If You Move to Our Country, Learn the Language! A Netnography Approach to Studying Language Ideologies in Finland

Increasing migration can be perceived as both a valued necessity and a threat to national values and norms. These oppositional views can be reflected in societal language ideologies, i.e. shared sets of beliefs about language(s) amongst particular social groups. Especially in non-Anglophone countries where the influx of migrants is marked by an uptake in the use of English as a common language, language ideologies may become polarized and nationalistic. In this study, we take a netnography approach to study language ideologies in the national context of Finland. By engaging in immersion across several online communities – including online comment sections of Finland’s largest broadsheet newspaper (Helsingin Sanomat), Discord, and Facebook – we detail how the affordances of digital technologies evoke and exacerbate language-based groupings, contributing to the polarization of language ideologies. In doing so, this study extends research on language ideologies and the role of ICT in socio-cultural polarization.