Keywords

9.1 Introduction

This longitudinal study examines four Tornedalian bilingual adolescents’ translingual practices, that is, the way they use their linguistic resources and their performance and positioning of linguistic identities during interactions in informal pair conversations and individual semi-structured interviews with the researcher. The aim is to investigate whether there is a relationship between the adolescents’ language use and identity performance and positioning. The investigation was conducted over a period of five years (2014–2019). The research site, Haparanda, located on the border of Sweden and Finland in Tornedalen (Torne Valley, see Fig. 9.1), is a small municipality of about 10,000 inhabitants. Roughly 55 per cent of the population are foreign-born, and over 80 per cent of them were born in Finland (Statistics Sweden, 2022). Haparanda shares a common city and shopping centre with the neighbouring city of Tornio in Finland. Tornedalen, on the other hand, is a large geographical area in north-eastern Sweden and in north-western Finland, divided by the national border.

Fig. 9.1
A map of the Torne River valley. It plots Norway, Finland, Sweden, Haparanda, and Tornio regions.

Copyright 2021 by Tapio Palvelut Oy/Karttakeskus

Torne (River) Valley.

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Tornedalen is and has been a multilingual region for centuries. Before the border between Sweden and Finland was drawn in 1809, Finnish and Northern Saami were the main languages of the region. Currently, Swedish is the dominant language in Swedish Tornedalen, whereas Finnish is the main language on the Finnish side of the border. In addition to Swedish, people in the Torne River Valley on the Swedish side of the border speak mostly Meänkieli (earlier called Tornedalen Finnish), various Finnish dialects, and Saami languages (Arola et al., 2014; Kolu, 2023). Since 2000, Finnish, Meänkieli, and Northern Saami have had the status of official minority language in Sweden (The Swedish Code of Statutes, 2009, p. 724, Act on National Minorities). Meänkieli is the official name of the Finnic language spoken in Tornedalen in northern Sweden. Several researchers consider that it is impossible to draw a strict line between Meänkieli and various Finnish varieties in TornedalenFootnote 1 (Arola et al., 2014, p. 2; Kolu, 2023, p. 130; Ruotsala, 2014, p. 268).

Cross-border zones such as Tornedalen connecting people with different linguistic and national backgrounds make it inadequate to use categories such as those of languages, dialects, and ethnicities (see De Fina, 2016, p. 167). Consequently, in this study neither language use nor linguistic identity is understood to be fixed or predetermined; instead, they are understood to be fluid and socially constructed in interaction depending on the communication context (see Creese & Blackledge, 2015; De Fina, 2016; Fisher et al., 2018; García & Li Wei, 2014; Makalela, 2014; Otsuji & Pennycook, 2013; Pennycook, 2016). Pennycook (2016, p. 205) and Jørgensen et al. (2016, p. 144) prefer to talk in terms of linguistic resources, including language styles, genres, features, and registers, which enable the analysis of linguistic variation in time and space. However, linguistic features may be associated with certain languages as social constructs and ideological systems, and it would be difficult to carry on this investigation without naming languages (cf. Fishman & García, 2011; García & Leiva, 2014; Jaspers & Madsen, 2018). Nevertheless, it should be noted that the translanguaging movement in sociolinguistics challenges hierarchic categories and concepts of language, and even traditional notions of bilingualism (see García, 2012b; Pennycook, 2016, p. 201).

In this chapter, translingual practices are seen as bilingual interlocutors’ concrete language practices, that is, something they do ‘in action’ with their multiple language resources (Jørgensen & Møller, 2014). Linguistic resources can range from how flexibly bilinguals use their vocabulary, grammar, and discourse particles to their use of metalanguage and stylisation in their communication (see more detailed analysis of various features in bilingual linguistic and discourse practices in Kolu, 2017; see also Lehtonen, 2015). Thus, translingual practices are considered by bilinguals to be common and natural ways of interacting which enable them to create their own language styles and linguistic identities (Canagarajah, 2013; García, 2012b). The term translingual identity is used here for describing the dynamics of identity, performed through translingual practices and transcending national and language boundaries (Canagarajah, 2013; Flores, 2013; Kolu, 2017).

There is a related concept to the term translingual practices—the notion of translanguaging—that has been criticised for its ambiguity and vagueness. Here, the concept of translanguaging is used as an umbrella term for the theoretical perspective of translanguaging. García and Li Wei (2014, p. 2) define the theory of translanguaging as ‘an approach to the use of language, bilingualism and the education of bilinguals that considers the language practices of bilinguals not as two autonomous systems as has been traditionally the case, but as one linguistic repertoire with features that have been socially constructed as belonging to two separate languages’. As Li Wei (2017) states, the concept of translanguaging has been employed in a variety of contexts, including pedagogy, bilinguals’ and multilinguals’ spontaneous interaction inside and outside of the classroom, and multimodal communication (see also García, 2009; Cenoz & Gorter, 2017). Hence, translanguaging theory has contributed to a new theoretical approach to language and bilingualism which is also applied in this study.

It can be assumed that translingual practices, that is, bilingual or multilingual speakers’ use of their multiple linguistic resources, are linked to cross-border and translingual identity positioning (cf. Canagarajah, 2013; García & Leiva, 2014). As De Fina (2016, p. 167) argues, ‘it is through the manipulation of linguistic resources that identities are indexed and conveyed’. Examining the language use and identity formation of young people living in the border region can provide new insights to the research of the hybridisation of languages and identities (cf. Edwards, 2009; Ruotsala, 2012). The four bilingual (Finnish/Swedish) adolescents who participated in this research are members of social networks that extend across the national border between Sweden and Finland.

