“It’s like having BBC and YLE in your head”. Cultural identity of Finnish-English bilinguals

Abstract

Due to migration and immigration, bilingual families are growing at a record rate. Even though there is already large amounts of research on bilinguals and their identity, this research aims to examine and understand the cultural identity of Finnish-English bilinguals, raised in Finland, with one English and one Finnish speaking parent. The study aims to recognise what role language plays in the identity construction of bilinguals.

The theoretical section of this work discusses research on bilingualism and identity construction, with a focus on language, identity, and biculturalism. A qualitative research approach is used, and the eight semi-structured interviews are analysed using categorical-content analysis. In addition to the interviews, a language self-assessment form was employed in this study, in order to be able to cross analyse the interviews against the participants’ language self-assessment forms.

The analyses uncovers the participants’ diverse language skills and different understandings of their identity. The majority of the participants identify themselves as primarily Finnish, whilst the degree of how much the participants identify themselves as English varied dramatically depending on their cultural experiences, time spent in the United Kingdom and language skills. While some participants identify themselves as bicultural and transcultural, others identify less so, and one neglected any identification towards the English culture at all.