Mother tongue instruction as a sticky object: The making of a register of denunciation

Abstract

This article examines the making of a political register to denounce mother tongue instruction (MTI) in Sweden. Nationally mandated since 1977, MTI is a state-sponsored, curriculum-stipulated subject for minority pupils of over 187 languages other than Swedish. However, the instigation by the far-right in 2023 of a commission into MTI's effects on integration helped conventionalize and legitimate a register of assembled features of anti-MTI discourse. Using a discourse-historical approach, we trace this register-making process across Swedish media and political documents from 1970 to 2025, and into Denmark, where MTI was partly abolished. We identify national and transnational interdiscursive clasps, grafts and relays through which legitimacy is drawn from historical claims to frame MTI as costly, outdated, and non-Swedish. The formation of this register of denunciation renders the social arena of MTI a feared sticky object attached to semilingualism, parallel societies, and failed integration that must be controlled and contained.