The purpose of this thesis is to study how names for phenomena in Swedish society are expressed in Finnish language newspaper texts in Sweden. As part of the thesis the question of whether the newspapers use Finnish or Swedish names is investigated. Additional questions taken up in the thesis include the extent to which the Finnish names concur with the recommendations of The Finnish Language Council in Sweden, and the bases for the Council’s recommendations. The primary material consists of volumes 1983, 1990 and 1997 of the newspaper Viikkoviesti and issues 6-50/2003 of the daily newspaper Ruotsin Sanomat. A total of 591 phenomena and 1277 names are investigated. The results show that 95% of the names used are Finnish although there is some variation among different types of names. Approximately 78% of the Finnish names found in the material follow the recommendations of The Finnish Language Council in Sweden. Most of the Finnish names that are established in Sweden are translation loans, common to Standard Finnish or modified according to a Standard Finnish model. It is sometimes difficult to decide whether a name is part of Standard Finnish or if it is only a translation loan, since both alternatives often seem equally plausible. The results of the study show that the Sweden-Finnish newspapers investigated have accepted and employed the recommendations of The Finnish Language Council to a great extent. The recommendations of the Council can thus be considered normative. This implies that The Finnish Language Council has developed realistic and prudent principles for the composition of their recommendations.

This master thesis is a study on identity construction of a group of 9-14 year old children with Finnish origin in Sweden. In 2000 Sweden granted a special status of a national minority to five indigenous minorities, of which the Sweden-Finns are one, by ratifying European council’s framework convention for protection of national minorities. The status was further strengthened in 2010 with law 2009:724 giving Sweden’s five national minorities right to preserve and promote their own cultures and languages considered to be endangered due to centuries-long marginalisation, discrimination and forced assimilation to the Swedish society. The law emphasises particularly children’s right to a cultural identity and the minority language. Majority of the Sweden-Finnish children today are second or third generation decendants of the large group of work-related immigrants who migrated from Finland to Sweden during the 1960s-70s. Due to various socio-political reasons, the Sweden-Finns have assimilated culturally and linguistically to the Swedish society and children are predominantly Swedish-speaking. The theoretical framework in this thesis is a constructionist view on identity and ethnicity as ever-changing and in a constant process of being reproduced. There is an aspect of hybridity in identity; one person can have different identities during his or her lifetime. By using qualitative group interviews as a research method this thesis studies how a group of eleven Sweden-Finnish children relates to and identifies with “Finnishness” or “Sweden-Finnishness”. The study focuses on how these identity categories are reproduced by children and how they are used to mark and symbolise different aspects of the children’s identities. According to the sociology of childhood, children are seen as active social actors. Therefore this thesis presents a child’s perspective and it is the children’s own stories, opinions and insights to identity construction that form the basis to the analysis. The conclusion drawn is that the Sweden-Finnishness is constructed through children’s relations to Finland and how they relate to their Finnish origin even though their lives are preconditioned in a Swedish-speaking environment. Children describe Sweden-Finnishness as a relatively new identity category that is still under construction but a majority identify themselves as Sweden-Finns for their lives are in Sweden. Children have a limited access to other Finnish-speaking children and children’s cultures outside the group meetings where the interviews were conducted and Finnish language is mostly used with the Finnish-speaking parent or more seldom with relatives. The children consider their bilingualism as an advantage but the limited contacts to Finnish-speaking friends and the dominance of Swedish, and increasingly English, through social media in their daily lives decreases the possibilities to use Finnish in social relations. / Det här examensarbetet skrivs inom barn och ungdomsvetenskap och handlar om sverigefinska barns identitetsarbete. Sverigefinnar är i Sverige bosatta personer med finsk härkomst och en av de fem nationella eller historiska minoriteterna som Sverige erkände i februari 2000. Lagen (2009:724) om nationella minoriteter och minoritetsspråk fastställer bland annat att allmänheten ska särskilt främja minoritetsbarns rätt till utveckling av en kulturell identitet och användningen av det egna språket. Majoriteten av dagens sverigefinska barn och unga tillhör den andra- eller tredje generationen av den stora arbetskraftsinvandrargruppen som emigrerade från Finland till Sverige under 1960-70-talet. Dåtidens minoritetspolitik och bristen på finsk kulturell- och språklig kontext i vardagen har gjort att inte bara en, utan flera generationer sverigefinska barn saknar idag kunskaper om den finska kulturen samt kunskaper i det finska språket. Studiens teoretiska utgångspunkt utgörs av begreppen identitet, etnicitet och kultur. Studien använder sig av ett konstruktionistiskt perspektiv, att identiteter konstrueras hela livet i olika korsade och även motsatta diskurser. Identitetens hybriditet betyder att en och samma person kan uppleva och anamma olika identiteter under sitt liv. Inom barndomssociologi anses barn vara aktiva aktörer som själva konstruerar sin verklighet och det är därför att barnens egna funderingar och berättelser får företräde i redovisningen av den insamlade empirin. Med kvalitativ gruppintervju som forskningsmetod har en grupp av 11 sverigefinska barn i åldersgrupp 9-14 år intervjuats i syfte att kunna presentera ett sverigefinskt barns perspektiv som belyser hur barnen själv upplever och uppfattar sin identitet samt hur den kan kopplas till sverigefinskhet eller finskhet. Självidentifikation är en strategisk positionering som görs i relation till andra människor och att identifiera sig som finsk eller sverigefinsk är därmed en högst individuell uppfattning eller upplevelse om vem man är. Forskningsresultaten fastställer att sverigefinskhet skapas genom barnens relationer till Finland och den finska härkomsten trots att barnens levnadsmiljö huvudsakligen är svenskspråkig. De flesta kan identifiera sig med sverigefinskhet även om den uppfattas som en relativ ny identitetskategori som håller på att utvecklas och fyllas med innebörd. Barnen upplever att det finns få möjligheter att skapa sverigefinska kamratkulturer utöver den fritidsverksamheten där intervjuerna genomfördes och det finska språket används nästan uteslutande med den finskspråkiga föräldern eller mer sällan med släktingar. Flerspråkighet anses som en resurs som gynnar barnen i olika livssituationer men kompisrelationer är till stor del svenskspråkiga och användning av social media på engelska minskar tillfällena och möjligheterna till att använda finska.

