Cover not available

Article published In: Language, Culture and Society
Vol. 5:1 (2023) ► pp.94–120

Get fulltext from our e-platform
JBE logo with link
PDF logo with download linkDownload PDF
EPUB logo with download linkDownload EPUB
authorization required

Boundaries of belonging

Language and Swedishness in contemporary Swedish fiction

ORCiD logo with link | Uppsala University, Sweden
 | Stockholm University, Sweden
Published online: 12 May 2023
DOI logo with link
https://doi.org/10.1075/lcs.21005.gan
Abstract
This article uses contemporary Swedish fiction to explore sociolinguistic phenomena, and argues that literature constitutes an important arena for studying the (re)production and circulation of sociolinguistic experiences and ideas at a particular time and place. It builds on qualitative analysis of 65 Swedish books, published between 2000 and 2020, which depict protagonists with multilingual and migrant backgrounds. The study examines patterns of repetition in these works of fiction. It foregrounds recurring sociolinguistic experiences that are made relevant in the depiction of the fictional characters’ lives, and how they are emotionally interpreted. The analysis shows that the narrated experiences are often told and organized in similar ways and they tend to use the same social images of speakers to highlight processes of boundary-making and social differentiation. Language is used as an important part of the entextualization of these social experiences. For example, the authors often depict “the immigrant” and “the Swede” as binary opposites, which are linked to certain typical forms of speaking and being. By way of repetition, we argue, these recurring fictional experiences contribute to the formation of a grander narrative about language, belonging and social boundary-making in contemporary Sweden, and to the construction of Sweden as a society that is increasingly segregated and stratified.
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Metapragmatic discourse and lived experience of language
  • 3.Data and method
  • 4.Fictional representations of sociolinguistic experiences
    • 4.1Tests of identity
    • 4.2Biographical junctures
    • 4.3Indexicals of affect
  • 5.Concluding remarks
  • Notes
  • References
References (65)
References
Agha, A. (2003). The social life of cultural value. Language & Communication, 23(3–4), 231–271. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
(2007). Language and social relations. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
(2011). Large and small scale forms of personhood. Language & Communication, 311, 171–180. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Ahmad, E. (2017). En dag ska jag bygga ett slott av pengar [One day I will build a castle out of money]. Stockholm: Natur och Kultur.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Ahmed, S. (2004). The cultural politics of emotion. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
(2010). Killing joy: Feminism and the history of happiness. Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society, 35(3), 571–594. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Azar, M. (2006). Den koloniala bumerangen. Från schibbolet till körkort i svenskhet [The colonial boomerang. From shibboleth to driver’s license in Swedishness]. Stockholm/Sehag: Symposion.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Bakhtiari, M. (2005). Kalla det vad fan du vill [Call it whatever the hell you want]. Stockholm: Ordfront förlag.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Bakhtin, M. (1981). The Dialogic Imagination. Four Essays by M.M. Bakhtin. Michael Holquist (Ed.). Austin: University of Texas Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Bauman, R. (2004). A World of Other’s Words: Cross-Cultural Perspectives on Intertextuality. Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Bauman, R., & Briggs, C. (1990). Poetics and Performance as Critical Perspectives on Language and Social Life. Annual Review of Anthropology, 191, 59–88. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Bečević, Z. (2009). Svenhammeds journaler [Svenhammed’s Journals]. Stockholm: Alfabeta BokförlagGoogle Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Behschnitt, W. (2013). The rythm of hip-hop: Multi-ethnic slang in Swedish literature after 2000. In W. Behschnitt, S. De Mul & L. Minnard (Eds.), Literature, Language, and Multiculturalism in Scandinavia and the Low Countries (pp. 175–195). Amsterdam: Rodopi. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Bijvoet, E. & Senter, K. (2021). “Inside and outside perspectives on Swedish in linguistically and culturally heterogenic suburban areas.” Språk och stil, 31(1), 166–200.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Bourdieu, P., & Wacquant, L. (1992). An invitation to reflexive sociology. Cambridge: Polity.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Briggs, C. L., & Bauman, R. (1992). Genre, intertextuality, and social power. Journal of Linguistic Anthropology, 2(2), 131–172. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Bruner, J. (1987). Life as Narrative. Social Research, 54(1), 11–32.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Busch, B. (2012). The linguistic repertoire revisited. Applied Linguistics, 33(5), 503–523. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