The term bilingual is used in this study, as the participants consider themselves to be bilinguals in Swedish and Finnish. The focus in this study is on Swedish and Finnish resources, but the concept of bilingualism does not exclude any other languages or varieties the participants use in interactions. The adolescents in this investigation could just as well be described as multilinguals, as they also know and speak other languages such as English and Spanish (cf. Garcia, 2009).

In the following sub-section, I present my research objective and rationale. In the subsequent section, I provide an overview of the theoretical perspectives on language and identity. After that, I present the data set, methodology, and analytical approach to the study object. This is followed by an analysis of conversation data from four data gatherings (2014–2019) and interviews (2019). Finally, I summarise and discuss the findings of the study.

9.1.1 Research Objective and Rationale

The research questions that guided this study were as follows:

Pair conversations (2014–2019):

  1. 1.

    Are there any changes in the four participants’ mutual use of their linguistic resources in the recorded informal pair conversations over a period of five years (2014–2019), and if so, what are the changes?

  2. 2.

    Are there any changes in the way the four participants perform and position their identities in the recorded informal pair conversations over a period of five years (2014–2019), and if so, what kinds of changes?

Interviews (2019):

  1. 3.

    How do the participants perform linguistically and position their identities in the individual interviews with the researcher after the last recorded pair conversations, in 2019?

  2. 4.

    How do the participants narrate and explain any changes occurring over a period of five years in their use of language resources, identity performance, and positioning in the interviews with the researcher, in 2019?

Overall (2014–2019):

  1. 5.

    Are there any links to be seen between the adolescents’ language use, linguistic identity performance, and positioning during the period of 2014–2019?

In this study, the same bilingual participants were followed over a five-year period, and during this period they moved from comprehensive school to senior secondary school. The longitudinal research highlights the circumstances that may affect adolescents’ language use and identity transformations and influence their maintenance of multiple linguistic resources in the long run. Further, the follow-up study offers the possibility to examine whether the possible changes in adolescents’ language use and identity performance and positioning seem to be linked with each other.

The adolescent years of bilingual or multilingual individuals may be a phase in their lives which can be decisive for their later use of their heritage language (Pułaczewska, 2021). For example, a change of place of residence, school, and friends may affect a young person’s language use as their linguistic environment and social contexts change (Edwards, 2009; Kolu, 2020, 2023; Pujolar & Puigdevall, 2015). However, there is a gap in the research of this specific field, as there are very few follow-up studies in bilingual and multilingual adolescents’ language use, and most of the longitudinal studies are conducted from a language learning perspective, not from a perspective of informal interactions outside the classroom (cf. Bateman, 2016; Kapp & Bangeni, 2011).

9.2 The Relationship Between Language, Identity, and Translingual Practices

As Edwards (2009, p. 254) notes, ‘language and identity are powerfully and complexly intertwined, and contexts of bilingualism and multilingualism only reinforce this point’. Edwards (2009, p. 255) argues ‘that the importance of being bilingual is, above all, social and psychological rather than linguistic’. Furthermore, Edwards (2009, p. 254) explains that for majority language speakers living in an environment where the majority language is spoken, the link between language and identity is not necessarily a matter of concern, while for minority language speakers the issues between language and identity are not always self-evident or static.

Hence, bilingual identities are shaped and reshaped along with the bilingual language practices and correspondingly, bilingual language practices themselves may be considered as acts of identities (see Canagarajah, 2013; Musk, 2010; Pennycook, 2004). On the other hand, García (2010, p. 519) uses the verbs languaging and ethnifying instead of the nouns language and ethnicity to emphasise that it is individuals that use certain linguistic practices to signal who they are and what they want to be: ‘It is through languaging and ethnifying that people perform their identifying’.

The four adolescents’ use of language resources and identity performance and positioning are examined in this chapter from a translanguaging approach, in which both language and identities are seen as integrated and fluid in different social contexts (see Fishman & García, 2011; García & Leiva, 2014; Jaspers & Madsen, 2018). Here, translingual practices account for the concrete incorporation of multiple linguistic resources into speakers’ everyday interaction in places where different languages are simultaneously present (De Fina, 2016, p. 168). Furthermore, translingual practices refer to bilinguals’ unplanned and integrative use of multiple language resources both inside and outside of school (Cenoz & Gorter, 2017; García, 2009). The language repertoire of bilingual adolescents includes all kinds of meshing and blending of language resources (vocabulary, grammar, phonology, discourse particles), translations, metalanguage, and calques (Kolu, 2017; Moore, 2018).

In this study, both linguistic and ethnic identities are viewed as being performed and positioned during interactions with other people in certain discursive spaces and situations (Bucholtz & Hall, 2005; Duff, 2015; Pennycook, 2004). Translingual practices enable social and identity transformations and hybrid identities; correspondingly, identity transformations may generate translingual practices (Flores & García, 2013; García & Leiva, 2014; García & Li Wei, 2014; Li Wei, 2011). Thus, the language or languages the speakers choose for the interactions are seen as a part of the participants’ identity performance (cf. Kolu, 2020; Lehtonen 2015; Musk, 2010). Consequently, translingual practices themselves and various linguistic features (grammatical and lexical features and discourse particles) may function as identity markers and social indexicals which establish social relationships between interlocutors (Kolu, 2017, 2020; Henricson, 2015; Lehtonen, 2015). As Lehtonen (2015, p. 215) suggests, it is not only a question of an individual’s own identity performance, but also a question of her relationship to other interlocutors and the actual context (Lehtonen, 2015, p. 297).

