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Educational Linguistics
Birna Arnbjörnsdóttir
Hafdís Ingvarsdóttir Editors
Language
Development
across the Life
Span
The Impact of English on Education and
Work in Iceland
Volume 34
Series Editor
Francis M. Hult, Lund University, Sweden
Editorial Board
Marilda C. Cavalcanti, Universidade Estadual de Campinas, Brazil
Jasone Cenoz, University of the Basque Country, Spain
Angela Creese, University of Birmingham, United Kingdom
Ingrid Gogolin, Universität Hamburg, Germany
Christine Hélot, Université de Strasbourg, France
Hilary Janks, University of Witwatersrand, South Africa
Claire Kramsch, University of California, Berkeley, U.S.A
Constant Leung, King’s College London, United Kingdom
Angel Lin, University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong
Alastair Pennycook, University of Technology, Sydney, Australia
Educational Linguistics is dedicated to innovative studies of language use and
language learning. The series is based on the idea that there is a need for studies that
break barriers. Accordingly, it provides a space for research that crosses traditional
disciplinary, theoretical, and/or methodological boundaries in ways that advance
knowledge about language (in) education. The series focuses on critical and
contextualized work that offers alternatives to current approaches as well as
practical, substantive ways forward. Contributions explore the dynamic and multi-
layered nature of theory-practice relationships, creative applications of linguistic
and symbolic resources, individual and societal considerations, and diverse social
spaces related to language learning.
The series publishes in-depth studies of educational innovation in contexts
throughout the world: issues of linguistic equity and diversity; educational language
policy; revalorization of indigenous languages; socially responsible (additional)
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language teacher education; language development and socialization in non-
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and technology; and other relevant topics.
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More information about this series at http://www.springer.com/series/5894

Birna Arnbjörnsdóttir • Hafdís Ingvarsdóttir
Editors
Language Development
across the Life Span
The Impact of English on Education and
Work in Iceland
Editors
Birna Arnbjörnsdóttir Hafdís Ingvarsdóttir
University of Iceland University of Iceland
Reykjavik, Iceland Reykjavik, Iceland
ISSN 1572-0292 ISSN 2215-1656 (electronic)

ISBN 978-3-319-67803-0 ISBN 978-3-319-67804-7 (eBook)
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-67804-7
Library of Congress Control Number: 2017956577
© Springer International Publishing AG 2018

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Contents
anguage Development Across the Life Span. English in Iceland:

L
From Input to Output�� 1
Birna Arnbjörnsdóttir and Hafdís Ingvarsdóttir
he Policies and Contexts that Frame English Education
T
and Use in Iceland�� 19
nglish Exposure, Proficiency and Use in Iceland�� 35
E
nglish Exposure and Vocabulary Proficiency at the Onset
E
of English Instruction�� 57
Ásrún Jóhannsdóttir
earning and Using English: The Views of Learners at the End
L
of Compulsory Education�� 79
Hafdís Ingvarsdóttir and Ásrún Jóhannsdóttir
cademic Vocabulary Proficiency and Reading Comprehension
A
Among Icelandic Secondary School Students �� 95
Guðmundur Edgarsson
erceptions of Relevance of English Education at Secondary
P
School�� 113
Anna Jeeves
sing English at University�� 143
U
imultaneous Parallel Code Use �� 163
S
v
vi Contents
niversity Instructors’ Views on Using Curriculum Materials

U
in English�� 179
Hafdís Ingvarsdóttir
riting English for Research and Publication Purposes (ERPP):
W
Personal Identity and Professional Voice �� 197
Hafdís Ingvarsdóttir and Birna Arnbjörnsdóttir
Conclusions�� 215
Language Development Across the Life Span.
English in Iceland: From Input to Output
Abstract The spread of English throughout the world is unprecedented in the scale
of its effects on communication across languages and cultures (Crystal 2003;
Seidlhofer 2011). Communities have also been affected by the spread of English.
More and more studies report increased translanguaging and use of Anglo-Saxon
cultural references and even the emergence of English varieties to serve needs in
linguistic spaces previously dominated by a local language (Blommaert 2013;
Shohamy et al. 2010; Higgins 2009). This book presents findings of a seven-year
research project on the influence of English on the changing linguistic environment
in Iceland. This chapter serves as an introduction to the book and its theoretical and
linguistic context. Each subsequent chapter presents findings of different studies
that make up the large-scale research project. The chapters range from examination
of English exposure on a national level to functions of English in education and the
work force. Together they provide a comprehensive description of the changing
ecology of a presumed monolingual community as it transitions to a pluri-lingual
society. The book focuses specifically on how massive exposure through popular
culture and social media in the everyday lives of Icelanders leads to high confidence
in English proficiency and the ramifications of that exposure and language confi-
dence in academic pursuits.
1 Introduction
The spread of English throughout the world is unprecedented in the scale of its
effects on communication across languages and cultures (Crystal 2003; Seidlhofer
2011). Communities have also been affected by the spread of English. More and
more studies report increased translanguaging and use of Anglo-Saxon cultural ref-
erences and even the emergence of English varieties to serve needs in linguistic
spaces previously dominated by a local language (Blommaert 2013; Shohamy et al.
B. Arnbjörnsdóttir (*) • H. Ingvarsdóttir

University of Iceland, Reykjavík, Iceland
e-mail: birnaarn@hi.is; hei@hi.is
© Springer International Publishing AG 2018 1

B. Arnbjörnsdóttir, H. Ingvarsdóttir (eds.), Language Development across the Life Span,
Educational Linguistics 34, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-67804-7_1
2 B. Arnbjörnsdóttir and H. Ingvarsdóttir
2010; Higgins 2009). Whether the phenomenon is called English as a Global lan-
guage, English as an International Language, English as a Lingua Franca, English
as a World Language or even “English as a Lingua Frankensteinia” (Phillipson
2008), the fact remains that English has had a profound effect on most of the world’s
language communities. Whatever the research stance, the field has matured in that
previously value laden research approaches have given way to recognition of the
sociolinguistic value of the opportunity to examine language contact as it happens
on a world-wide scale.
Despite numerous studies on the effect of English, few, if any, examine the
impact of language contact based on a full range of data from an entire speech com-
munity. This book does this in a unique way as it describes the uptake of an addi-
tional language by speakers who already have a fully functional language used in all
domains in a linguistic space that is clearly defined geographically, culturally, and
politically; namely Iceland. Iceland provides a unique laboratory in which to study
the spread of English as it affects a whole country from the grassroots level where
English is used as a lingua franca while at the same time facing demands of English
at the official level. The goal of this book is to provide a comprehensive description
of the changing ecology of a presumed monolingual community as it transitions to
a pluri-lingual society. The book focuses specifically on how massive exposure
through popular culture and social media in the every day lives of Icelanders leads
to high confidence in English proficiency and the ramifications of that exposure and
language confidence in academic pursuits.
Iceland is in many ways a microcosm of a modern society. Its 330,000 inhabit-
ants speak a national language that has been preserved despite hundreds of years of
colonial rule by Denmark when the main language of administration and commerce
was Danish (Hauksdóttir 2015). In many ways, Icelanders have traditionally defined
themselves by their language and literature (Pálsson 1989) resulting in strong pres-
ervation efforts and robust institutional support of the national language which is
used today in all domains. The preservation of Icelandic was also aided by geo-
graphical isolation for centuries and even though communication with the outside
world was frequent, this was limited to the few who could afford to travel or obtain
an education abroad. The first modern foreign language which was taught in schools
was Danish. Towards the end of the twentieth century, English replaced Danish as
the main foreign language spoken by Icelanders. Educated Icelanders, as in other
countries, also spoke other foreign languages as the study of three to four languages
was compulsory in secondary education. The linguistic context of Iceland began to
change during WWII when Iceland was occupied by English speaking forces that
numbered almost a quarter of the population of the island at the time, and then in the
sixties by the Anglo Saxon cultural revolution and finally by the internet for the last
two decades or so. Iceland is a modern society with open borders and the highest
internet use in Europe (Statistics Iceland 2015). English is spoken by a large number
of Icelanders, used in business and education and is the language used almost exclu-
sively for accessing information through the internet. This has led to dramatic
changes in the Linguistic Landscape of Iceland that will be outlined in this book.