(2017). Expanding the notion of the linguistic repertoire: On the concept of Spracherleben – The lived experience of language. Applied Linguistics, 38(3), 340–358.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
(2020). Message in a bottle: Scenic presentation of the unsayable. Applied Linguistics, 41(3), 408–427. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Cameron, D. (2007). Language Endangerment and Verbal Hygiene: History, Morality and Politics. In A. Duchêne, & M. Heller (Eds.), Discourses of Endangerment (pp. 268–285). London: Continuum.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Coupland, N. (2011). Voice, place and genre in popular song performance. Journal of Sociolinguistics, 15(5), 573–602. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Dahlstedt, M., & Eliassi, B. (2016). Slaget om hemmet. Värden, utanförskapanden och förorten som folkhemmets periferi [The struggle about home. Values, social exclusion, and the suburb as the periphery of the People’s Home]. Sociologisk Forskning, 551, 203–223. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Delmos (2021). Segregation i Sverige – Årsrapport 2021 om den socioekonomiska boendesegregationens utveckling. DELMOS 2021/334.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Derrida, J. (2005). Sovereignties in Question. The Poetics of Paul Celan. New York: Fordham University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Duranti, A. (2010). Husserl, intersubjectivity and anthropology. Anthropological Theory, 10(1), 1–20. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Eriksson, U., Molina, I., & Ristilammi, R.-M. (2000). Miljonprogram och media. Föreställningar om människor och förorter. [The million-homes program and the media: Conceptions of people and suburbs] Stockholm: Riksantikvarieämbetet/Integrationsverket.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Farzin, M. (2016). Alltså ursprungligen är jag från Atlantis [Well originally I am from Atlantis]. In K. Borg (Ed.), Finnjävlar (pp. 100–109). Stockholm: Verbal förlag.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Felski, R. (2008). Uses of Literature. Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Finnegan, R. (2015). Where is Language? An anthropologist’s question on language, literature and performance. London: Bloomsbury.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Hashemzadeh, G. (2012). Hon är inte jag [She is not me]. Stockholm: Bonnier pocket.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Hjorth, E. (2015). Förtvivlade läsningar: Litteratur som motstånd & läsning som etik [Desperate readings: Literature as resistance and reading as ethics]. Munkedal: Glänta produktion.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Hübinette, T. (2019). Att skriva om svenskheten: studier i de svenska rasrelationerna speglade genom den icke-vita svenska litteraturen [To write about Swedishness: studies in Swedish race relations as mirrored in the non-white Swedish literature]. Malmö: Arx förlag.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Hübinette, T., & Lundström, C. (2020). Vit melankoli. En analys av en nation i kris [White melancholia. An analysis of a nation in crisis]. Göteborg/Stockholm: Makadam förlag.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Hyltenstam, K. (1999). Sveriges sju inhemska språk – ett minoritetsspråksperspektiv [Sweden’s seven national languages – a minority language perspective]. Lund: Studentlitteratur.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Hyltenstam, K., & Milani, T. (2012). Flerspråkighetens sociopolitiska och sociokulturella ramar [The Socio-Political and Socio-Cultural Frames of Multilingualism]. In K. Hyltenstam, & I. Lindberg (Eds.), Flerspråkighet: en forskningsöversikt [Multilingualism: A Research Overview] (pp. 17–152). Stockholm: Vetenskapsrådet.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Jonsson, R. (2007). Blatte betyder kompis [Blatte means buddy]. Stockholm: Ordfront.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Jonsson, R., Gradin Franzén, A., & Milani, T. M. (2020). Making the threatening other laughable: Ambiguous performances of urban vernaculars in Swedish media. Language & Communication, 711, 1–15. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Khemiri, J. H. (2003). Ett öga rött [One eye red]. Stockholm: Norstedts.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Kirlić, A. (2015). En svensk kändis [A Swedish celebrity]. Stockholm: Norstedts.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Kotsinas, U.