Language planning and policy is the act through which a nation-state’s language is introduced politically and formally to serve a distinct purpose with official status. All groups, majority and minority, within the nation-state should ideally be represented by the chosen and implemented language. As Winsa notes “[There is] hardly any language planning that is independent of a multidimensional socio-political discourse” (Winsa, 1999). In theory, language planning and policy hopes to have a midline through which the selected language represents the citizens of the nation-state and also hold a level of prestige that is recognized politically. This essay will endeavour to examine the language planning policy of Sweden, and in particular evaluate such policy in its effectiveness as a language.
English as a language has gained exponential attention world-wide for its dominance as a result of globalisation, this is particularly obvious when examining the language planning policies of the different nations of the world (Hult, 2012; Spolsky, 2004 in Hult, 2004). It can be argued that within Sweden the previously strong Swedish official language is now being threatened by the implementation of English (Hult, 2004). While Swedish is the singular recognized official language of Sweden, English has extreme prominence as a language of academic instruction and as aforementioned has been argued to be of threat to the Swedish language (Winsa, 1999). Since gaining membership to the European Union, the English vernacular has seen rapid growth within the nation (Hylenstam, 1996 in Winsa, 1999). The language is being used for academic instruction and has become a core subject within certain schools across the country (Hult, 2012; Winsa, 1999). This can be argued to give a level of social prestige as the language is being used in a formal environment. It is likely that English within academic environments is being used for political reasons as to align with prominent nations such as England and America.
Authors Bolton and Kuteeva conducted a survey which was attempting to find the proportions of English spoken in Stockholm University, Sweden, in comparison to the English spoken. A number of questions were asked by the participants. Question 15, answered by the respondents, was of particular interest;
‘Overall, how often is English used in your education at Stockholm University?’ (Bolton & Kuteeva, 2012).
The graph represented in the paper indicates that Swedish is the predominant language used for undergraduates of Stockholm University (see appendix one for graph one). However, upon viewing the graph for Honour students of Stockholm University, it can be seen that there is a vast difference in results (see appendix two for graph two). It can be seen that the higher the level of education within Stockholm University, the greater the need and knowledge for English there is. This places a great level of prestige on the English language within Sweden. The status planning for English (which is most likely unintentional) raises the official status of the language and increases the domains of use and also the percentage of people using the language (Kaplan & Baldauf, 1997). Due to the rapid growth and use of English perhaps there should be a call to introduce English as an additional official language of Sweden. Creating English as an official language would help reduce the controversy and dilemmas facing using the English language. Another solution may be to review the corpus planning of the Swedish language, where it can be seen there are, frequently, no equivalent words for the English words when studying some courses, particularly sciences and humanities (Winsa, 1999; Bolton & Kuteeva, 2012).
Used as an ‘academic lingua franca’, English’s status within the academic world has called for discussions and contains a great level of controversy (Bolton & Kuteeva, 2012; Hult, 2004). There is significant reasoning behind such controversy. As denoted in the Language Act (2009 Swedish Government) the use of the English and Swedish languages in higher educational institutions must be parallel and equal (Bolton & Kuteeva, 2012). The act helps prevent a complete dominance of the English language within schools of tertiary studies. Some feel however, that the universities and the like should be either one language or the other, not a mixture. The introduction of this act is significant proof than language planning and policy within Sweden are advancing and attempting to cover all speech communities. This can be reiterated by examining the use of language in the Swedish media.
The spoken standard of the Swedish language is predominantly the variety of the well-educated (Winsa, 1999; Bolton & Kuteeva, 2012; Hult, 2004). Until the 1980’s, like the British media, the Swedish media forums including, but not limited to, Television, newspapers, and journalists on the radio, spoke in only the well-educated, standard variety (Winsa, 1999). However, preceding the 1980’s Swedish media forums began, again like the British media, to allow different varieties of the Swedish language to enter the realms of the media (Winsa, 1999). This reiterates the increased notion of attempting to recognize the minority and majority speech communities of the nation-state and thus increase the vitality of the language through status panning (Kaplan & Baldauf, 1997). By doing so the different media outlets are adhering to the multiple linguistic roles in developing an official language. Allowing different accents of the Swedish language to enter the media means that securing the acceptance level for the language would be increased as it is likely society will have a more positive attitude to the language if their language variety is being represented. Thus, if the media is being used as a point of carrying out language planning than different speech communities are likely to adopt the language as an official one. It can be seen that this is a positive aspect of the language planning policy of the Swedish language.
There are a number or minority speech communities within Sweden whose languages are not being represented by Swedish, the only officially recognized language (Winsa, 1999; Bolton & Kuteeva, 2012). This can be seen as a downfall in the language policy of Sweden. This is apparent due to the diverse culture of Sweden which is attributed to its political history. Especially evident during the 17th century Sweden was a highly multilingual society as its main political goal was to gain political authority over a number of speech communities (Skan̊e, n.d; Blekinge, n.d; Halland, n.d; Bohuslan, n.d in Winsa, 1999). The creation of national borders then circumstanced from such a great political wish for control. In doing so however, many speech communities were created and a number of languages were given sanctioned status (Huovinen, n.d in Winsa, 1999). As a result of having such a multilingual history, Sweden current day status also holds a number of different vernacular. To counter such a diverse range of languages within the country the government introduced a Language Act in 2009, as aforementioned (Bolton & Kuteeva, 2012; Winsa, 1999). This act made reference to the education system, through which it suggested that education within the nation should be explicitly spoken and written in Swedish (presumably apart from the English core subject within schools) (Winsa, 1999). Having Swedish as the only language within the schooling system of Sweden would raise the percentage of people speaking the language, which is of great importance when attempting to gain a higher status of the language.
In evaluation of the Swedish language planning policy, perhaps it is necessary that English, considering its ‘encroachment´ on Sweden within the education and higher education systems, should be considered an additional ‘official’ language of Sweden (Hult, 2004). This is due to its prestige and status among society and its evident and continual use. The use of the Swedish language by the Swedes represents the majority of the nation-state, however excludes some minority groups. Efforts however have been made to improve this situation by implementing the ‘2009 Language Act’. This acquisition planning by the Swedish government dictates that schooling must take place in the Swedish language. Media outlets have also aided in the status planning of the language by allowing different varieties of the Swedish accent to enter to media forums. Improvements to the language planning policy have been made by the Swedish government in attempt to strengthen the Swedish language once more. English however, still remains as a prominent threat since the Swedes gained membership to the European Union, and, most likely, will continue to rise in dominance.

Appendix One:
Undergraduates use of the English Language within Stockholm University: Graph retrieved from:

Bolton, K., & Kuteeva, M. (2012). English as an academic language at a Swedish university: parallel language use and the ‘threat’ of English. Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development, 33(5). Appendix Two: Retrieved From:

Bolton, K., & Kuteeva, M. (2012). English as an academic language at a Swedish university: parallel language use and the ‘threat’ of English. Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development, 33(5). References:
Bolton, K., & Kuteeva, M. (2012). English as an academic language at a Swedish university: parallel language use and the ‘threat’ of English. Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development, 33(5).

Hult, F. (2004). Planning for multilingualism and minority language rights in sweden. Language Planning, 2(2).

Hult, F. (2012). English as a transcultural language in swedish policy and practise. Tesol Quarterly, 46(2).

Kaplan, R. B., & Baldauf, R. B. (1997). Language Planning: From Practise to Theory. Clevedon, UK.

Winsa, B. (1999). Language Planning in Sweden. Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development, 20(4-5), 376-473.