Language Development Across the Life Span. English in Iceland: From Input to Output 3
The seven-year research project reported in this book examined the rich daily
exposure to English, the resultant acquisition of English by Icelanders from youth
to adulthood and the functions English serves in Icelandic society. The project
examined the impact that massive exposure to English as a World Language has on
the development of the linguistic repertoire of modern day Icelanders, specifically
the local appropriation of English at the grassroots level on the one hand, and on the
other hand, its function in education where the use of English as an Additional
Language with ENL norms is expected. The book is thus of importance to anyone
interested in the spread of English whatever their theoretical stance. A central objec-
tive of the project was to gather evidence to inform educational policy in the
Expanding Circle of English use (Kachru 1985). In this effort, a main focus was to
document Icelanders’ exposure to English from an early age and examine the rela-
tionship between the nature and level of input and the functions, or output, neces-
sary to obtain further education in Iceland where academic proficiency in English is
assumed. The different studies that make up this project thus document English
input at different times during the lifespan1,2 and output at different levels of the
Icelandic education system. Ultimately this book describes language contact in the
Expanding Circle of English use and illustrates its effect within a speech commu-
nity with a full national language.
The project incorporates several studies that utilize a mixed methodology. Data
were collected about general English exposure of Icelanders through national sur-
veys, interviews, diaries, and proficiency tests with the participation of over three
thousand Icelanders over a 7 year period. A team of researchers, including profes-
sors and graduate students, conducted the different sub-studies that make up the
project. Each chapter in the book describes the findings of the different sub-parts of
the research project on the effects of the spread of English and use of English as it
relates to the life-long (bi-/multi-lingual) development of speakers in Iceland. This
includes cross–sectional self-report studies of exposure to both naturalistic (extra-
mural) and instructed English, cross-sectional self-reports on proficiency and func-
tions of English, and experimental tests on proficiency at different education levels.
The overarching question is how the type and amount of English Icelanders encoun-
ter in their daily lives serves the functions that are required in education. The
research project illustrates the expansion of individuals’ linguistic repertoires as a
result of the spread of English. The project also provides a comprehensive descrip-
tion of how English as a World Language affects a whole linguistic community.
1
Input/ouputInput in second language learning and use means the language that the learner/user
hears or reads. Output refers to the production of language through speaking and writing.
2
Lifespan is used here to refer generally to the age range of the participants in this cross sectional
study. As the focus is on education, infants are excluded and older people only participated in
national surveys of exposure and views of proficiency. Educational impact of the exposure focuses
mostly on younger people, students at all three levels of education from primary to tertiary.
2 Motivation and Purpose of the Book
This study was undertaken to examine how the spread of English as a World
Language3 affects language proficiency and use at the local level. Specifically, the
aim was to examine in some detail the effect of English on the linguistic repertoires
of a community of speakers and the functions which English serves in modern soci-
ety, specifically in education. It is also an effort to shed light on an apparent discrep-
ancy between official language and educational policies of nations that promote
fully fledged national languages while the linguistic reality of their citizens is some-
thing entirely different and multilingual. The spread of English as a World Language
has come through the back door in many countries, including the Nordic countries,
and taken hold along side a national language, seemingly without acknowledgement
or reaction from language and educational authorities. Iceland provides a good lab-
oratory to examine the whole cycle from input to output of English as a World
Language while in progress. The study has applications to most of the countries of
Northern Europe, especially the Nordic countries as well as theoretical implications
as linguists struggle to explain the effect of the spread of English world wide.
The Nordic countries, including Iceland, are open societies and have tradition-
ally had an easy access to English especially after the Second World War. A com-
mon Nordic policy encourages use of English parallel with local languages in
domains such as academia, business and diplomacy (Deklaration 2006).
Simultaneously, the Nordic countries have fully fledged national languages that are
strongly supported institutionally and at all levels of society. There is, however,
massive exposure to English in the Nordic countries and even a preference for using
English as a lingua franca rather than using their mutually intelligible native lan-
guages when people from the different Scandinavian countries encounter each
other. The assumption is that Nordic peoples’ linguistic repertoires include near
native levels of English to the point that they can choose which language to use in
different functional domains. This includes being able to study in English at their
local universities where increasingly, the medium of instruction is English and the
bulk of textbooks are written for native speakers of English. This ideology is
expressed in the Common Nordic Language Policy (Deklaration 2006) and seen in
language policy and practice in Nordic universities and in the workforce. The lin-
guistic context of Iceland pertains directly to the other Nordic countries and studies
of the spread of English are directly applicable to other Nordic educational
contexts.
This multilingual ideology expressed in the Common Nordic Language Policy is
contested by several studies of English use at tertiary level that show that students
struggle with English despite reporting generally good English skills (Hellekjær
2005, 2009; Pecorari et al. 2011; Brock-Utne 2001; Arnbjörnsdóttir and Ingvarsdóttir
3
The term English as a World Language is not meant to indicate a research stance although the
term English as an International Language was rejected because of the effects English has had at
the local level.
2010). Officially, English is still a foreign language in the Nordic countries accord-
ing to official curriculum guidelines and instructional practices which reflect that
status (Folkeskole. Subjects and Curriculum). Yet, Nordic universities require near
native fluency for their proliferating EMI programs and use textbooks written for
native speakers of English. The disparity between ideology and practice in Nordic
Universities is well documented by Hultgren et al. (2014).
The situation in Iceland is a good example of how the official status of English
seems to be at odds with sociolinguistic reality. English has traditionally been con-
sidered a foreign language in Iceland. The Icelandic educational system is three
tiered. Primary education (compulsory education) begins in the first grade when
students are 6 years old and ends when they are 16 in the 10th grade. The secondary
level begins when students are 16 years old and they leave at 19 years old.4 National
Curriculum Guides for Teaching Foreign Languages from 2011 stipulate that
English language instruction begin in the 4th grade, with permission for schools to
start instruction earlier (p. 5). Despite recognizing the special nature of English in
Iceland, the National Curriculum Guide outlines the same goals and benchmarks at
the end of each year for all students for all foreign languages, including English.
English is officially taught as a foreign language. The underlying assumption is the
traditional notion associated with foreign language instruction that children come to
class as a linguistic Tabula Rasa – all begin at the same level and move forward in
the same way with the main input being the classroom, the textbook etc.
(Arnbjörnsdóttir og Ingvarsdóttir 2007).
The sociolinguistic reality of English exposure and English use in Iceland, and
all the Nordic countries, is very different from the one reflected in official policy
documents. The difference between a second and a foreign language situation lies
in the type and even more so in the amount of input (language exposure) the learner
has from the Target Language and both have consequences for the kind of profi-
ciency the learner attains. Extramural exposure to English in Iceland is to an infor-
mal language register, and this has consequences for the uptake, i.e. the type of
language learners learn, and consequently the purposes for which it can be used.
Icelandic children seem to acquire English from their environment through TV,
computers, and foreign travels which is reinforced in school as formal instruction
emphasizes communicative everyday English (Kristjánsdóttir et al. 2006). However,
English proficiency varies greatly and may be overestimated (Ingvarsdóttir 2004;
Kristjánsdóttir et al. 2006; Arnbjörnsdóttir 2007; Lefever 2010). One manifestation
of this dichotomy is that for some years now, the faculty of the English Department
has recognized that the English skills of students entering the program have been
shifting from competencies in reading and writing that characterized students’ pro-
ficiency in earlier decades to current students’ better facility with oral language
expression, especially with regards to informal conversational language proficiency.
Yet, at the same time English is increasingly used in higher education and the work
force (Arnbjörnsdóttir and Ingvarsdóttir 2007; Arnbjörnsdóttir 2009).
4
Secondary education has traditionally been 4 years in Iceland, but in 2015 it was changed to
3 years.
Exposure to English in Iceland is also varied both in type and amount of English
input. Some children come to school already fluent in English and others with little
more than a few phrases and exclamations. Most children fall somewhere between
these two extremes. Formal English instruction begins at different ages in Iceland
but the trend is to start this instruction earlier and earlier. Within a decade, some
students will be entering secondary school having had formal English instruction
from the age of five and others from the age of nine, depending on the emphasis of
individual primary schools. This proficiency gap can only widen as the most profi-
cient expand and fortify their skills, while others are learning the basics. Most of
these children comprehend more than they produce in line with the nature of the
exposure which is mostly through media. Proficiency in receptive language skills
may lead to an overestimation on the part of teachers and, even more critically, of
students themselves as to the level of their English skills. Kristjánsdóttir et al. report
that when their primary school students were asked to evaluate their English profi-
ciency, 75% of boys and 66% of girls in the 9th and 10th grade considered their
English to be rather good or very good (p. 14). The vast majority (84%) believed that
their English proficiency was adequate for study and work later on. Students further
reported being bored and unmotivated and did not see the relevance of studying
English in school when they already knew enough English. Instructional practices
seem to reinforce the very same receptive skills that students attain extramurally.
