Marion Kwiatkowski

In my dissertation, I investigate how adolescents who are children of immigrants in Swedish-language Finland construct and express their socio-cultural identity through linguistic practices.
My article-based thesis aims to provide further insight into the linguistic behaviour of speakers in language contact situations by adding a rural perspective to what has mainly been studied in terms of urban melting pots.  From a Finnish perspective, the dissertation also sheds light on the linguistic situation and on language-policital aspects in Finland, where immigrants settling in the Swedish-speaking countryside constitute a further minority within the Swedish-speaking minority in Finland and are expected to cope in this complex linguistic relationship.