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For refugees, gaining professional foothold in a receiving country often entails additional language (L2) learning while navigating unfamiliar language ideologies and practices. In bi- and multilingual contexts, these challenges are compounded by having to prioritize among local languages. We shed light on this little studied problem by focusing on the L2 learning of Ukrainian refugees in Finland, a bilingual country where refugees face the choice between two official languages. Finnish is spoken by 95% of locals but not used elsewhere in the world. Swedish is spoken in neighboring Sweden and closely related to Danish and Norwegian, thus functioning as a regional lingua franca, but in Finland is mostly a regional minority language. Our empirical analysis builds on interviews with Ukrainian refugees themselves (n = 4) and institutional/NGO representatives working with entrepreneurship support and other similar services for refugees (n = 10). The former face social and economic integration challenges that enmesh tightly with their language learning, while the latter must balance successful integration outcomes with local language politics and ideologies when advising refugees.

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Between Agency and Constraint: Refugees’ Additional Language Learning in a Bilingual Receiving Country Context

  • 章节

  • 发表日期：

    2026年

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  • Wilhelm Barner-Rasmussen,
  • Maria Hokkinen,
  • Maria Ivanova-Gongne,
  • Stefan Lång

摘要

For refugees, gaining professional foothold in a receiving country often entails additional language (L2) learning while navigating unfamiliar language ideologies and practices. In bi- and multilingual contexts, these challenges are compounded by having to prioritize among local languages. We shed light on this little studied problem by focusing on the L2 learning of Ukrainian refugees in Finland, a bilingual country where refugees face the choice between two official languages. Finnish is spoken by 95% of locals but not used elsewhere in the world. Swedish is spoken in neighboring Sweden and closely related to Danish and Norwegian, thus functioning as a regional lingua franca, but in Finland is mostly a regional minority language. Our empirical analysis builds on interviews with Ukrainian refugees themselves (n = 4) and institutional/NGO representatives working with entrepreneurship support and other similar services for refugees (n = 10). The former face social and economic integration challenges that enmesh tightly with their language learning, while the latter must balance successful integration outcomes with local language politics and ideologies when advising refugees.