The immigrant´s place in parliamentary motions : - A study that examine how identity constructions and categorizations affecting individuals that are learning a second language are created in political documents in Sweden

The aim of the study is to examine how identity constructions and categorizations affecting individuals that are learning a second language are created in political documents in Sweden. Furthermore, the study inquires the paradoxical dilemma which occurs between the keyword integration which characterizes the discourse of Swedish politics and the way individuals who acquire a second language are referred to and described in parliamentary motions, and which linguistic ideologies as well as epistemologies that are behind these statements. The critical discourse analysis, the ideology criticism and the syntactic analysis form the basis for this study together with a qualitative approach. Study results has shown how the authors of parliamentary motions categorize and attributes individuals who acquire a second language specific identity constructions. Categorizations were created with imaginary boundaries between the swede/the Swedish and the immigrant/minority group. Individuals who acquire a second language were assigned identity constructions as invandrare (immigrant) and flykting (refugees) and these identity constructs attributed specific characteristics. Overall, the identity construction that was given the immigrant was often based on characteristics such as lack of swedish knowledge, in the absence of moral qualities, in the absence of motivation and sense of responsibility, lack of parenting, different values and norms than Swedish. The second identity construction that was not explicitly expressed in the parliamentary motions but still was present in the form of the achievable identity contruction that immigrants should aim for, was the identity construction as the swede/the Swedish. The identity construction ’Swedish’ implied implicit qualities such as knowledge in the swedish language, the correct moral qualities, good parenting and the right values and the right normsystem. Furthermore, the syntactic analysis showed that parliamentary motions were written in a specific way that positioned the central subject first in the process, those subjects were often those that could be characterized as Swedish or having the task to make the minority group Swedish. For example the Swedish as a second language education, laguage (in this case the Swedish langage), We (as in We – the majority group) and a language- and social test for naturalization. Based on the analysis and the conclusion it becomes obvious that the parliamentary motions are written from an ideology perspective which relies on homogenism