Sweden is home to five recognized national minorities, namely the Jews, the Roma, the Torne Valley Descendants (Tornedalians), the Swedish Finns, and the Sami population which also are an indigenous group. The Government`s Minority Policy aims at protecting and supporting the national minorities and the historical minority languages (Yiddish, Romani chib, Sami, Finnish, Meänkieli). The policy also promotes the right of youth, belonging to national minority groups in order to develop and streng then their cultural identity. This paper seeks to address the lack of involvement of Swedish Finnish youth in the so called Finnish Administrative Areas (Finskt förvaltningsområde, FFO), and how the Norrköping and Haninge municipalities tackle the issue.   In this paper, a reconstruction of the intervention theory is presented with inspiration sought from the ideas of Evert Vedung, in order to see if the intentions of the legislation are implemented. In accordance to the research on how the policy is designed, the democratic theory, the theory of participation, as well as the theory of identity will be linked together to the opinions of officials. This will be done in accordance to the reconstructed intervention theory, which will be used as a tool in order to show how the selected mechanisms relate in order to describe how the policy will receive an expected result. The intervention theory is a method which is meant to be in use during the evaluation of measures done by the public organization. I have conducted audits on how each FFO approaches the problem at hand using municipality documents relating to the Swedish Finnish youth. In addition, I have interviewed municipal officials in the FFO:s of Norrköping and Haninge with the aim to get an impartial over view on how they are perceived by the Swedish Finnish youth within FFO.   The result of my research indicates that local government activities in many cases can be linked to democracy theory, identity theory as well as participation theory. The mechanisms which were chosen used the recently named theories, are used to measure the municipalities offer of activities are language, interventions, activities and also the media. These theories have been used to select the mechanisms considered to be the most important deemed by the Law on the Protection of National Minorities (SFS 2009: 724[1]). [1] Lag (2009:724) om nationella minoriteter och minoritetsspråk

Young people are a central group in revitalisation efforts that aim to turn the tide of language shift for speakers of endangered languages. In the context of the five national minorities of Sweden, this thesis looks at the motivation of young Sweden Finns to participate in or lead revitalisation efforts for Finnish in Sweden. The study circles in beginner’s Finnish organised by the Sweden Finnish Youth Organisation provide a point of entry into the way young people plan and adapt revitalisation efforts to the needs of other young people. Along with a study of materials pertaining to the study circles, five young people have been interviewed about their participation in or leadership of the study circles, or their involvement in the Sweden Finnish Youth organisation. Grin’s (1990) COD model has been used to explore the relationship between motivation (Desire) and the Sweden Finnish context. The study found that the study circles have been adapted to the needs and desires of young people on several levels. It also found that identity, a practical and emotional need for the Finnish language, an awareness of the situation for the national minorities in Sweden, and the acceptance of varying goals and non-standard varieties of Finnish, play important roles in young people’s motivation to learn Finnish and participate in or lead revitalisation efforts.