ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses changing language ideological stances toward English in the Nordic countries as an example of ongoing sociolinguistic change. The chapter opens with a brief historical sketch of the domain loss debate in the Nordics, with an emphasis on how it has played out in Denmark, Norway, and Sweden. Following this overview, the chapter identifies and discusses three historical processes that have helped shape the domain loss debate and past and present perceptions of English in the region. The third section looks at attitudes toward English among members of the public, drawing on existing survey studies and recent examples from the public debate in Denmark. The chapter ends by concluding that although discussions about English in the Nordics are still ongoing today, the current language ideological climate is not the same it was in the 1990s and the beginning of the 21st century, and it is therefore time to leave binary views of English as a threat or an opportunity behind.
