Language practices and identity constructions: young professional migrants in Oslo

The English language holds a privileged position in Norwegian society. Although it is not one of the official languages, most Norwegians are nonetheless competent speakers. English is consumed in abundance in TV, film, and music. It is part of children’s school curriculum starting from the first grade, and it has almost completely taken over the domain of academia. With Norway consistently topping the list of the best countries in the world to live due to its high standard of living, attractive social welfare system, fairly stable currency, not to mention the fact that English is so widely used and understood, it is an appealing country for skilled migrants. There are currently 380 000 immigrants employed in Norway making up a formidable 14.1% of the national workforce. The fact that English holds such a privileged position in Norway leaves English-speaking migrants with a distinct advantage: if they can find employment in an English-speaking role, they might never need to learn Norwegian. In any case, this was the view expressed by many of my Norwegian acquaintances. They claim to have colleagues who, after many years of living in Norway, still aren’t competent Norwegian speakers. In this thesis, I have assessed the validity of their observations by taking a sociolinguistic perspective on the study of the language practices and identity constructions among English-speaking, highly educated migrants in Oslo. I adopt an integrationist approach to identity, which views identity as something that is both constructed within discourse (the micro environment) and which also reflect dominant discourse (macro environment). The data I collected from both an online survey and two focus group conversations, the latter employing a narrative analysis method, indicates that this particular group of migrants do indeed learn Norwegian. However, they use it to different extents in the various domains of their life. The ability to construct a competent and intelligent identity in interactions with Norwegians seems to play a key role in migrants’ language preferences. The data suggests that the participants preferred to use English over Norwegian in all domains except for use in the wider community. While some felt confident using Norwegian in the workplace, others thought their rudimentary skills would negatively impact their professional image. This may help to explain why some Norwegians observe low levels of Norwegian language use amongst their migrant colleagues.