ELF and migrant categorization at family clinics in Finland

Abstract

Abstract The aim of this paper is to examine how nurses in family clinics use language, and clients’ perceived English proficiency in particular, when categorizing their non-Finnish-speaking clients in their talk. Through membership categorization analysis (Schegloff, Emanuel A. 2007. A tutorial on membership categorization. Journal of Pragmatics 39(3). 462–482), this study shows that perceived proficiency in English, along with migration status and reliance on the native English speaker norm, seemed to be the most decisive elements in how the nurses categorized their migrant clients. The findings demonstrate the power of categorization as an instrument in institutional decision-making and highlight the role language plays in these categorizations. In particular, the study shows how influential perceived English language proficiency and the native speaker norm are in how nurses categorize their migrant clients. The findings suggest that being able to interact with clients in English is becoming a more and more important skill in working life in Finland, also in the health care sector. It would be important to understand how influential perceived language proficiency is in the way nurses conceptualize their clients, and to what extent this relates to the standard language ideology (Milroy, James. 2001. Language ideologies and the consequences of standardization. Journal of Sociolinguistics 5. 530–555).