The distinction between informal conversational language skills and academic
language skills lies at the heart of the need to examine the status of English in
Iceland and other Nordic countries. Exposure to and uptake of informal language in
the environment is typical of a second language situation, where colloquial speech
is available to be “picked up” and appropriated by the learner. Numerous studies of
second language proficiency demonstrate that children of immigrants learn basic
language skills quickly and with minimal effort given enough input in their environ-
ment. This is not the case for academic language skills where ENL standards apply
(Collier 1989). Unlike learners in a typical second language situation who acquire
receptive and productive conversational language skills, Icelandic children seem to
acquire receptive skills and very highly contextualized colloquial English. Clearly,
those traditional definitions of a learner’s linguistic environment as an ESL or an
EFL context do not adequately describe the situation in Iceland. A brief survey of
the national curriculum guidelines of the amount of English instruction of students
in the natural science track in the secondary schools (from 16 to 20) shows that
students receive only nine credits or three semesters (out of eight) of English instruc-
tion and that advanced English courses are heavily literature based. The implication
that Icelandic students come to school proficient in colloquial English and that this
type of proficiency is reinforced at school contrasts seriously with the language
demands made of those students once at University or in the workplace. This issue
becomes even graver as students have an unfounded confidence in their overall
English proficiency.
At universities and other higher education institutions which depend on English
language textbooks and increasingly EMI instruction, students must rely on
academic language skills. Many Icelandic students who believed in secondary
school, and in front of their computers or TV screens that their English proficiency
was adequate, find themselves having difficulty comprehending English textbooks
in their university courses. English language university textbooks are not written
with the second language user in mind and require a high level of literacy skills. The
fact that many of these students seem to speak English with some fluency and are
able to use near-native-like colloquial speech, tends to mask their lack of academic
reading and writing skills.
Increasingly, Icelandic companies use English as their primary language of com-
munication. Of the 24 respondents in Óladóttir’s (2005) survey of Icelandic profes-
sionals, only one stated that he/she had not used English at all during the previous
week. Twelve wrote that they used English many times each day, and 13 used either
written or spoken language at work many times each day (p.76). Iceland’s Chamber
of Commerce’s 2004–2005 report, Visions of the Future, suggests that Icelanders
become bilingual in Icelandic and English as English is the international language
of commerce and industry (Iceland’s Chamber of Commerce 2005). It is difficult in
Iceland to get an education, work in large companies, follow developments in one’s
profession, read manuals etc. or acquire any kind of information on the web without
being proficient in English (Jeeves 2013). Yet they seem to struggle with many of
these tasks (Kristvinsson 2012; Jónsdóttir 2011).
To summarize: The spread of English in the Nordic countries has led to wide
discrepancies between official policies and assumption about the English skills of
Nordic peoples that seem largely unfounded. Studies as to the amount, type and
nature of exposure to English in the Expanding Circle, are both lacking and criti-
cally necessary, as is research on the actual use of English as a language of instruc-
tion and the language of instructional materials at the secondary and tertiary level at
international universities. What is clear, however, is that English today does not
have the same status as other foreign languages taught in schools in the Nordic
countries. The reexamination of the status of English in Iceland has implications for
all Nordic educational contexts as it calls for a new model of what constitutes a
linguistic environment for learning.
3 Theoretical Framework
Although this is essentially a descriptive project that may be situated within the
purview of Applied Linguistics, the studies that make up the project also have theo-
retical implications and have been informed by current theory. During the 7 year
phase of this project, the research field that examines the intense spread of English
has matured with many different theoretical approaches. Ultimately, however, the
spread of English is a sociolinguistic phenomenon that has helped revolutionize
how languages and their ecologies are evolving and how they are studied (Haugen
1972; Árnason 2005; Kramsch 2003). Due to the mobility of people across linguis-
tic boundaries and the explosion of the use of English as a Lingua Franca over the
internet, a new linguistic ecology of the world has been created that has called for a
paradigm shift in the way we view languages, language learning and language use.
But there is yet to be developed a predictive and holistic theoretical framework that
can account for the multilayered and multilingual uses of English throughout the
world, especially in the Expanding Circle of English use.
This project has been informed by the English as a Lingua Franca Approach.
ELF provided an alternative to views that depicted the spread of English as a preda-
tory language driven by neo-colonial Anglo-Saxon market forces (Phillipson 2008).
The ELF movement affected the project in such a way as to free us to study English
and its uses without it being juxtaposed and analyzed in terms of its negative effect
on Icelandic and Icelandic use. It allowed a more objective examination of the status
of English in Iceland that could inform the current sociolinguistic discussion that
tries to make sense of a new super-diverse world (Vertovec 2007; Blommaert and
Rampton 2011). The paradigm shift involves moving from a static view of language
and language use to a dynamic view of speakers’ linguistic repertoires and the vari-
ous functions they serve in a world where English has indeed become a Lingua
Franca among speakers of other languages in different historical, social and cultural
and educational contexts.
The paradigm shift has affected Applied Linguistics in profound ways. The proj-
ect has been influenced by the recent challenges to the notion of what constitutes a
target language for learning English. Is it Standard English? What is Standard
English and what is not, and which should be taught in Expanding Circle countries
(Kachru 1985, 1992; Jenkins 2007)? The notion of what constitutes native English
proficiency has been up for debate as studies have found that near native speakers
may surpass native speakers in grammaticality judgements about English grammar
and that non-native use of English is as legitimate as use of English by native speak-
ers (Hyltenstam et al. 2014; Birdsong 1999; Brutt-Griffler and Samimy 2001, Cook
1999, Jenkins 2000). Questions have been raised about what is the driving force
behind the spread of English – whether it is linguistic imperialism (Phillipson 2008)
or driven by the economic and social needs of education, business and or industry at
the local level. Traditional second language research methodology has been criti-
cized for studying what learners cannot do (Firth and Wagner 1997), and Brutt-
Griffler (2002) advocates the study of macro-acquisition by groups rather than the
traditional study of individual learners’ errors. Finally a more dynamic view of lan-
guage questions the traditional categorization of languages as discrete and bounded
entities to viewing language proficiency of all the languages a user can employ as
his linguistic repertoire with translanguaging as a label for multi-use of different
languages in multiple contexts. The new paradigm essentially legitimizes the use of
English by speakers of other languages. There are few studies that examine the
relationship between English as a Lingua Franca at the grassroots level and the
demands of English at the “official” level, in this case, education.
The changing status of English in the Expanding Circle (Kachru 1985) from
essentially a learner language to a lingua franca that serves local functions as much
as it serves in communication across cultures, calls into question the relevance of
the traditional dual distinction used to define a learner’s target language learning
environment: namely, that language learning takes place either in a second language
situation, where the learner learns the target language in the target culture, or in a
foreign language context where the target language is learned in the learner’s native
language culture with exposure primarily in the classroom. This dual distinction is
reflected in national and European curriculum guidelines as well as in instructional
practices around the world with the very different instructional approaches to sec-
ond language education of immigrants and foreign language education of native
students (Jenkins 2007). The dual distinction no longer applies in contexts where
the space that English takes in the linguistic landscape of the world is ever expand-
ing. We need studies that describe this expansion and its effect at the local level, in
this case at a national level within a specific domain, that of education. This book
describes such studies that together present a convincing overview of how the spread
of English affects a country.
We believe that this project has implications for the development of an explana-
tory and predictive model for the expansion of English world-wide based on
Schneider’s early model for post colonial countries (2007). Throughout this project,
the work has been guided by Kachru’s influential three concentric circle model of
English use (1985) where the Inner Circle represents countries where English serves
as a national language, the Outer Circle the Englishes in former colonies, and
Expanding Circle the Englishes in countries that traditionally consider English a
foreign language or a learner language. Kachru’s groundbreaking work served to
clarify the different development of Englishes depending on the context of that
development. Canagarajah (2006) introduced a more dynamic perspective on
Kachru’s Model in order capture the different historical and development contexts
that forged different varieties of English around the world.
In 2007 Schneider presented an initial effort to account for the development of
Englishes in postcolonial contexts in the Outer Circle (Schneider 2007). His Dynamic
Model of the Evolution of Postcolonial English accounts for the creation of a local
variety of English in five phases (2007, p.29): They are briefly mentioned before we
move on to the evolution of his model. For the interested reader please confer
Scheinder (2007). The original phases were: (1). Foundation when English is intro-
duced into a territory (as it is colonialized) (Schneider 2007: 33–36) (2). Exonormative
stabilization phase (Schneider 2007: 37–40) when bilingualism emerges and a
hybrid identity begins to develop in the colony. (3). Nativisation (Schneider 2007:
40–44) when a common identity of the two groups begins to emerge. (4).
