Blattesvenska: Foreigner Swedish and Its Implications for Language Teaching Matías Plada
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RESEARCH ARTICLE Blattesvenska: Foreigner Swedish And Its Implications For Language Teaching Matías Plada Abstract Through personal experience, personal interviews, and by reviewing research articles, this paper aims to explain the nature of Blattesvenska, an immigrant language born out of the social gaps created by ethnic and cultural discrimination, both in the labor market and in society as a whole. These gaps are created both by the immigrant groups themselves as a way to distance others and by the ethnic Swedish population, by keeping what is not seen as “standard” language or behavior out of mainstream society. This paper will also explain how the popularity of Blattesvenska in music and written media has made it not only a voice for the immigrants, who are often of a lower class, but also a commodity that is exploited by the media. Finally, this article discusses how speakers of Blattesvenska create a language variety that constantly innovates itself and simultaneously and consciously breaks the “norm.” This environment creates formidable language learners that, like a sponge, absorb whatever they are fed, and spring back with their powerful voices. Introduction Blattesvenska (Foreigner Swedish) is a variety of my experiences, examples heard or written in Swedish spoken mainly by immigrants or the Swedish media, scholarly articles on the children of immigrants in segregated subject, and personal interviews with speakers invandrarförorter (immigrant suburbs) in Sweden. of Blattesvenska and people knowledgeable in Blatte is a derogatory term for immigrant or the field. Finally, I will discuss the implica- darker person. In Sweden the expression tions of a variety such as Blattesvenska to the invandrar förorter draws parallels with the teaching of a second language. English expression “ghetto”; it has a negative In the sections below, I will address connotation. In contrast to the US suburb, in mainly two questions: (a) What linguistic Sweden suburbs are populated by the lower features make up Blattesvenska as a veriety of class, mainly immigrants, and the unem- Swedish? and (b) What are Blattesvenska’s ployement rate is higher than in other areas of status and roles in society? Before a discussion society. According to “The Local, Sweden’s of Blattesvenska, it is important to consider the News in English,” an online newspaper, social context of Sweden, which I will “Today, the employment rate for foreign-born describe in the next section. workers in Sweden is 61.8 percent, far below the rest of the population's level of 76.5 Background: Social And Cultural percent. The rate is particularly low among Discrimination in Sweden foreign-born women, for whom the Politically Sweden has many times received employment rate is 56.5 percent […]” (2011). saint-like status since it held its arms open to This paper focuses on the linguistic features immigrants for many years and had well- that pertain to Blattesvenska, how these features known foreign policies in Europe. But, truth make it a variety of Swedish, and how it is be told, there is much discrimination in used to code switch between standard and Sweden, and, as I will later show, this is not non-standard speech. I will also explain why unrelated to the emergence of Blattesvenska. and how Blattesvenska was formed, the According to “The Local, Sweden’s News in meaning it has to its speakers personal identity, English,” “[…] people with foreign back- the status it has in society, and its use in music grounds risk unfair treatment in Sweden’s and media. I will use personal examples from ______________________ Plada, M. (2012). Blattesvenska: Foreigner Swedish and its implications for language teaching. Hawaii Pacific University TESOL Working Paper Series 10, 65-73. Website: http://www.hpu.edu courts. […] Other examples […] show that according to “The Local, Sweden’s News in those who are foreign-born are sometimes English,” Somalis living in the small town of considered less trustworthy than ethnic Farserum feared taking their children to Swedes” (2008). It has been said that Sweden school because of apparent racism, “It's a has ethnic and cultural discrimination, in serious situation with racist aspects. This is contrast to countries such as the US and nothing new, but rather appears to have been England, which have racial discrimination. going on for a long time. Last year there were According to Rydgren (2004) the job market 160 Somalis there and many have moved away often discriminates against immigrants based because of xenophobia” (2012). It is in this on prejudice and group stereotypes. Also context of cultural and social discrimination ethnic discrimination can be rather specific that Blattesvenska emerged. (Rooth & Ekberg 2003, as cited in Rydberg, p. 704, 2004): Data For those with two parents born in a To draw the essence of what Blattesvenska is non-European country, the unem- and what it