English prescriptivism in higher education settings: Focus on Nordic Countries

This chapter explores the use of explicit language policies and regulations in higher education settings where English is used as a foreign language. In particular, the chapter presents a case study of the Nordic countries of Europe, which, in today’s Europe, are considered some of the settings where English users have overall high proficiency in English. The chapter presents a collection of public university language policy documents from the countries of Iceland, Denmark, Sweden, Norway, and Finland. An analysis of these documents reveals two sets of outcomes. The first is that, presumably as a by-product of Nordic union and collaboration, English language skills in the Nordic countries are upheld as elite among Nordic Universities. The second outcome is that the prescribed use of English in these institutions mirrors that of colonial and imperial norms of English.