One central concept in this study is positioning, which according to Davies and Harré (1990, p. 47) ‘is the discursive process whereby selves are located in conversations as observably and subjectively coherent participants in jointly produced storylines’. Davies and Harré (ibid.) divide positioning into ‘reflective positioning’ in which a person positions herself and ‘interactive positioning’ in which one person positions another. In this chapter, positioning refers both to how the interlocutors in this study position themselves and each other as language users and to how they locate their identities through the roles and subject positions they take up in pair conversations and individual interviews with the researcher (see Bucholtz & Hall, 2005, pp. 591–593).

9.3 Data, Participants, and Analysis Method

The data presented here are drawn from recorded, informal pair conversations and from individual interviews with the participants: Carro and Amanda, and Janet and Emma. The pair conversations were recorded on video in two schools on four occasions in 2014, 2015, 2017, and 2019 respectively (see Table 9.1). A questionnaire about the participants’ language background was only used as a supplement to the data for the purpose of gathering information from the four participants in the study. The questionnaire included questions, for example, about their place of residence and language background (e.g., the languages they studied at school).

Table 9.1 Data gatherings
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In the first data gathering phases, in 2014 and 2015, the other pair of the study, Carro and Amanda, were between 14 and 15 and attended an officially Swedish comprehensive school. In the questionnaire, Carro reported that she was born and had lived in Haparanda, while Amanda stated she was born in Finland, but her family had moved to Haparanda when she was two. Both Carro and Amanda stated that Finnish was their mother tongue but that they were studying only Swedish and Spanish at school. Carro noted she mostly spoke Finnish at home, whereas Amanda reported that she spoke only Finnish at home. They described that they used mainly Finnish in their spare time with their Finnish-speaking friends, but they used both Finnish and Swedish at school. Both girls noted that they crossed the border almost daily, and nearly all their relatives lived in Finland, and that they frequently met their relatives and friends on the Finnish side of the border.

The other pair of the study, Janet and Emma, were between 14 and 15 in 2014 and 2015, and attended a comprehensive school where, for approximately 80 per cent of the pupils, Finnish was their first language. Janet was born in Haparanda, but she was currently living in Tornio in Finland, while Emma was born in Haparanda and still lived there. Both girls stated that Finnish was their mother tongue, and they also studied Finnish at school. Emma was the only one of the participants who studied Swedish as a second language. In the questionnaire, Janet reported speaking mostly Finnish at home, while Emma said she spoke only Finnish at home. They said that they crossed the border daily to meet with relatives and friends or to attend other activities. Furthermore, Janet crossed the border daily to attend school in Haparanda.

The conversation recordings in 2014, 2015, 2017, and 2019 were conducted during school hours in a separate room outside the classrooms. As the pairs were close friends, I assumed that they had established certain conversational patterns. I, as a researcher, was not present in the recordings of the pair conversations, and I instructed them to speak as they generally would speak to each other. I let them freely choose the discussion topics and the language(s) used in their conversations. In 2019, directly after the final recordings (Recording 4) of the pair conversations, the participants, whom I interviewed individually, had the opportunity to listen to and comment on a short excerpt from the beginning of the first recording before the interview. Each of the individual interviews took approximately 20 minutes.Footnote 2

The data collection, storing, and processing followed the ethical principles outlined in the Guidelines for Ethical Review in Human Sciences drawn up by the Finnish National Board on Research Integrity (TENK, 2019). All participants’ names were replaced by pseudonyms, and written consent to participate was documented. The participants could also end the recordings whenever they wished. Thus, the total duration of the pairs’ conversational data varied from 4 hours and 45 minutes (Carro and Amanda) to 3 hours and 50 minutes (Janet and Emma) (see Table 9.1).

The conversations and interviews were transcribed, but the qualitative analysis was based on listening to the interactions. In the analysis of the participants’ language use and linguistic and ethnic identity positioning, Pennycook’s (2003, 2004) concept of performativity and Bucholtz and Hall’s (2005) principle of positionality were applied. This means that the language(s) chosen for the conversations and interviews were considered to be part of the participants’ identity performance (see Kolu, 2020; Musk, 2010). Nonetheless, the focus of the analysis was on the speakers’ translingual practices, that is, their use of multiple language resources, that were viewed as acts of translingual identity (cf. Canagarajah, 2013). In addition, the positionality principle was applied to explore how the interlocutors position themselves, position others, and are positioned as language users in interactions in informal pair conversations and individual interviews with the researcher (Bucholtz & Hall, 2005, pp. 591–593). Hence, both the way participants utilise their linguistic resources and how they refer to those resources may be interpreted as expressions of linguistic identity. Overall, in the analysis, identities encompass identity performance, positioning, and participant roles in interactions (Bucholtz & Hall, 2005; Pennycook, 2003).

The qualitative semi-structured interviews offered data on the participants’ narratives that revealed the meanings they gave to different circumstances and stages in their lives that they thought had had an impact on their language use (cf. Galletta, 2012). Furthermore, the interviews provided a hermeneutic understanding of the complexity and dynamics of four bilingual adolescents’ social life, cross-border mobility, language use, and identity. Finally, I analyse whether the speakers’ use of linguistic resources coincide with their performance and positioning of their linguistic identity over a period of five years.

