Further information about the
Nordic Councils language policy and planning work is available at http://www.norden.org/en/
theme/education-and-research-in-the-nordic-region/language.
The Higher Education Ordinance does include some language provisions. For instance, a student
whose mother tongue is not Swedish, Danish, Faroese, Icelandic, or Norwegian, except Finnish
students who have studied Swedish for three years in upper-secondary school, must demonstrate
knowledge of Swedish (section 6), and additional weight is placed on courses in modern
languages, Swedish Sign Language (for hearing students), and English when making university
admissions decisions (section 18). It does not, however, prescribe the working languages for
universities.
Among such provisions is a stipulation that Swedish be used for ofcial public sector communication, which includes universities, unless other laws apply (e.g. statutes requiring the use of
national minority languages). We return to how universities address the Language Act (vide
infra National and International Interests).
Baldauf uses the terms micro-, meso-, and macro- language planning, noting that these are best
understood as existing along a continuum (2008, pp. 1819). We will avoid this tripartite distinction in favor of a focus on the continuum of uidity across scales in language policy and planning, as Hult (2010) has described elsewhere. Thus, we use local language planning in lieu of
micro language planning, with the understanding that local is not necessarily coterminous
with micro (cf. Pennycook, 2010, p. 54).
The policy for the Royal Institute of Technology was available in English. We follow its English
text in referring to it as KTH using the Swedish acronym for its name, Kungliga tekniska hgskolan. We use the shorthand Stockholm for Stockholm University and Ume for Ume University. We cite excerpts from the English text of the KTH policy. All other translations of
Swedish texts and sources are our own. While Swedish and English conventions for punctuation
vary slightly, we preserve the punctuation used (or not used) in the original texts.
Although it is not an ideal translation from Swedish to English to use parallel lingual in adjective form, we offer this direct translation to preserve the copular BE.
This heading was rendered in the original Swedish as Ume universitet r ett svensksprkigt
universitet. The adjective svensksprkigt does not necessarily suggest language use among individual members of the university (e.g. Swedish-speaking), but the political designation of
Swedish as a language for the university as an institution. We return to individual versus territorial bi-/multilingualism. Vide infra English and Swedish in Parallel Language Use and Medium of
Instruction and Language-in-Education Planning.
This is an explicit intertextual reference to Swedish government policy in which the phrasing
komplett och samhllsbrande sprk is often rendered in English as a complete language
serving and uniting society. We use this same phrasing in our English translation of the Stockholm document.
The majority of Swedish universities are government agencies.

Notes on contributors
Francis M. Hult is Associate Professor at the Centre for Languages and Literature, Lund University.
Hult works in the areas of educational linguistics, language policy, and linguistic landscape analysis.
His most recent book is Research Methods in Language Policy and Planning: A Practical Guide (with
David Cassels Johnson, Wiley-Blackwell, 2015).
Marie Kllkvist is Associate Professor of English Linguistics at the Centre for Languages and
Literature, Lund University. Her research is in the elds of English language education, multilingual
education and language policy and planning.

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