means to its speakers, in addition ployment risk is 11 percentage points to reading the literature, I interviewed three higher than for those with two Swed- people through email, on Facebook messen- ish-born parents […] for those with ger, and over the phone. The interviewees one parent born in a non-European included two old friends of mine who are country the risk of being unemployed speakers of Blattesvenska from Gothenburg is 6 percentage points higher than for Sweden. Interviewee #1 is a young rapper Swedes with two locally-born parents. with Chilenean heritage from Angered, and Also as regards wage incomes, sec- Interviewee #2 is an immigrant from Irak ond-generation migrants with a who grew up in Hammarkullen, an immigrant- Southern European or a non- dense area in Angered. Interviewee #2 also European background are doing served as an actor in a TV mini series called significantly worse than Swedes with “Hammarkullen,” which centers on an two Swedish-born parents. immigrant neighboorhood and its citizens and aired in Swedish television nationwide. Finally, In other words, the more dissimilar your I also interviewed my father, Interviewee #3, culture is to the Swedish culture the lower an Uruguayan immigrant living in Sweden your status will be in Swedish society and the since the late 70s, residing most of the time in more discrimination you will suffer. To Hjällbo and other parts of Angered, towns with further prove this point Rydberg states that high unemployement and mainly immigrant immigrant adoptees who often do not racially populus. Interviewee #3 has also been very resemble ethnic Swedish but have been politically active and worked in projects to adopted by Swedish parents have the same integrate immigrants living in Sweden into amount of success that ethnic Swedes have in Swedish society. the labor market, the reasons being, “they usually have a Swedish-sounding name, they Blattesvenska’s Linguistic Features speak Swedish fluently, they have been Blattesvenska is a variety of Swedish spoken by educated in Sweden, commonly live in immigrants or children of immigrants, or neighbourhoods dominated by native Swedes, Blattar as they also are called, or by people and they have social networks comparable to living in invandrar förorter, outside of main- those of native Swedes” (2004, p. 704-706). In stream society. Blattesvenska is clearly a mixed contrast, Somalis who are culturally and language with loan words from languages ethnically Muslim and African and are such as Turkish, Spanish, Arabic, Somali, therefore quite far from the Swedish Serbian, Kurdish, English, etc. In recent years, “standard,” are often generally highly it has received many loan words from English, discriminated in Swedish society. Also especially from American rap music and 66 African American English (AAE). The reason foreigners, in Sweden are very influenced by for this influx of words is mainly because of American media such as movies and music. the sense of familiarity young immigrants in He also added that he uses several English Sweden have with African American’s derived words in his speech. Table 1 shows a situation in the US, such as their lower status list of English-derived Blattesvenska words with in society and the desire to have a language their English derivation and their meaning. that breaks the norm. Another reason is These are words from my own vocabulary simply the large amount of media coverage that I commonly used when speaking Rap music receives in Swedish radio and TV. Blattesvenska with my friends in Sweden. According to Interviewee #1, “blattar,” or Table 1 English-Derived Words in Blattesvenska Blattesvenska English Meaning najs nice nice, good looking softa soft taking it easy baila bail to leave chilla chill to take it easy chok choke many, a lot cutta cut cut, stab bull bullshit talk nonsense Taytish tight Swedish person According to Ganuza (2008, p. 148, as multiethnic teenage language during choice of cited in Gomer, 2008, p. 6) it is common to gender and propositions and congruency, find grammatical differences between the where even direct mistakes are committed” standard language and the language of (2004, p. 340, as cited in Gomer, 2008, p. 5). multiethnic teenagers. These are some of the Ganuza explained that because many differences that Ganuza mentioned: languages lack reverse word order after words • Subject deletion: för att [-] tittar på henne that are not a subject, which can affect (because [I’m] looking at her) acquisition rate, this straight word order is also a defining factor for multiethnic • Article deletion: jag måste hitta sven- teenagers (2008, p. 141, as cited in Gomer, skalärare[-] (I must find [the] teacher) 2008, p. 5). Incorrect Swedish grammar is not • Abnormal preposition: Hon började gå i den only accepted but also encouraged by speakers där disco (She started to go on that disco) of Blattesvenska. Growing up hearing and speaking Blattesvenska I am familiar with errors • Abnormal congruency: den där arbete (that such as deletion of articles.