9.4 Dynamics of the Language Use and the Identity Performance and Positioning in the Recorded Informal Pair Conversations

In the following sections, I present the results from the recorded pair conversations in chronological order as I attempt to answer my first research questions: (1) Are there any changes in the four participants’ mutual use of their linguistic resources in the recorded informal pair conversations over a period of five years (2014–2019), and if so, what are the changes? (2) Are there any changes in the way the participants perform and position their identities in the recorded informal pair conversations over a period of five years (2014–2019), and if so, what kinds of changes?

Furthermore, the pair conversations are analysed regarding the fifth research question, and the participants’ language use with each other is examined on four different data gathering occasions to see if there are any connections between how they use their language resources with each other, how they perform their linguistic identity through using their language resources, and how they position themselves as language users through the stances, roles, and orientations they adopt in the conversations. In the analysis, I provide representative excerpts from the recordings and examples of the participants’ translingual practices and identity positionings.

9.4.1 Carro’s and Amanda’s Increasing Translingual Practices and Translingual Identity in 2014 and 2015

In 2014 and 2015, Carro and Amanda were between 14 and 15 and attended an officially Swedish compulsory school. During the first pair conversation in 2014, Carro spoke mainly Finnish, but she also employed translingual practices through using Swedish school vocabulary and quotations. For the transcribed sequences in Finnish, the usual style is used, whereas Swedish words are transcribed in bold. The English translations are in square brackets and the translations from Swedish in bold. For instance, Carro reported: ‘sitten mää muistin että meillä on idrottia’ [then I remembered that we have gymnastics], and ‘Anna on sanonut det kommer inte till betyget’ [Anna has said it doesn’t affect our grades].

Also, Amanda used mainly Finnish, and translingual practices emerged in some single school-related Swedish words which were inflected according to the rules of Finnish grammar, for example, ‘ei ne glosorit oo niin tärkeitä’ [those vocabulary tests are not so important] (see more detailed analysis of the adolescents’ language use in Haparanda in Kolu, 2017).

During the first conversation, Carro asked Amanda whether she sometimes mixed her languages. Amanda stated she sometimes knew a word in English but did not know the corresponding word in Finnish or Swedish. Amanda continued that she did not know why she found Swedish more difficult than Finnish and English, and she noted that she mostly used Finnish and English when communicating with her classmates. Nevertheless, she did not use English in the first recording except for a vocabulary test that she did for Carro.

Carro described how she could keep to Finnish with Amanda, but during lessons her languages alternated more between Swedish and Finnish. Carro added in Finnish that she hardly noticed when this was happening since they lived in the cross-border region: ‘se on ko assuu täällä’ [It is’ cos you live here]. Carro’s observation indicates three things: First, her statement that translingual practices happen unnoticed shows that she does not draw a strict line between languages. Second, Carro seems to be aware of the impact of the border region on their language use. Third, Carro also suggests that people living in the cross-border region perform some kind of local translingual identity through translingual practices. Her comment reinforces the findings of how translingual practices are related to translingual identity performance and positioning (see Kolu, 2020; Canagarajah, 2013; García & Leiva, 2014).

To sum up, in 2014, both Carro and Amanda positioned themselves as bilinguals (or multilinguals in Amanda’s case) by stating that they used Finnish, Swedish, and even English for Amanda (see Bucholtz & Hall, 2005, pp. 591–593) and performed their translingual identity through translingual practices, that is, through using Swedish school vocabulary. At the same time, Carro and Amanda positioned their mothers’ and their own ethnic identities as Finnish. Amanda stated: ‘äiti on syntynyt Kalixissa mutta eihän se tee susta ruotsalaista’ [my mother was born in Kalix,Footnote 3 but it doesn’t make you Swedish]. Carro agreed and concluded: ‘mää oon suomalainen’ [I am Finnish], and Amanda noted the same about herself. In the first recording, Finnish dominated Carro’s and Amanda’s conversations, and there seemed to be a link between their use of language resources and linguistic and ethnic identity positioning (except Amanda’s statement about English use). This is also in line with Liebkind’s (1999, p. 143) claim that there is a connection between linguistic and ethnic identity.

During the second pair conversation in 2015, both Carro and Amanda were performing an increasingly translingual identity through translingual practices. Now, they were using longer sequences in Swedish, but also occasional separate school words:

For instance, Carro reported that she felt a little nervous before the national exams: ‘sitä on vähän niinkö laddad inför själva provet’ [you are like a little nervous before the exam], while Amanda stated: ‘ei siihen voi pluggata niin ei se haittaa’ [you can’t study for that so it doesn’t matter]. Neither participant explicitly commented on their language use nor positioned their identity. During the conversation, they planned on taking a vacation in Finland, thus continuing their transnational mobility.

9.4.2 Janet’s and Emma’s Intense Translingual Practices and Translingual Identity in 2014 and 2015

In 2014 and 2015, the other pair of girls, Janet and Emma, were between 14 and 15 and attended a comprehensive school. In the first pair conversation in 2014, Janet and Emma performed translingual identities through intense translingual practices: ‘meillähän loppuu tjugofem över ku meillä on mattea tiistaisin’ [we will finish (at) twenty-five past’ cos we have maths on Tuesdays] and ‘me saadaan nyt lähtä praoamaan’ [we may now go to on-the-job training]. At some point in the conversation, they positioned themselves as poor speakers of Finnish because the corresponding Finnish word for the Swedish word repetition ‘rehearsal’ was unknown to them. This is, however, understandable, because they studied in a Swedish school where the Swedish curriculum was taught. Thus, the interlocutors used Swedish words for school subjects, even when they were speaking Finnish (Kolu, 2017, 2020).