Endonormative stabilization (Schneider 2007: 48–52) which follows independence
and creation of a national identity. (5). Differentiation. By this final phase (Schneider
2007: 52–54), the former colony becomes a stable young nation, and the existence
of the new variety of English is accepted. Each phase is seen from the perspective of
the colonists and the colonized. However, the model in this form is strictly applica-
ble to Outer Circle contexts. Each phase has four interconnected parameters that
Schneider later amended in an effort to capture the development of English in
Expanding Circle countries without a colonial past. Schneider (2014) also excludes
the Foundation phase in this version as it applies only to former colonies. Schneider
(2014) applies his new model to emergent contexts like China and Japan but calls for
further research to adapt his model to Expanding Circle situations (2014, p.28).
Others have applied Schneider‘s model to Expanding Circle countries, but not
convincingly (Kirkpatrick 2007). Buschfeld (2013) was first to suggest that colonial
spread could be replaced with econo-cultural spread. Edwards (2014) in a compre-
hensive study, measured the status of English in the Expanding Circle, in the
Netherlands, against Schneider‘s revised model. She reintroduces the Foundation
phase as “Foundation through globalization”. In her model, language contact
appears in the ever growing exposure to English through the internet, travel, and
popular culture rather than through colonization (Edwards 2014, p. 190). Buschfeld
and Kautzsch (2016), in an effort to account for the heterogeneity found in both
colonial and non- colonial contexts further expand on the new “Foundation through
globalization” phase to include any factor entering the country from outside, and
add the possibility that intra-territorial forces that operate at the local, regional, or
national level can influence the cultural and linguistic development from within
(p. 10). These could be forces such as liberal language and foreign policies and
openness to the world. They introduce a role for the education system including the
nature of curricula, onset of formal English education, number of EMI programs
etc. that affect different groups of speakers differently (p. 10). But the model is still
“primarily varieties based” i.e. they explain how a new English variety may develop
in different post colonial contexts. They do not examine some of the ways in which
language exists in other parts of the Expanding Circle (Buschfeld and Kautzsch
2016, p. 1). The model does not clearly account for the emergence and role of
English in the Nordic countries.
While the Foundation phase may very well be substituted by massive exposure
to the new language online or face to face as a lingua franca, the notion of ‘merged’
identity construction in phases 2–5 in Schneider’s model may also be problematic
when applied to Expanding Circle countries. Buschfeld and Kautzsch (2016)
suggest
…that the issue of identity rewritings also plays an important role in the development of
non-PCEs since absorbing a ‘foreign’ language to such a high degree, that is, making it part
of one’s individual language repertoire, becoming highly proficient and fully bilingual, as
well as speaking a nativized form of English that is characterized by local features, does
certainly not come without a rewriting of identity constructions, most likely in the form of
a ‘local-cum-English’… identity (p. 15).
The notion of ‘local cum English’, English as an additional language that operates
parallel to the local language, is relevant to this study and in accounting for the
status of English in the Nordic countries. Rather than applying to a local emerging
variety of English it may be necessary to amend the model to include local language
cum local English cum ENL (English as a Native Language) standards. We suggest
that this model needs to be revised again to account for situations that may never go
beyond the second phase, where English is used to serve specific functions, namely
to communicate with the outside world and access information and education.
While previously this was a domain dominated by a handful of people who saw it as
using English as a foreign language, today with more exposure, more people are
adopting more English for more purposes. The globalization forces, strong as they
are, also encounter resistance in the form of strong national languages and strong
national identities. This is somewhat of a contrast to the multilingual context such

as Cyprus, Gibraltar and Namibia that the model has previously been measured
against.
Locals in Expanding Circle countries, rather than usurp the language of colonists
forging a new merged identity, may expand their linguistic repertoires as knowing
and using English becomes part of an extended or rewritten local identity. English
is no longer a foreign learner language to be mastered, but a utility language, a nec-
essary skill to survive. This is true for Iceland and possibly the other Nordic coun-
tries (Rindal 2012). The possibility that non-colonial countries may never reach
beyond the third stage is mentioned by Buschfeld and Kautzsch (2016, p 16), but
Edwards (2014), concludes that this does not apply to the Netherlands as “Dutch
English does not serve as a target model” and “does not appear to be recognized at
all as a potentially legitimate variety” (Edwards 2014, p.184). However, we suggest
that it is quite possible that two Englishes may co-exist in the Netherlands as we
surmise, in Iceland; one possible local variety and another ENL standard variety
used for formal situations in education and commerce both having become part of
the local speakers’ linguistic repertoire and local identity.
These modifications to Schneider’s Dynamic Model are still varieties based
although they also try to account for speakers’ or groups’, attitudes, roles and func-
tions in the language space under investigation (Schneider 2014). Phase 3 of the
model seems to suggest that eventually, English will be adopted into the linguistic
repertoire of the locals and across domains for all levels of communication. There is
also the possibility of ENL and EFL versions coexisting alongside a local variety in
the same space (Schneider 2007; Buschfeld 2013; Edwards 2014).
However, it is quite possible even likely, that local varieties of English are devel-
oping in the Nordic countries and English is clearly already part of a Scandinavia’s
young persons’ linguistic repertoire (Rindal 2012). These models account for the
transposition of English to a new space and eventual development of a local English
variety, but may have to be adjusted to account for the coexistence of Englishes in
the Nordic countries; one for colloquial use that may in time develop its own char-
acteristics (Edwards 2014; Jeeves 2013) and another for parallel language5 use or
simultaneous parallel code use6 that demands ENL standards in Education and the
workforce. These type of English functions have received attention in the literature
(Hultgren et al. 2014; Fabricius and Preisler 2015; Dimova et al. 2015). The linguis-
tic repertoires of Nordic peoples may thus include a variety of English appropriated
for use colloquially and another more formal ENL standard English that functions
in education and professionally. This duality characterizes the use of English in the
Nordic countries. The misconception in Iceland, and we suggest other Nordic coun-
5
The use of parallel languages refers to a situation in which two languages are considered equal in
a particular domain, and where the choice of language depends on what is deemed most appropri-
ate and efficient in a specific situation (www.cip.hum.ku.dk).
6
Simultaneous parallel code use refers to a situation where students work with two languages at
the same time. e.g. reading in English while taking notes or reporting in Icelandic (see chapter
“Simultaneous Parallel Code Use”, this volume).
tries, is the assumption that the widespread receptive colloquial English attained
and used at the grass roots level suffices to meet the ENL standards required for
functioning at the professional level and in education.
4 Contributions
The editors are an educator and an applied linguist and the main contribution of this
book is the description of a holistic overview of the cycle of English use in an
Expanding Circle country from input in contexts in and out of school to output in
educational contexts. The study is also of theoretical importance to scholars inter-
ested in language contact as it provides a microcosmic view of the effects of the
spread of English on a previously monolingual community. We believe it has rele-
vance to the development of a predictive model, based on Schneider’s (2007) semi-
nal work, of the effects of the spread of English world-wide. The practical
contributions of this book are that collectively the chapters provide a comprehensive
profile, from initial exposure, instruction, acquisition, and finally function of English
in a previously presumed monolingual country. A major practical contribution of
this book is the ways in which it informs, not just local policies, but international
educational and language policy. Furthermore the book provides an empirical basis
for Icelandic and Nordic educational and language planning, English curriculum
design, initial teacher education and professional development to meet the needs of
students in a changing linguistic context of the world, and aligning them with the
linguistic realities of modern Northern European societies. The book thus meets a
dire need for sound empirical research on the type and amount of English exposure
and use on a nation-wide level across the life span.
The empirical contributions:
• provide a profile of the level and nature of English proficiency of students at all
educational levels through self-reports and actual measurements of proficiency at
the onset of instruction at the primary level, the secondary level, and tertiary
level
• demonstrate how attained proficiency at each education level serves the students
in the transition to the next level
• provide an overview of instructional practices and curriculum guidelines with a
view to measure to what extent they meet the actual linguistic needs of students
• outline to what extent English is used for oral and written communication in
Icelandic
• describe the lack of English language preparation and lack of genre awareness
and formal academic language skills of university students and instructors in
Iceland
• clarify the connection between instructional policy and practice
• inform current theoretical and policy discussions about the extent and effect of
the use of English as a lingua franca in countries of the Expanding Circle.