-B. (1988). Rinkebysvenska – en dialekt? [Rinkeby Swedish – a dialect?]. In P. Linell, V. Adelswärd, T. Nilsson, & P. Petterson (Eds.), Svenskans beskrivning 161 (pp. 264–278). Linköping: Linköpings universitet.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Kramsch, C. (2012). Imposture: A Late Modern Notion in Poststructuralist SLA Research. Applied Linguistics, 33(5), 483–502. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Källström, R. (2010). Literary Use of Multiethnic Youth Language: Non-inversion in Swedish Fiction. In P. Quist, & B. A. Svendsen (Eds.), Multilingual Urban Scandinavia (pp. 142–155). Bristol: Multilingual Matters. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Leiva Wenger, A. (2001). Till vår ära [In our honor]. Stockholm: Albert Bonniers förlag.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
(2015). Fakta – Tre pjäser [Facts – Three plays]. Stockholm: Albert Bonniers Förlag.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Lundström, C. (2007). Svenska latinas: Ras klass och kön i svenskhetens geografi [Swedish Latinas : Race, class, and gender in the geography of Swedishness]. Göteborg/Stockholm: Makadam förlag.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Madsen, L. M., Karrebæk, M. S., Møller, J. S. (2016). Everyday Languaging. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Mar, R., & Oatley, K. (2008). The function of fiction is the abstraction and simulation of social experience. Perspectives on psychological science, 3(3), 173–192. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
McNamara, T. (2020). The anti-shibboleth: The traumatic character of the shibboleth as silence. Applied Linguistics, 41(3), 334–351. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Merleau-Ponty, M. (1945/2002). Phenomenology of Perception (transl. C. Smith). New York: Routledge.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Milani, T. M. (2010). What’s in a name? Language ideology and social differentiation in a Swedish print-mediated debate. Journal of Sociolinguistics 14(1), 116–142. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Milfuegos, N. (2015). Tankar mellan hjärtslag [Thoughts in between heartbeats]. Stockholm: Wahlström & Widstrand.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Millard, K. (2007). Coming of age in contemporary American fiction. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Morris, P. (1994). Introduction. In P. Morris (Ed.), The Bakhtin reader: Selected writings of Bakhtin, Medvedev, Voloshinov (pp. 1–24). London: Arnold.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Nilsson, M. (2010). Den föreställda mångkulturen. Klass och etnicitet i svensk samtidsprosa. [The imagined multiculturalism. Class and ethnicity in Swedish contemporary prose] Möklinta: Gidlunds förlag.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
(2012). Swedish “Immigrant Literature” and the Ethnic Lens: The Representation of Cultural Diversity in Jonas Hassen Khemiri’s “Ett öga rött” and Marjaneh Bakhtiari’s “Kalla det vad fan du vill”. Scandinavian Studies, 84(1), 27–58.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Park, J. S.-Y. (2021). Figures of personhood: time, space, and affect as heuristics for metapragmatic analysis. International Journal of the Sociology of Language 2721, 47–73. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Pujolar, J., & Puigdevall, M. (2015). Linguistic mudes: how to become a new speaker in Catalonia. International Journal of the Sociology of Language, 2311, 167–187. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Rampton, B. (2006). Language in late modernity: Interaction in an urban school. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
(2011). From ‘Multi-ethnic adolescent heteroglossia’ to ‘Contemporary urban vernaculars’. Language & Communication, 311, 276–294. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Rydell, M. (2018). Being ‘a competent language user’ in a world of Others: Adult migrants’ perceptions and constructions of communicative competence. Linguistics and Education, 451, 101–109. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Stamou, A. (2018). Sociolinguistics of fiction. Discourse, Context & Media, 231, 1–5. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Statistics Sweden (2020). Population statistics. Retrieved from: [URL]
Tangney, J. P., & Dearing, R. L. (2002). Shame and Guilt. New York: Guilford Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Cited by (1)

Cited by one other publication

Ganuza, Natalia & Maria Rydell
2025. Turning talk into text: the representation of contemporary urban vernaculars in Swedish fiction. Text & Talk 45:3 ► pp. 319 ff. DOI logo

This list is based on CrossRef data as of 25 november 2025. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers. Any errors therein should be reported to them.

Mobile Menu Logo with link to supplementary files background Layer 1 prag Twitter_Logo_Blue