In the second pair conversation in 2015, Janet and Emma continued performing their translingual identity through translingual practices, especially through using Swedish school words. For example, Janet asked Emma: ‘Mikä lektion meillä on tämän jälkeen?’ [what lesson do we have next?], and Emma answered: ‘svenskaa, sitten on syslöjd’ [Swedish, then handicrafts]. When Emma, in turn, asked Janet what she had been doing the night before, Janet answered: ‘pluggasin siihen proviin’ [I studied for the exam]. Then, Emma began to reflect on the verb form pluggasin ‘studied’ and asked Janet whether she had ever thought that the verb was Swedish but the past tense ending -sin was Finnish. Emma responded in Finnish: ‘kyl mää tiiän mut eihän sitä ajattele sillä lailla’ [yes, I know, but you don’t think like that], to which Janet agreed. Janet’s reaction to Emma’s question and both of their conclusions about their language resources is consistent with García’s (2012b) and Poza’s (2019) previous studies that noted that bilinguals themselves do not perceive their languages as isolated systems, nor is their linguistic repertoire made up of two discrete languages that are separately used.

9.4.3 Carro’s and Amanda’s Dramatic Language Shift and Changes in Identity Positioning in 2017 and 2019

We now return to the first pair, Amanda and Carro, and their third recorded pair conversation in 2017. The most dramatic changes in Carro’s and Amanda’s mutual language performance seemed to occur after their attendance at Swedish senior secondary school, when they started to speak to each other almost entirely in Swedish. Carro still employed translingual practices briefly, for example, in references to Finnish dishes they ate when visiting grandparents such as makkarakeitto ‘sausage soup’ and poronkäristys ‘reindeer stew’ and when quoting her mother, father, grandmother, and grandfather: ‘han ba kuinka monta kuppia mää keitän kahvia’ [he was like how many cups of coffee will I make?]. Quoting other speakers’ words in the original language is a common translingual practice (Kolu, 2017). Amanda did not use Finnish at all, and judging by performativity theory (Pennycook, 2003), she no longer performed a translingual identity through her language use in this conversation (cf. Musk, 2010).

During the pair conversation, Carro asked Amanda if she had realised they were not using Finnish so much nowadays. Amanda explained that in the past, she had spent more time with her family and relatives in Finland, but now, she mainly spent her time with her new Swedish-speaking friends in senior secondary school in Haparanda. Carro agreed and added that she had also started to speak Swedish at home. Amanda was having similar experiences. Carro’s and Amanda’s narratives about causes of changes in their language use are in line with what Azurmendi and Martinez de Luna (2011, p. 333) state about the important role of school, social networks, and the identification with the speakers of the language and contacts with them in adolescents’ language maintenance.

At the end of the third recording in 2017, Carro conclusively positioned herself and Amanda as Swedish speakers: She concluded that they had not used much Finnish, but this was inevitable because ‘det är så här vi pratar’ [this is how we talk]. In the fourth and last pair conversation in 2019, Carro and Amanda used exclusively Swedish and did not make any explicit comment on their language use or identity.

9.4.4 Janet’s and Emma’s Increased Translingual Practices and Translingual Identity in 2017 and 2019.

In the third pair conversation in 2017, Janet and Emma did not raise any questions about their language use or identity, but they continued engaging in translingual practices in the same manner, albeit with longer stretches of talk and a larger variety of subjects than before, encompassing more than just school matters. For instance, Janet stated: ‘meillä tulee långhelg då blir det säkert superspännade’ [we are going to have a long holiday it is going to be super exciting] and Emma responded by saying: ‘viimenen valborg ko mää oon nykter’ [the last May Day that I will be sober]. In conformity with Pennycook’s (2004) performativity principle, Janet’s and Emma’s translingual practices may be considered a part of their performative translingual identity. Both also used the Swedish discourse marker typ ‘like’ which is very typical for Swedish youth language (Kolu, 2017). According to Henricson (2015, p. 129) the bilingual use of discourse markers may be a way to perform a bilingual identity.

Regarding cross-border mobility, Janet and Emma had applied for summer jobs on both sides of the border. During the third recording, Emma’s mother called her, and Emma employed translingual practices also with her: ‘sehän on kristihimmelsfärdsdagina’ [it is on Ascension Day], ‘ollaan tehty nationella prov ja kaikkea typ’ [we have already done the national exams and all like].

During the fourth and last pair conversation in 2019, Janet and Emma continued performing translingual identities through intense translingual practices, but they did not comment on their language use or identity. It seems that employing translingual practices was a natural way for Emma and Janet to communicate with each other (cf. García, 2009), and therefore, they did not need to comment on their language use.

To summarise the pair conversations over a period of five years, the most striking difference in Carro’s and Amanda’s use of their language resources compared to Emma’s and Janet’s was that Carro’s and Amanda’s mutual communication had changed from predominantly using Finnish to only using Swedish in the last conversation. The changes in Carro’s and Amanda’s language use seemed to be in line with the changes in how they were positioning themselves as language users during these five years. Emma and Janet, in contrast, increased their translingual practices in senior secondary school. It was only in the second recordings (2015) that all four participants engaged in similar kinds of translingual practices.

