Seminar with David Karlander (SCAS and Uppsala University) and Linus Salö (Stockholm University) with the title "The origin, circulation and impact of 'semilingualism'".

Abstract: The origin, circulation and impact of ‘semilingualism’

‘Semilingualism’ is widely regarded as a misinformed, pseudoscientific theory of bilingualism. In this talk, we sum up our research on the history of this concept, covering its origins, circulation, and impact (see Salö and Karlander, 2018, 2022; Karlander and Salö, 2023, 2024). We approach ‘semilingualism’ through the work and professional trajectory of its creator, Nils-Erik Hansegård (1918–2002), tracing its origins in Hansegård’s work, his minority language activism, and his linguistic research in Tornedalen in Sweden’s far North. Breaking with previous attempts at historicising ‘semilingualism’, we show how the concept originated in Hansegård’s reception of Nazi German linguistic thought. Hansegård found a new application of the psycholinguistic and sociolinguistic ideas of Georg Schmidt-Rohr and Friedrich Kainz, tailoring them to his advocacy for minority language rights in education. As a result, ‘semilingualism’ became a central matter of concern in Swedish debates on minority and immigration policy in the 1960s and 70s. Although ‘semilingualism’ began to lose much of its scientific credibility in the latter half of the 1970s, its circulation in public discourse helped to usher in educational reforms, including the Home Language Reform of 1977. A close examination of the oft-paradoxical history of ‘semilingualism’ consequently asks pressing questions about the genealogy, politics and societal impact of linguistic thought.

References

Karlander, D., and Salö, L. (forth., 2024). Historicizing semilingualism. Makoni, S., Severo, C. & Abdelhay, A. (Eds.) Decolonizing Language Planning and Policy in Theory and Practice. Multilingual Matters.
Karlander, D., and Salö, L. (2023). The origins of semilingualism: Nils Erik Hansegård and the cult of the mother tongue. Journal of Sociolinguistics. 27(5): 506–525.
Salö, L., and Karlander, D. (2022). The travels of semilingualism: Itineraries of ire, impact, and infamy. In Williams, Q., Deumert, A. & Milani, T. (Eds.)  Struggles for Multilingualism and Linguistic Citizenship, 121–139. Multilingual Matters.
Salö, L., and Karlander, D. (2018). Semilingualism: The life and afterlife of a sociolinguistic idea. Urban Language & Literacies 247: 1–14. 

The seminar will be in English. Please contact Caroline Merkel (caroline.merkel@tyska.su.se) for more information and for the Zoom link (when applicable)!