Although this study began with the goal to inform educational policy and prac-
tice, it inevitably has manifold theoretical implications and contributes to theory
building in a changing world of language. The study informs the current theoretical
debate about the nature and effect of the learning context for languages that are
neither second nor foreign languages and suggests that the learning context is more
complex than previous dual categorizations imply. This study illustrates that English
as a World language can indeed function in different ways at the local level; as a
colloquial language used freely in translanguaging with cross cultural references,
and on another level as a formal language demanding ENL standards. Mollin (2006)
refers to these as the “grass roots domain” vs. the “official domain”. Official implies
official status, which in Iceland is not the case. Instead we might use ‘formal
domains’.
This study clarifies and illustrated the gap between the grassroots and official
domains as it is assumed that the former can function equally in the latter’s linguis-
tic space and demonstrates how a language can simultaneously function in a wide
range of internal instrumental, and interpersonal functions beyond the international
lingua franca functions to which English is typically restricted in the ideological
discourse in countries of the Expanding Circle (Buschfeld 2013; Edwards 2014).
This is the first comprehensive study of the spread of English and its effect on a
national level in a country in the Expanding Circle (Kachru 1985). The study illus-
trates the effects of English from exposure to functions. Previous studies in the
Nordic countries have focused on attitudes toward English, and appropriations of
English for use at the local level by specific groups or subcultures often with a view
to examine the emergence of English as a local variety. These studies include Erling
for Germany (2008) and Preisler (2003) and Thögersen (2007) for Denmark. Other
studies have been part of an effort to develop a predictive framework to account for
the spread of English worldwide. These include Edwards (2014) for the Netherlands,
Schneider (2014) for China and Japan, and Buschfeld and Kautzsch (2016) for
Namibia. The focus of these studies is to determine to what extent a local variety of
English has emerged. Hellekjær’s pioneering studies examine the connection
between secondary school English education and the demands of university studies
in Norway (2005, 2009) and Breivik (2015) and Rindal (2012) examined attitudes
and use of English by Norwegian youths. This project expands on those studies.
Rather than focus on the consequences of the spread of English as a new language
variety, this study, although not denying that a local variety may be emerging in
Iceland, focuses on the adoption of English as a utility language that operates along-
side the national language. Although the study begins by measuring exposure to
English through popular culture, it goes on to examine how the English Icelanders
are exposed to serves them in the functions which are needed in each given situa-
tion. This volume offers a comprehensive view of the cycle of English exposure and
function within and across domains.
This study is also a contribution to the discussion of the effects of the adoption
of English in Academia. The numerous studies of the effect of the transition to
English at tertiary level throughout the world tend to center on the challenges and
advantages of EMI programs (Dimova et al. 2015; Hultgren et al. 2014, Coleman
2006; Evans and Morrison 2011). Fewer studies focus on the relationship between
students’ actual English proficiency and preparation before they enter University.
Most studies, even in education, describe restricted contexts at the tertiary level
(Hultgren et al. 2014 & Dimova et al. 2015; Fabricius and Preisler 2015). The work
of Hellekjær and his team (2005, 2009, 2016) at the University of Oslo is a noted
exception. The project described in this book is an effort to narrow this gap and to
inform and illuminate the discussion about the causes of the identified struggles
documented by students and faculty in EMI university programs by pointing out the
gap in knowledge created by the dual language functions of English in Nordic soci-
eties. Furthermore the book outlines the lack of awareness and acknowledgement of
this gap by students themselves, instructors and university and education offi-
cials which prevents students from receiving the type of support that they need to
study at their local universities that demand increased EMI programs and English
ENL standard output. The presumption is that the grassroots English can also func-
tion in education.
Finally, we hope that this study informs Sociolinguistics and the study of lan-
guage contact. The suitability of existing static models and discreet categorizations
of languages has been called into question (Blommaert and Rampton 2011; Vertovec
2007). This study shows that rather than viewing English as a global language, as
simply a language that is taking over domains previously served by local languages,
English can and does exist on many different levels, depending on the characteris-
tics of the local speech community. The linguistic repertoires of Nordic peoples
may thus include a variety of English appropriated for use colloquially and another
more formal ENL Standard English variety that functions in education and the work
force. This duality characterizes the use of English in the Nordic countries and must
be accounted for in predictive models of the spread of English world-wide.
5 Structure of the Book
The authors of the chapters in this book were part of a team that examined the nature
of exposure, use and proficiency in English by native Icelanders over a seven year
period through multiple studies with a special emphasis on its implications for edu-
cation. The first three chapters provide the demographic and general background
information about the linguistic ecology of Iceland. In the second chapter,
Arnbjörnsdóttir describes the amount and type of exposure Icelanders hear and
use daily, weekly and monthly based on a national survey. The chapter illustrates the
enormous amount of English that is part of everyday life in Iceland, so that it can no
longer be defined as a simply a foreign language. The chapter “English Exposure,
Proficiency and Use in Iceland” describes cross sectional studies of the exposure
and use of English by children and examines whether the nature of English use is
changing over time from receptive to productive use with the coming of web 2.0 and
subsequent increase in interactive communication through social media.
The chapters “English Exposure and Vocabulary Proficiency at the Onset of

English Instruction”, “Learning and Using English: The Views of Learners at the
End of Compulsory Education”, “Academic Vocabulary Proficiency and Reading
Comprehension Among Icelandic Secondary School Students” and “Perceptions of
Relevance of English Education at Secondary School” focus on the impact of
English on primary and secondary education. In her chapter “English Exposure and
Vocabulary Proficiency at the Onset of English Instruction”, Ásrún Jóhannsdóttir
outlines the new linguistic reality of 4th graders as they begin English instruction.
In this chapter, based on her doctoral study, Jóhannsdóttir describes how 10 year
olds’ English lexical proficiency and the factors that influence the young learners’
English development along with the role English plays in their current and future
lives. In their chapter entitled “Learning and Using English: The Views of Learners
at the End of Compulsory Education”, Ingvarsdóttir and Jóhannsdóttir present find-
ings of their study of the views and expectations of secondary school students at the
end of compulsory education. They describe learners’ attitudes to learning and
using English now and in the future and how they view their own proficiency. In the
chapter “Academic Vocabulary Proficiency and Reading Comprehension Among
Icelandic Secondary School Students”, Guðmundur Edgarsson reports findings of
measurements of actual lexical knowledge that formed part of a larger study of stu-
dents’ academic English proficiency at the end of secondary level. In her chap-
ter “Perceptions of Relevance of English Education at Secondary School”, Anna
Jeeves describes the views of young people in secondary school, at university and in
the work force about the relevance to their lives of their English language learning
experiences while in secondary school. The chapters “Using English at University”,
“Simultaneous Parallel Code Use”, “University Instructors’ Views on Using
Curriculum Materials in English” and “Writing English for Research and Publication
Purposes (ERPP): Personal Identity and Professional Voice” center on the impact of
English at the tertiary level. In their chapter “Using English at University”,
Arnbjörnsdóttir and Ingvarsdóttir report findings of a mixed method study examin-
ing university students’ views on using English for academic purposes. In the next
chapter “Simultaneous Parallel Code Use”, the construct Simultaneous Parallel
Code Use (SPCU) is introduced. SPCU refers to the process where students who are
English users and not learners of English must negotiate meaning between two
codes when the input is mostly in one language, English, and the output/evaluation
is in another language. In her chapter “University Instructors’ Views on Using
Curriculum Materials in English”, Ingvarsdóttir describes university instructor’s
views on using English in their academic pursuits. The chapter “Writing English for
Research and Publication Purposes (ERPP): Personal Identity and Professional
Voice” examines the challenges of academic staff having to compete with native
speakers of English to get their papers published in peer reviewed journals and the
consequences of having to present research in a different language than the one in
which previous academic training was conducted. The final chapter presents
conclusions and implications of the findings of the study for Iceland, other educa-
tional contexts and for the study of the spread of English as a World language
including the implications for language and educational policy and for instructional
practice.
Acknowledgements The editors would like to thank The Icelandic Centre for Research and The
University of Iceland Research Fund for supporting this project. We would also like to thank our
colleagues, Ph.D. students, MA students and our BA classes for their collaboration. Finally we
thank the thousands of Icelanders who participated in one way or another in this project.
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1024–1054.
The Policies and Contexts that Frame English
Education and Use in Iceland
Abstract This chapter provides an overview of the social, linguistic and educa-
tional policies that frame the use of English in Iceland. Icelanders have had easy
access to English in their everyday lives, especially since WWII. English education
begins early and, by the time of graduation from secondary school, Icelandic stu-
dents have had up to ten years of English instruction. Educational and language
policies are seen as dissonant with the complex language ecology of Iceland as they
do not reflect the substantial presence of English in Iceland. National Curriculum
Guides which categorize English with other foreign languages may constrain prac-
tice. The chapter begins with a short historical overview of contact with English.