These differences between the language use of Carro and Amanda and that of Emma and Janet may be related to the differences in their language background. Both Emma and Janet had attended a comprehensive school where Finnish was the first language of the majority of the pupils, and they had studied Finnish throughout their school years—eleven years in total—whereas Carro and Amanda had only studied Finnish in Years 1 and 2 in senior secondary school. Furthermore, Emma was the only one who had studied Swedish as a second language, and Janet was the only one who lived on the Finnish side of the border. Also, both Emma and Janet were still mainly using Finnish at home, while Carro and Amanda had started using mainly Swedish, both at home and at school.

In 2019, all four interlocutors reported they had social networks extending across national borders and they worked at IKEA,Footnote 4 where they served both Swedish and Finnish customers.

9.5 Adolescents’ Different Performances and Positionings of Identities in the Individual Interviews

In this section, I present the results of the interviews carried out after the last recorded pair conversations in 2019, and I intend to answer the third, fourth, and fifth research questions: (3) How do the participants perform linguistically and position their identities in the interviews with the researcher after the last recorded pair conversations in 2019? (4) How do the participants narrate and explain any changes occurring over a period of five years in their use of language resources, identity performance, and positioning in the interviews with the researcher in 2019? In addition, the individual interviews are analysed regarding the fifth research question about the relationship between the participants’ language use, linguistic identity performance, and positioning.

The interviews were conducted individually. Initially, each respondent chose the language for the interview. I posed the questions in Finnish and Swedish and said they could also use both languages. First, each participant was asked to listen to a short extract from the beginning of the first recording and then to share her reactions to it. In addition, the interview questions concerned the participant’s language use and identity, possible changes in them, and explanations of reasons behind possible changes in language use and in linguistic and ethnic identity.

9.5.1 Carro and Amanda—On the Way to Language and Identity Shift?

Carro preferred to use Swedish throughout the entire interview. Nevertheless, she explicitly positioned herself as bilingual, because ‘för att det känns att det har blivit så naturligt med båda språken’ [it feels it has become so natural with both languages]. She noted that her language use with Amanda had changed over the years due to their new circle of friends in senior secondary school, and she described that the language used in her family had also changed. Previously, they had almost entirely used Finnish, but now the whole family had started to use Swedish. Carro explained that even if her parents tried to speak Finnish with her and her siblings, they almost always answered in Swedish. Thus, it seems that the change in Carro’s and her siblings language use has affected the language use of the whole family.

Carro thought her language skills in Finnish had deteriorated over the years, noting that it had become more difficult to communicate with her Finnish-speaking relatives since she had less contact with them, and that she was a bit sad about this.

In the beginning of the interview, the participants had access to the first recording from 2014, and they were asked questions about their reactions to the video. Carro stated that she could hardly recognise herself in the first recording when she and Amanda were only using Finnish: ‘asså det känns så konstit för att vi verkligen bara pratade finska och det låter inte som mig själv jag blev så här chockad - är det där vi? - asså det är jättekonstit’ [Well, it feels strange that we really only spoke Finnish, and it doesn’t sound like me at all. I am totally shocked - Is that really us? - I mean it is really strange]. In this example, Carro’s observation indicates that she now sees herself and her identity differently and unrelated to her previous self as a result of the change in her language use. This comment reinforces the findings of how people relate their language use to their identity (cf. Bäckman, 2017, p. 167).

Carro explained that her friends and school were the main reasons for this change: ‘jag tror att det är så här just för att jag fått så många andra kompisar som bara pratar svenska och sen i skolan är det bara svenska och sen typ så här när jag var yngre då var jag mycket mer med typ familj och släkt också man kanske bara är mindre med dom där människorna’ [I think it is just because I now have so many other friends who speak only Swedish and then at school—it is only Swedish, and then like when I was younger, I spent so much more time with my family and relatives. Maybe you spend less time with them]. Carro’s preceding observation indicated that she thought that the changes in her language use were connected to her being distanced from her relatives in Finland. At the end of the interview, she repositioned her identity as more Swedish and Swedish-speaking than bilingual, since she considered she was no longer so good at Finnish. This comment indicates that Carro relates her ethnic and linguistic identities to her language proficiency (cf. Liebkind, 1999, p. 143). García (2010, p. 519) argues that people’s language use and competence do not necessarily remain the same, nor does ethnicity have to be a permanent characteristic of a person. Mills (2001, pp. 387–388) suggests that losing bilingualism means that ‘somewhere along the line, someone will lose their linguistic identity’, whereas Liebkind (1999, p. 149) argues that even if bilinguals’ proficiency in their first language declines as a result of a shift to a dominant language, this does not necessarily mean a loss of linguistic identity. As Bäckman (2017, p. 167) points out, ‘identities can never be “lost”—they are emergent through actions such as speech in interaction, they depend on their local contexts, and they are in constant motion’. Thus, it is noteworthy that Carro took a slightly different positioning of her linguistic identity in the beginning and at the last stage of the interview when she noted that she identified more and more with the speakers of Swedish and Sweden. This example shows how fluid identity positionings may be in different contexts. The interview situation and my role as interviewer and researcher may also have influenced the result.

