English Language Education Discourse in Finland: An Epistemic Governance Perspective
Nell, Kirsten (2024)
Nell, Kirsten
2024
Master's Programme in Social Science Research
Yhteiskuntatieteiden tiedekunta - Faculty of Social Sciences
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Hyväksymispäivämäärä
2024-10-31
Julkaisun pysyvä osoite on
https://urn.fi/URN:NBN:fi:tuni-202410269504
https://urn.fi/URN:NBN:fi:tuni-202410269504
Tiivistelmä
English is a global language for international cooperation with a long history of being taught in Finland yet the increase in English language education in Finland has been heavily debated within Finnish media and the Finnish public. The major theme within this discourse found in prior research is that Finland needs to exist within a globalised and modern world but that people feel that the Finnish language and Finnish should be protected. Prior literature explored what the attitudes towards English were and what people were arguing but did not look at how these arguments were being constructed and made. This research uses an epistemic governance perspective to explore how actors justify their arguments when discussing English language education in Finland. The research questions are (a) How do actors justify their position as being either for or against the increased use of English language within the Finnish education system? (b) What arguments do actors use when trying to convince others? The data consisted of news articles from YLE. The data was analysed using discourse analysis. Key findings are that there were three main themes arguing for increased English: economic competition, human rights and internationalisation and three main themes arguing against increased English: economic competition, human rights and nationalism. Different categories of speakers focussed on various issues with varying levels of epistemic capital. The discourse differed by educational level: Daycare, school and university. This thesis was able to add to the existing literature on the topic as it explored the discourse on English language education in a more contemporary setting and explored how these arguments were made.