On the bilingual language use of Estonian-speakers in Finland

Recent decades have witnessed a rapid increase in cross-border migration, particularly since the enlargement of the European Union (2004). Estonian-speakers in Finland are an example of today's EU mobility. The aim of the present article is to describe bilingual language use by first-generation Estonian-speakers in Finland. Based on language data, one may claim that in a relatively early stage of language contact, bilingual speech is characterized by momentary 'switchings' with a clear conversational purpose. The speaker navigates within the frame of the Estonian language until a change takes place in the conversation that motivates the speaker to use Finnish inside of the base language (Estonian) of the conversation.