My PhD-thesis explores the language use of adolescent speakers with a migration background in rural Swedish-speaking regions in Finland. By examining the adolescents’ use of quotatives in spoken Swedish, I want to shed further light on how the language of the host country is appropriated by second-generation speakers in multilingual settings. My article-based thesis aims to provide further insight into the linguistic behaviour of speakers in linguistic contact situations by adding a rural perspective to what has mainly been studied in terms of urban melting pots.