ÌÇÐÄTV

Abstract: In the public debate in Sweden it is often claimed that knowledge of the national language Swedish is needed for getting a job in the country. At this webinar we would like to question this statement by looking closer at intra EU migrants’ professional language practices in Sweden. Using as a starting point the framework of language as resources (Pennycook 2018) we discuss how manual workers from Poland, Estonia and Ukraine go by without skills in Swedish. The results from the busy construction sites provide an opportunity to problematize the role of language in the manual working life and discuss boundaries between different linguistic codes at multilingual workplaces. We would also like to discuss the role of language skills at these manual working places in contrast to other professions (e.g. in the health sector) that require more communicative work. However, we also point out the consequences that lack of Swedish may have for the workers as individuals and as professionals. In what situations is language a necessary work tool and when is it not?