Amanda also preferred to answer the questions in Swedish. Her language performance, that is, her language choice in the interview, was concordant with her positioning of herself as more of a Swedish speaker. She considered, however, Finnish to be her mother tongue. She thought the change in her language use was due to both her school and her job at IKEA. She said that comprehensive school had afforded more opportunities to use both Finnish and Swedish as there were more Finnish-speaking pupils: ‘vi småpratade alltid på finska’ [We were always chatting in Finnish]. She reported that nowadays, everybody at school spoke only Swedish. Like Carro, Amanda had started to spend more time with her Swedish-speaking rather than her Finnish-speaking friends and relatives, and her language use at home had also changed drastically. As she spoke mostly Swedish at home, she explicitly positioned her identity increasingly as Swedish and Swedish-speaking and felt more competent in Swedish than in Finnish. Amanda’s reaction after hearing the first recorded pair conversation was similar to Carro’s: ‘asså det känns som att alltså jag var jättebra på finska kändes det som vi pratade ju finska hela tiden men nu pratar vi inte numera’ [I mean it feels as if I was very good at Finnish because we spoke Finnish all the time. But we do not speak it these days].

9.5.2 Janet and Emma—Translingual Identity Performance and Positionings

Janet was indifferent to what language she would use in the interview, so I posed the questions in both languages. She responded mostly in Finnish, but also employed translingual practices with me. Janet’s language performance accorded with her ethnic and linguistic identity positioning, as she positioned herself as Finnish, Finnish-speaking, and bilingual due to her Finnish-speaking parents, place of residence, and Finnish citizenship. Janet still lived on the Finnish side of the border in Tornio and continued her daily border crossings to go to school. She reported that she still mainly spoke Finnish at home. She felt better orally in Finnish but stronger in written Swedish, since it was her language of instruction.

After hearing the first recording of her and Emma’s pair conversation from 2014, Janet did not at first react to her own or Emma’s language use in the conversation. When asked about changes in her language use, she answered in Finnish: ‘puhuttiin me enemmän suomea nyt mää uskon mää ainakin puhun enemmän ruottia no se on varmaan ko ollaan alettu lukion uusia kavereita uusia luokkakavereita ja suurin osa nykyisistä niinkö joiden kanssa mää käyn luokkaa on ruotsalaisia’ [We used more Finnish back then, but now I think at least I use more Swedish that is probably because we started in senior secondary school with new friends, and most of our fellow students are Swedish]. She then continued in Swedish: ‘skolan påverkar mest’ [the school is the major factor].

Emma, for her part, preferred to respond to the questions in Finnish. However, she positioned herself as bilingual and had difficulties in deciding which language was her mother tongue: ‘mun mielestä mää oon kaksikielinen että se on mää en voi oikein sanoa onko mun äidinkieli suomi tai ruotsi mutta sitten ko mun äidin kieli on suomi ja niin enemmän niinkö suomi tullee’ [I think I am bilingual and I cannot really say whether my mother tongue is Finnish or Swedish, but since my mother’s first language is Finnish, mine seems to be Finnish too]. As Bäckman (2017, p. 174) points out, ‘“mother tongue” may be related to identity and a sense of continuum in the family line’. Bäckman (ibid.) also notes that when a language is connected to heritage, ‘it may also be used as a symbol of “ethnic” or national identity’.

Emma found it equally difficult to say whether she identified more as Swedish or Finnish: ‘jotain siltä väliltä mää oon just vaihtanu kansalaisuuden ruotsin kansalaiseksi nyt on silleen mää en tiedä oonko mää joku svennebanaani vai oonko mää joku semmonen sekotus’ [Something in between. I have just changed my citizenship to Swedish, and now I don’t know whether I am a ‘Svennebanan’Footnote 5 or some sort of mixture]. Citizenship seemed to have special indexical value for Emma’s identity as well as for that of Janet. Emma’s ‘blurring’ between identities accorded with Fisher et al.’s (2018) and Li Wei’s (2011) arguments that bilingual identity may not be seen as the simple sum of two identities. According to García and Leiva (2014), translingual practices enable bilinguals to position themselves in a translingual and transnational identity, that is, an ‘in-between identity’.

Emma described that she still spoke mostly Finnish at home and thought she was orally better in Finnish, but she considered herself to be better in written Swedish. Emma’s reaction to the first recorded pair conversation was similar to Janet’s, and she noted that their language use with each other had not changed so much: ‘aika saman tyyppistä mun mielestä että silleen ehkä enemmän ruottia kuitenkin mutta silleen sama linja me ollaan aina puhuttu suomea keskenään niin sehän tullee aina takasin se suomi’ [I think it is quite the same, maybe more Swedish, anyway, but quite the same way, but we have always spoken Finnish with each other so it comes back to us, Finnish]. According to Baker (2011), bilinguals often use certain languages with certain people, and two or more bilinguals can establish a bilingual way of communication with each other. Like Janet, Emma considered her language use to be changed mainly due to school.

To summarise the interviews, in 2019, the first pair, Carro and Amanda, performed a more Swedish-speaking identity through only using Swedish with me in the interview (cf. Pennycook, 2004, p. 16; Musk, 2010, p. 71), and they explicitly positioned themselves more and more as Swedish speakers, while Janet performed a translingual identity through engaging in translingual practices with me and positioned herself as bilingual. On the other hand, Emma used only Finnish with me in the interview, but positioned herself as bilingual. Judging from her answers, she seemed to possess a hybrid, ‘in-between’ linguistic and ethnic identity.

