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AbstractA sensitisation to the disciplinary past offers a way forward for sociolinguistic inquiry. Historicisation may add reflexive distance to our current concerns and debates. It may serve to detect, put into perspective and ease epistemological and ideational tensions. It is equally useful for determining the extent to which past ideas and practices linger among us, and for clarifying the effects of such forms of retention. Historicisation may be brought to bear on the ways in which we engage with our objects of study, and on the ways in which we understand our acts of engagement. A critical interest in the disciplinary past could provide a shared historical ground for all strands of sociolinguistic inquiry. It could help us to counteract disciplinary fragmentation, while at the same time stimulate disciplinary renewal and constructive exchange. For these reasons – I argue – a sensitisation to the history of sociolinguistics is of immediate relevance to the readership of the IJSL.

Abstract
In this essay, David Karlander examines what happens when concepts developed by scholars of language circulate and become embedded in policies and law. In exploring how the distinction between a "language" and a "dialect" became encoded in the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages (ECRML), Karlander examines the consequences when applied to the status and state support of minority languages in Sweden. What counts as a language, he demonstrates, is not simply an "academic" matter. When sociolinguistics enters the public arena, it has the potential to affect the political and social standing of real communities.

This compilation thesis engages with practices that in some way place stakes in the social existence of Övdalsk (also älvdalska, Elfdalian, Övdalian), a marginal form of Scandinavian used mainly in Sweden's Älvdalen municipality. The practices at hand range from early 20th century descriptive dialectology and contemporary lay-linguistics to language advocacy and language political debate. The four studies focus on the logic by which such practices operate, on the historically produced visions that they bring into play, as well as on the symbolic effects that they have produced. Study I provides a zoomed-out account of the ordering of Övdalsk in Sweden's linguistic market. Focusing on a relatively recent debate over the institutional regimentation of Övdalsk, it analyses the forms of agreement upon which the exchange in question has come to rest. The contention has mainly developed over the classification of Övdalsk, percolating in the question of whether Övdalsk 'is' a 'language' or a 'dialect'. Analysing this debate, the study takes interest in the relationship between state power and metapragmatic exchange. Study II deals with the history of linguistic thought and research on Övdalsk. It analyses the genesis of some durable visions of the relationship between Övdalsk and linguistic authenticity, focusing on the research practice of the Swedish dialectologist Lars Levander (1883–1950), whose work on Övdalsk commands representative authority to this day. By engaging with Levander's techniques of scholarly objectivation, as well as with their language theoretical fundaments, the study seeks to create some perspectives on, and distance to, the canonical representations of Övdalsk that have precipitated from Levander's research. Study III looks into the reuse and reordering of such representations. It provides an ethnographic account of a metapragmatically saturated exchange over Övdalsk grammar, in which descriptivist artefacts play an important part. Through an analysis of texts, in situ interaction, and interviews, the study seeks to grasp the ways in which textual renditions of grammar interrelate with practically sustained, socially recognized models of language and language use (i.e. registers). Study IV tracks the ways in which such visions of authenticity have been drawn into institutionally and politically invested metapragmatic exchanges. It looks into a process of naming of roads in Älvdalen, in which ideas about the contrast between Swedish and Övdalsk played a central part. In all studies, various visions of Övdalsk authenticity and authentic Övdalsk constitute a central theme. The thesis maintains that such visions must be understood in relation to the practices in which they hold currency. Following Silverstein, this epistemological stance entails an engagement with the dialectic between historical formations and situated exchange. Through this analytical orientation, the studies seek to account for the visions of authenticity that have been at the forefront of various symbolic struggles over Övdalsk. Thus, in addition to their respective analytical accounts, the separate studies seek to add shifting temporal horizons to the superordinate heuristic, combining a deep historical backdrop with accounts of protracted institutional processes and analyses of situated linguistic interaction. Ultimately, this mode of analysis provides an in-depth understanding of the object of inquiry. ; At the time of the doctoral defense, the following paper was unpublished and had a status as follows: Paper 2: Submitted.

Abstract
This introductory article opens the thematic issue Spaces of Upset in the Nordic Region. It introduces the contributions of the issue, outlines the concepts that unite them, and discusses the sociolinguistic area in which they are set: the Nordic region. Centering on Denmark, Finland and Sweden, the article offers an overview of some of the sociolinguistic, ideological and political characteristics of the region and the countries it comprises. The Nordic region is widely seen as a paradigm case of social stability, consensus and cohesion. This vision is, however, a mirage. To be sure, upset often lingers below the discursive veneer of Nordic harmony, concord and agreement. Breaking with this outlook, this thematic issue takes a closer look at some of the antipodes of this sociolinguistic and ideological condition. Its contributions engage with 'spaces of upset', that is, with manifestations and experiences of sociolinguistic rupture, upheaval or change, in and through which visions of sociolinguistic stability and cohesion are disrupted and challenged. These spaces of upset bear witness to social, ideological and linguistic tensions and changes, be they incipient, enduring or surpassed. They accordingly provide a new take on processes of continuity and change, pointing out the ideological faultlines of the orders they disrupt, or upset.

This introductory article opens the thematic issue Spaces of Upset in the Nordic Region. It introduces the contributions of the issue, outlines the concepts that unite them, and discusses the sociolinguistic area in which they are set: the Nordic region. Centering on Denmark, Finland and Sweden, the article offers an overview of some of the sociolinguistic, ideological and political characteristics of the region and the countries it comprises. The Nordic region is widely seen as a paradigm case of social stability, consensus and cohesion. This vision is, however, a mirage. To be sure, upset often lingers below the discursive veneer of Nordic harmony, concord and agreement. Breaking with this outlook, this thematic issue takes a closer look at some of the antipodes of this sociolinguistic and ideological condition. Its contributions engage with 'spaces of upset', that is, with manifestations and experiences of sociolinguistic rupture, upheaval or change, in and through which visions of sociolinguistic stability and cohesion are disrupted and challenged. These spaces of upset bear witness to social, ideological and linguistic tensions and changes, be they incipient, enduring or surpassed. They accordingly provide a new take on processes of continuity and change, pointing out the ideological faultlines of the orders they disrupt, or upset. ; peerReviewed

This book offers a fresh perspective on the social life of multilingualism through the lens of linguistic citizenship. Each chapter illuminates how multilingualism (in both theory and practice) should be, or could be, thought of as inclusive when we recognize what multilingual speakers do with language for voice and agency