The historical account is followed by an introduction to prevailing Nordic and
Icelandic language policies. The bulk of the chapter is devoted to educational poli-
cies, specifically, the National Curriculum Guides for English instruction for chil-
dren at primary and secondary level. The chapter ends with a brief overview of
studies on instructional practices and the educational outcomes of the policies and
practices described. Findings suggest that children acquire much of their English
proficiency outside the classroom.
1 Introduction
The linguistic repertoires of Icelanders are not well understood and nor are the lin-
guistic spaces within which they function. This chapter provides a backdrop for the
rest of the chapters in this book on the findings of the longitudinal project ‘English
in a New Linguistic Context in Iceland‘, specifically those that pertain to attained
proficiency and function of English (see Jóhannsdóttir, this volume; Ingvarsdóttir
and Jóhannsdóttir, this volume; Jeeves, this volume; Edgarsson, this volume).
Icelanders, although geographically isolated, have a tradition of language learning
and foreign language encounters that goes back generations. In recent decades,
English has been easily accessible and Icelanders’ general English proficiency is
B. Arnbjörnsdóttir (*)
University of Iceland, Reykjavík, Iceland
e-mail: birnaarn@hi.is
© Springer International Publishing AG 2018 19

B. Arnbjörnsdóttir, H. Ingvarsdóttir (eds.), Language Development across the Life Span,
Educational Linguistics 34, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-67804-7_2
20 B. Arnbjörnsdóttir
comparatively high. Iceland ranks among the top ten highest achievers on the 2015
international TOEFL exams (TOEFL 2016, pp. 14–15). English education begins
early and, by the time of graduation from secondary school, Icelandic students have
had up to ten years of English or even longer. This is in addition to massive exposure
outside of school (see next chapter). Massive English exposure is reflected in stu-
dents’ facility with understanding conversational English at a young age as shown
by the studies reviewed in this chapter. However, language and education policies
do not reflect this presence of English in Iceland and nor do National Curriculum
Guides which categorize English with other foreign languages whose exposure is
restricted to the classroom. The disconnect causes tensions that affect the imple-
mentation of English instruction and effectiveness of instruction in meeting the
needs of students. This dissonance between language and educational policy and
linguistic reality is the topic of this chapter which begins with a very brief historical
overview of the presence of English in Iceland.
2 The Presence of English in Iceland
2.1 A Brief Historical Overview
Language contact in Iceland is not a new phenomenon despite the island’s geo-
graphical isolation. Contact with the outside world is well documented from the
time of settlement in the ninth century. First, mutually intelligible varieties of a
common Nordic language, Old Norse, were used to communicate with other Nordic
people’s and even with the inhabitants of the British Isles and beyond. Danish
became a second language in Iceland from the thirteenth century until it was
replaced in the latter part of the twentieth century by a more distant Germanic
cousin, English.
Iceland was a colony of Denmark from the last part of the thirteenth century up
until independence in 1944 and Danish was to some extent the language of higher
education, government and commerce in Iceland. Initially, the intense contact with
Danish may have had some influence on the Icelandic language and its use. However,
in the middle of the nineteenth century, under the influence of the Romantic move-
ment, a fierce nationalism developed and successful efforts were made to “purify”
Icelandic and bring it closer to the “classic models of Old Icelandic” (Hilmarsson-
Dunn and Kristinsson 2009, p. 365). Icelandic was a written language from early on
and most of the official government documents were written both in Danish and in
Icelandic. A majority of the educated classes in Iceland had their schooling in
Denmark and commerce was largely conducted in Danish. Danish was, in effect, a
second language in Iceland for centuries although some doubt exists as to the extent
to which the general population, especially outside trading posts, spoke Danish
(Hauksdóttir 2013). Nevertheless, up until the 1990s, Danish was the first foreign
language taught in Icelandic schools, popular magazines read by adults and children
The Policies and Contexts that Frame English Education and Use in Iceland 21
were mostly imported from Denmark (written in Danish), as were movies.

Irrespective of the breadth or depth of Icelanders’ Danish proficiency, Danish was a
constant presence in Iceland up until the middle of the twentieth century.
The first mention of English use in Iceland appears in diary entries and descrip-
tions from the eighteenth century of meetings with visitors and explorers who trav-
eled in Iceland (Einarsdóttir 2001; Agnarsdóttir and Stephensen 2010). Previously,
commerce had flourished between the English and Icelanders during the 15th cen-
tury, called the “English Century” by scholar, but no sources are available about the
use of language while trading. The need for English proficiency grew around the
middle of the nineteenth century as trade with Britain and British fishermen who
fished in Icelandic waters increased again and more frequent steam ship visits
brought more foreign travelers. As in other countries, increased trade with Britain
enhanced the need to know English and Icelandic merchants found it advantageous
to send their sons to Britain to study English language and culture. At home, adult
education began to include English studies especially for those catering to British
trade (Einarsdottir 2001). Emigration to America began in the 1870s, which
strengthened familiarity with the English language in Iceland. The first Icelandic
English dictionary was published in 1896 and an English bookstore was established
in Reykjavík in 1927 (Jónsson 1976). By the turn of the twentieth century, Icelanders
frequently sought their education in England. The consequences of the First World
War, resulting in greater Anglo Saxon cultural influences throughout the world,
extended to Iceland as well (Einarsdóttir 2001).
Contact with English amplified with the arrival of British soldiers in Iceland in
the Second World War, especially in the geographic areas of Iceland occupied by the
British. During WWII, around 25,000 English speaking soldiers became part of
everyday life in Iceland followed by over 42,000 American servicemen. After
WWII, the American presence continued until 2006. The British and American sol-
diers needed services and local business owners and shop assistants soon learned
some English (Erna Vigfúsdóttir, personal communication). At the time, Iceland
only had about 120,000 inhabitants (Kjartansson 2002, p. 220), so the influence of
the occupation on everyday life in Iceland during the war was extensive. The
American military base in Keflavík had its own radio and television stations that
broadcast entertainment in English that Icelanders also listened to and which facili-
tated the spread of English and American popular culture until 2006 when the base
was closed (Kvaran and Svavarsdóttir 2002). The next wave of English contact
came in the fifties and sixties with the spread of Anglo-Saxon pop culture and goods
worldwide. In Iceland, British and American movies, music, fashion and consumer
goods quickly replaced Danish cultural influences and English replaced Danish as
the perceived “threat” to Icelandic language and culture. Youth culture in Iceland,
especially, reflects cultural references, translanguaging and general preference for,
and familiarity with, Anglo-Saxon norms, values and behaviors. The sustained and
intense presence of English language and culture over the last decades is reflected
in Icelanders’ and other Nordic peoples’ confidence in their English skills (see the
chapter “English Exposure, Proficiency and Use in Iceland, this volume”) and this
22 B. Arnbjörnsdóttir
assumption has found its way into policy documents. Language policies common to
all the Nordic countries are presented in the next section followed by Icelandic lan-
guage policies.
2.2 A Common Nordic Policy
Given the presence of English in the Nordic countries, there is a prevailing ideology
that Nordic peoples generally speak English well and that they are able to use
English alongside their first language especially in business, education and scien-
tific pursuits (Nordic Council of Ministers 2008). A Common Nordic Language
Policy from 2007 asserts that the “Nordic countries are a linguistic pioneering
region” (p. 95) with a rich tradition of learning multiple foreign languages. English
has a special status in the Declaration, which advocates the parallel use of languages
depending on circumstance. It states: “Nordic residents … have especially favour-
able conditions for developing skills in the parallel use of English” and local lan-
guages (pp. 93–94). The Declaration further encourages business and labor-market
organizations “to develop strategies for the parallel use of local languages and
English” (p. 94).
The positive view of multilingualism expressed in the non-binding declaration is
problematic for at least three reasons. The first is the underlying assumption that
Nordic residents have adequate English skills that enable them to choose which
language to use for different linguistic practices is not supported by research. This
is especially true for formal registers used in business and academic communication
(Hultgren et al. 2014; Dimova et al. 2015). The second issue is the lack of clarity
about what constitutes “parallel language use” making it difficult to support empir-
cally. Hultgren (2016) points out that despite its universal acceptance it is not clear
whether the term refers to practice, competence, policy, or individual or systemic
language use (p. 2). Clearly any future investigation into parallel language use
requires consensus about parallel language use means. Until this has been clarified
it will prove difficult to develop effective national language and educational policies
that aim to steer linguistic behavior of citizens (Hultgren 2016). In fact, and this is
the third major issue, the progressive view of language reflected in the non-binding
Declaration is not represented in current national policies making it unlikely to be
realized (Hultgren et al. 2014). This is especially true for Iceland, a country with a
long history of conservative language policies and practices aimed at steering lan-
guage behaviors to protect the national language.