9.6 Connection Between Language Use and Identity Performance and Positioning

In this section, I present the major findings of the study (see Table 9.2) and summarise the results for the fifth research question: Are there any links between the adolescents’ language use, linguistic identity performance, and positioning during the period of 2014–2019?

Table 9.2 The four participants’ use of language resources and identity positioning and performance in the pair conversations in 2014–2019 and in the interviews with the researcher in 2019
Full size table

Overall, the study provides examples of drastic changes in the case of Amanda’s and Carro’s mutual language use from using predominantly Finnish resources in 2014 to engaging in translingual practices in 2015, and finally, in 2019, to using exclusively Swedish. The other pair’s—Janet’s and Emma’s—language use only changed a little, as they used longer passages of Swedish in the last recordings in 2017 and 2019. All four interlocutors saw senior secondary school and new Swedish friends as the primary reasons for why they now used more Swedish. This result is in line with Norton’s (1997) and Pujolar and Puigdevall’s (2015) investigations of changes in language use and identity that revealed typical life stages when changes to speakers’ language use occur. In Carro’s and Amanda’s case, these changes also seemed to be linked to the change of language use in their families. Probably, the impact of various circumstances underlies the changes and differences between the four participants’ language use and their identity positioning.

In conclusion, these young people’s linguistic performance—that is, the use of their language resources—seemed to be connected with their identity positioning in the conversations and interviews over the period of five years. As Amanda’s and Carro’s mutual language shifted from Finnish to Swedish, so did their identity positioning from positioning themselves as Finnish and Finnish-speaking and bilinguals to positioning themselves more and more as Swedish and Swedish-speaking. Janet and Emma continued to perform a translingual identity through translingual practices and to position themselves as bilinguals during the period of 2014–2019. Janet considered herself to be Finnish, whereas Emma reported possessing a hybrid, ‘in-between’ identity in the final recording in 2019.

9.7 Discussion

In this chapter, the focus of the study has been to explore the relationship between the four adolescents’ language use and translingual practices in particular and their performance and the positionings of their linguistic (and in part ethnic) identities over a period of five years (2014–2019). My analysis of the data revealed that the four young people, living their transnational lives next to the Swedish–Finnish border and with networks in both countries, brought different performances of language use and identity positionings to the interactions. The study identifies and provides examples of changes in the participants’ translingual practices and their identities, especially in the case of one pair of participants, and the data illustrate how the identities may shift between monolingual, bilingual, and translingual. The impact of changes in school and one’s circle of friends and the changes in the language used in two of the participants’ families may explain the changes in their language use and identity positioning. As Bäckman (2017, p. 167) concludes, ‘linguistic identities are negotiated in an environment characterized both by the creative possibilities and normative expectations that surround them’.

The presented examples provide evidence of the fluid and complex linguistic and ethnic identities the adolescents had performed over the five-year period. However, the results indicate that the translingual practices can be linked to the participants’ performance and positioning of their translingual and transnational identity (see Li Wei, 2011, p. 1230). This is in line with García and Leiva’s (2014) studies which demonstrated that translingual practices allow speakers to transcend linguistic and ethnic boundaries and position themselves in ‘a bilingual in-between position’ where their experiences of different identities and languages are integrated.

Ultimately, it is also a question of which language or languages and nationality or nationalities the speakers want to identify with. Carro and Amanda performed and positioned themselves more and more as Swedes and Swedish-speaking, whereas Janet positioned herself as Finnish and bilingual, and Emma positioned herself as possessing a hybrid linguistic and ethnic ‘in-between’ identity. Liebkind (1999, p. 148) argues that an integrative attitude towards the majority language is connected to identification with the speakers of that language, while Le Page and Tabouret-Keller (1985, p. 181) suggest that ‘[t]he individual creates for himself the patterns of his linguistic behavior so as to resemble those of the group or the groups with which from time to time he wishes to be identified, or so as to be unlike those from whom he wishes to be distinguished’.

As Pennycook (2004, p. 16) states, performativity and performance approaches provide insights into how languages, identities, and the speakers’ linguistic biographies are shaped and reshaped. Nonetheless, it is important to stress that the participants’ language use could have been different with other interlocutors, and they could have positioned themselves differently in other contexts. Furthermore, the adolescents in this study were aware that I was interested in their language use, which probably had at least some impact on their language use and on their becoming more aware of their language use.

Border regions such as Haparanda provide new perspectives of and preconditions for bilinguals’ language maintenance and identity construction. People in those settings may be involved daily in activities in both countries and in both languages, and they have opportunities to maintain close ties with friends and relatives on both sides of the border. There is a reason to assume that those bilingual and multilingual individuals who continue using their multiple language resources through translingual practices and maintain their bilingual or translingual identity and networks in both countries will more likely actively maintain their language resources in their heritage language in the future (cf. Fisher et al., 2018).

The crucial point I wish to make is that there may be common critical factors and stages concerning the changes of young speakers’ language use and identity performance and positioning. In the current study, these stages involved a change of school and interlocutors with whom the speakers regularly engaged. The participants’ transition from a more diverse comprehensive school to a monolingual senior secondary school may partly explain the changes in their language use and linguistic identity. Furthermore, the changes of language use in two participants’ families are probably also behind the changes in their language practices, or vice versa, the changes of the adolescents’ language practices have an influence on the language use of their families.