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Salla-Maaria Suuriniemi, Henri Satokangas
This article focuses on the visibility and position of different languages in semiotic space, namely the linguistic landscape provided by textbooks. The aim is to determine to what extent the linguistic landscape of textbooks supports the multilingual emphasis of the Finnish national core curriculum and the multilingualism of Finnish classrooms. The data include 34 textbooks on five of the mandatory subjects and covers the different grades of comprehensive schools in Finland. The presence of different languages was mapped quantitatively by coding all languages that were mentioned or made visible in the textbooks. Further, a qualitative analysis of the most representative parts of the data was carried out. The results of this study show that different contexts and categories are constructed for different languages. Moreover, multilingualism is marginalised and monolingual practices appear as the norm. As a conclusion, this study reveals that the paradigm shift to multilingual approaches and practices in textbooks is under construction, and much is left to be done.