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He had always been very respectable under the eyes of the world; to be
sure, he was quite respectable now; there was no fault to be found with the
party—his beautiful companion, indeed, was something quite new, and not
very much used to her present position; but there was nothing wrong in that.
Nevertheless Frederick felt that there was something to pay for the strange
confusion of blessedness in which he seemed to have lost himself. He felt
this by intervals, and he kept as much as he could behind the curtains,
behind her. She was perfectly willing to occupy the centre of the box, to
rain down influence, to be seen and admired. “Mr. Eastwood, I wish you
would not keep behind me. Do let people see that I have some one to take
care of me. Papa has gone to sleep, of course,” said the beauty, and she
turned round upon Frederick with such a look that he remembered nothing
any more but her loveliness, and the delight of being near her. She chattered
through all the play, and he listened. She said a great deal that was silly, and
some things that were slightly vulgar, and he noted them, yet was not less
subjugated by a spell which was beyond resistance. I cannot be supposed to
understand this, nor to explain it. In such matters I can only record facts. He
was not under the delusion that she was a lofty, or noble, or refined being,
though she was Batty’s daughter. He presumed that she was Batty’s
daughter heart and soul; made of the same pâte, full of the same thoughts.
She was “not a lady,” beautiful, splendid, and well-dressed as she was; the
humble, little snub-nosed girl in the stalls below who looked up at this
vision of loveliness with a girl’s admiration had something which all the
wealth of the Indies could not have given to Miss Amanda. And Frederick
Eastwood saw this quite plainly, yet fell in love, or in madness, exactly as if
he had not seen it. The feeling, such as it was, was too genuine to make him
capable of many words; but he did his best to amuse her, and he listened to
all she said, which was a very good way of pleasing this young woman.
“I hope you mean to stay in town for some time,” he said, in one of the
pauses of her abundant talk.
“Not very long,” said Miss ’Manda. “Papa likes to live well, and to do
things in the best sort of way; so he spends a deal of money, and that can’t
last long. Our hotel isn’t like Mivart’s, and that sort of thing: but it is
dreadfully dear. We spend as much as—oh, I couldn’t venture to tell you
how much we spend a day. Papa likes to have everything of the best, and so
do I.”
“And so you ought,” said Frederick, adoring. “Pardon me if I am saying
too much.”
“Oh, you are not saying very much, Mr. Eastwood. It is I that am
talking,” said Amanda, “and as for our staying long here, that does not
much matter, for papa wants you to come to Sterborne. He has been talking
of it ever since he came back from Paris. What did you do to him to make
him take such a fancy to you? We don’t think the other Eastwoods behaved
vary nicely to us, and ever since he met with you papa has been telling me
of all your good qualities. You have put a spell upon him, I think.”
“He is very good, I am sure,” said Frederick, stiffening in spite of
himself.
“Oh, I know,” said Amanda, with a toss of her head. “We are not so fine
as you are, we don’t visit with county people, nor that sort of thing. But we
have plenty of people come to see us who are better off than the Eastwoods,
and better blood, too, so you need not be afraid. Papa has dealings with the
very best. We don’t like to be slighted,” said the beauty, with a gleam of
that red light from her beautiful eyes; “and when people put on airs, like
your cousin has done, it sets papa’s back up. That was why we went against
Sir Geoffrey at the election. But I hope you will come, Mr. Eastwood; papa
took such a fancy to you.”
“I have just been away from the office for a month. I fear I shall not have
leisure again for some time,” said Frederick, feeling that an invitation from
Batty was to be resisted, even when conveyed by such lovely lips.
“How hideous it must be not to be one’s own master; to have to ask for
‘leave’ like a servant,” cried ’Manda with a laugh; which speech set all
Frederick’s nerves ajar, and almost released him from the syren. He
withdrew into the shade of the curtains, and drew to him all the succour of
his pride.
“Yes, it is a pitiful position,” he said, with an angry laugh; “but I may
comfort myself that a great many people share it with me. Do you know I
am afraid I must leave you. This performance is endless, and rather dull.”
“Upon my word!” cried Miss Batty, “you are free-spoken, Mr. Frederick.
To tell a lady you are dull when she is doing her best to amuse you!”
“Pardon me, I spoke of the performance.”
“Oh, I don’t care much for the performance,” said Amanda, with a
beaming smile. “I like the lights and the music, and the feeling of being out
in the world. But you wouldn’t go off, and leave me—with papa asleep, and
no one to talk to?”
“I have an engagement—at my club.”
“Oh, if you wish to go away, Mr. Eastwood——” The beauty turned
away pouting, turning her lovely shoulders upon him, and tossing her
beautiful head. Frederick had risen partly in the liveliness of personal
offence, partly with an impulse of prudence, to escape while he might. But
his heart failed him when he saw the averted head, the resentful movement.
Batty dozed peacefully in his chair, interfering with no one. And something
tugged at the unfortunate young man, who stood undecided whether to fly
or to stay. To leave a lovely creature like this, the most beautiful woman he
had ever seen, alone, without any one to amuse her: to leave the place
vacant which a hundred no doubt would give their ears for! What harm
could it do him to stay? It was pleasant to spend an hour or two by the side
of anything so pretty. Come of it—what could come of it? It was an
accidental delight entirely, without connexion with the rest of his life; an
isolated event, without either origin or issue. Why should not he like others
enjoy himself for the moment? While he was thus hesitating Amanda turned
her head round with a sudden provoking glance. “Oh, have you not gone
yet?” she asked. Frederick felt, as it were, on his knees before her.
“Must I go? have I proved so unworthy of my privilege?” he cried
humbly, taking his seat with deprecating looks. Miss Batty did not wish him
to go, and said so freely, with unflattering plainness of speech.
“I should be left to listen to papa’s snores, which I can hear at home,”
she said. “I always prefer some one to talk to. I daresay, however, I should
not have been left long by myself, for there is Lord Hunterston down below
in those horrid stalls looking up. He is trying to catch my eye. No; I don’t
care to have too many. I shan’t see him as long as you stay.”
“Then I shall stay for ever,” said Frederick, inspired by that touch of
rivalship. Lord Hunterston, however, did manage to find his way up to the
box, whether by Miss ’Manda’s permission or not, and Frederick grew stiff
and resentful while the other foolish youth paid his homage. Lord
Hunterston pricked him into double eagerness, and sent all the suggestions
of prudence to the winds. Amanda proved herself thoroughly equal to the
occasion. She kept the two young men in hand with perfect skill, though she
allowed herself to be slightly insolent to Frederick, referring again to the
“leave” without which he could not budge. This time, however, the
reference did not make him angry, but only impressed him with the fact that
his admiration was nothing to her, and that every step of vantage-ground
would have to be fought for, and held with the exercise of all his powers.
He felt himself pitted against not Lord Hunterston only, but all the world. It
seemed impossible to imagine that this syren, who had conquered himself
by a glance, should not attract everybody that had the happiness of
approaching her. Terror, jealousy, and pride, all came in to aid the strongest
passion of all, which had already taken possession of him—terror of losing
her, jealousy of everybody who looked at her, and all the amour propre and
determination to elevate himself over the heads of his rivals that could lend
warmth to a young man’s determination. No prize is fully estimated until
the sense that it will be hotly contested bursts upon the competitor’s mind.
Frederick grew half wild when the time came for him to leave the theatre.
He secured her arm to lead her down-stairs, but only by dint of having all
his wits about him, and taking his rival unawares. And then he was
dismissed at the cab door, with all his nerves tingling, his heart beating, his
whole frame in a ferment. He walked home all the way, following the path
which her vehicle, so ignoble, and unfit for her to enter, must have taken; he
passed under the windows he supposed to be hers. In short, he did
everything that a foolish young man, mad with sudden excitement, and
what is called passion, is expected to do, and worked himself into a higher
and higher strain of excitement, as with his head full of thoughts of her he
made his way home, longing impatiently for the morning, when he might
see her again.
CHAPTER XX.
WHAT IT IS TO BE “IN LOVE.”

