The present study aims to characterize the perception of stylistic nuances of lexical items in both Swedish and Finnish among members of the Sweden Finnish minority in Sweden, with special emphasis on Swedish. Data on stylistic perceptions were elicited from 77 bilingual Sweden Finns and from a Swedish and a Finnish control group. The subjects were asked to describe the connotative and stylistic meanings of 14 pairs of synonymous words in Swedish (e.g., polis—snut ‘police—cop’) and in Finnish, using Osgood's semantic differential. The main issue was to discuss to what extent the Sweden Finns show similarity to the Swedes and/or Finns regarding their stylistic perceptions. The results of the analysis indicate that the various Sweden Finnish test groups(divided according to sex and generation) have a different level of competence in Swedish regarding the perception of stylistic nuances. Adult men differentiated significantly less for all word pairs, while adolescents and women perceived these words largely in the same way as the Swedes in the corresponding subgroups. The results are discussed in the context of the ongoing debate on immigrants and integration, and suggest that a more similar language use may indicate a higher degree of integration. © 2002, SAGE Publications. All rights reserved.

sociolinguistic competence bilingualism Integration

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