The story of such sudden passions as this, which had come upon Frederick
Eastwood, are common enough and well known. Love is a subject which
concerns and interests the whole world, and though there is not much that is
novel to be said about it, it is the event or accident in life of which the
gentle reader never tires. Let not that kind listener be shocked if I call it an
accident. Sometimes it is the influence which shapes our lives, but
sometimes, also, it is so slight an episode that we are disposed to smile or to
sneer at the prevailing human prejudice which makes it the chief centre of
existence in all song and story. A pure and genuine love, however, has
something of attraction in it for every creature. It recalls the most delicious
moments of life, those in which the dream of perfect happiness, never to be
fully realized, is forming in the youthful imagination, and all heaven and
earth thrills and quickens with visionary hopes and aspirations; or it
suggests, more sweetly and more vaguely even than those dreams
themselves, the visions that are to come. The ignoble love which it is my
evil fortune to have now in hand, would, no doubt, could I enter into it,
recall its own ignoble yet exciting memories to the minds which are capable
of such feelings. Frederick Eastwood scarcely slept all night, and when he
did drop into a feverish doze, the image of Miss ’Manda, her golden hair
dropping warm and bright upon her beautiful shoulders, the soft rose-white
of her hand supporting the milky rose of her cheek, the curves of her face,
the splendour and glow of beauty about her, haunted his dreams. Better
visions, I hope, haunt the pillows of most lovers, but this was how
Frederick loved, or rather how he fell into passion and frenzy, suddenly,
without warning or thought, over the attractions of Mr. Batty’s daughter,
whom the day before he would have thought quite beneath his lightest
thought. Thus Love, even when of the least worthy kind, laughs at prejudice
and class distinctions, and at all those conventional restraints which are
stronger than the suggestions of wisdom. I do not think that any generous or
exalted emotion would have led Frederick Eastwood to commit himself, to
depart from what he thought becoming to his own elevated position and
character; and this being the case, there may be a certain human satisfaction
in the thought that something does exist which is capable of plucking the
intellectualist from his eminence, and the man of social pretence from his
position, as well as the prince from his throne. Love, that conquers all
things, conquers in this way even the predominant influence of self.
Frederick for once was superior to that determined adherence to his own
will and pleasure which had accompanied him through his whole life. His
first thought in the morning was for her. He got up earlier than usual,
though he had been late on the previous night. He had no wish to sleep; it
was sweeter to wander about the garden in the morning sunshine and think
of her, which was a proceeding which filled the family with consternation.
When he was discovered at the breakfast-table making himself very
pleasant and friendly, the surprise of Nelly and Dick came to a height. As
for Mrs. Eastwood, she had a mother’s natural certainty that her son’s
manners were always agreeable, except when something had disturbed him.
Nothing, it was evident, had disturbed him this morning, and he could show
himself in his true colours. He was very communicative and conciliatory,
and told them how he had been persuaded to accompany some people
whom he met to the play, and that the piece was very stupid, like so many
pieces now-a-days.
“That’s all very well for you who were there,” said Dick; “I should like
to find out for myself. All pieces are stupid to a fellow that can see them
whenever he likes.”
“You might have had my share and welcome, old fellow,” said
Frederick, with undiminished amiability. “I didn’t pay much attention, to
tell the truth. There was the loveliest girl in the box—a Miss Batty. Her
father is a—country doctor, I think; but such a beautiful creature!”
I don’t know what tempted him to make this confidence; probably the
desire to be talking of her. And then he described her, which raised a
discussion round the table.
“I am sick of golden hair,” said Dick, who was moved by a spirit of
contradiction. “There are so many of ’em in novels, great, sleek, indolent,
cat-like——”
“And rather improper,” said Mrs. Eastwood; “doing things that one
cannot approve of girls doing. In my day what you call golden hair was
known as red. Raven locks were the right thing for a heroine, very smooth
and glossy——”
“Well plastered down with pomade, and not safe to touch,” said Nelly,
shaking her own brown locks. “But I agree with you, Frederick, there is no
hair so lovely as golden hair. Is your beauty going to stay long in town? Do
we know any one who knows her? Has she come for the season?”
“They are staying at an hotel,” said Frederick, very seriously. “I met the
father in Paris, quite by chance, when I was getting better. That is how I
came to know them. They are not quite in your set, I suppose. But she is
simply the most radiant, dazzling creature——”
“All red and white and green and blue,” said the irrepressible Dick,
“with her hair growing down to her eyes—oh, I know! seven feet high, and
weighing twelve stone.”
“Yes, that is odd too,” said Mrs. Eastwood; “people like that kind of
huge woman. In my days, now, a light, elastic figure——”
“They all died of consumption,” said Nelly. She was herself exactly the
kind of being whom her mother described; but she took up the cause of the
other with natural perverseness. A curious sense of possible help gleamed
across Frederick’s mind as he listened. He would not allow himself to
realize under what possible circumstances Nelly’s championship might be
useful to him; but his mind jumped at the thought, with a sudden perception
of possibilities which he by no means wished to follow out at once to their
full length and breadth. When he went to the office he congratulated
himself secretly on his skill in having thus introduced the subject so as to
awaken no suspicion—and he went into the conservatory, and cut a lovely
little white camellia bud, which Nelly had been saving up for quite another
button-hole. It was just after the exciting moment of Nelly’s betrothal, and
the house was full of a certain suggestion of love-making, which, perhaps,
helped to stimulate Frederick’s thoughts; but his blaze of sudden passion
was very different from the sentiments of the others. He went to the office
first, feeling it too early to be admitted to Amanda’s beautiful presence.
Happily, there was not very much to do at the Sealing Wax Office. He spent
an hour or two there, in a feverish flutter, disturbing the others (who,
fortunately, were not very hard at work), and throwing all his own
occupations into confusion. At twelve he went out, and made his way to the
hotel. He found Batty there, but not his daughter.
“ ’Manda? Oh, she’s all right,” said the father; “but the laziest girl in
Christendom. Pretty women are all lazy. I haven’t seen her yet, and don’t
expect to for an hour or more. Have a glass of something, Eastwood, to fill
up the time?”
Frederick winced at this free-and-easy address, and hastened to explain
that he was on his way to keep a pressing engagement, and would return in
the afternoon, to pay his respects to Miss Batty. At three o’clock he went
back, and found her indeed; but found also Lord Hunterston and another
visitor, with whom Miss Amanda kept up a very lively conversation. Batty
himself filled up the centre of the scene, and made a variety with talk of
horses and feats in the hunting field. Frederick was left in the background,
to his intense misery. He heard one of the other visitors asked in easy terms
to dinner that evening, with again the thrilling prospect of the play after it.
He himself, it would seem, had had his day. The only crumb of comfort he
procured from the visit was the name of the theatre they were going to. He
rushed to Covent Garden after this, poor wretch, and bought the costliest
bouquet he could find and sent it to her. Then he dined, miserable and
solitary, at his club, speaking no word to any man, and went afterwards to
the blessed theatre in which she was to exhibit her beauty to the world. He
saw her from the first moment of her arrival, and watched with horrible
sensations from his stall the comfortable arrangement of Lord Hunterston in
his corner beside her, and the large figure of the father behind dropping into
a gentle doze. He sat and gazed at them in tortures of adoration and
jealousy, wondering if she was saying the same things to his successor as
she had said to him; wondering if Hunterston, too, was being invited to
Sterborne, and ridiculed about the necessity of getting “leave”—for,
Frederick reflected with some satisfaction, “leave” was necessary also to
that distinguished guardsman. As soon as it was practicable he made his
way up to the box; but gained little by it, since Mr. Batty insisted upon
waking up, and entertaining him, which he did chiefly by chuckling
references to their previous meeting in Paris, and the amusements of that
gay place. Frederick went home half wild to the calm house where his
mother and sister were sleeping quietly; and where poor little Innocent
alone heard his step coming up-stairs, and longed to get up and say good-
night to him, though he had “scolded” her. Had she known it, Innocent was
deeply avenged. Amanda Batty had not spared the rash adorer. She had
“made fun” of him in a hundred refined and elegant ways, joking about his
gravity and serious looks, about his fondness for the theatre, and his
kindness in coming to speak to herself. “When I am sure you might have
gone behind the scenes if you liked,” she said, with a laugh that showed all
her pearly teeth. “You, who know so much about the theatres: how I should
like to go behind the scenes!”
Frederick, who had made so many sacrifices to appearances, and who
was distinguished in society for the stateliness of his demeanour, would
have been infinitely insulted had any one else said this—all the more
insulted for his own consciousness of those moments of aberration in which
he had been behind a great many scenes—- though never, so far as he was
aware, where he could be found out. But a man in love is compelled, when
the lady of his affections is like Miss Amanda, to put up with insults, and
does so in scores of cases with a meekness which is nowhere apparent in his
domestic character. Frederick felt himself punctured by shafts of ridicule
not too finely pointed. He was laughed at, he was rallied, jokes were made
upon him. He was even treated with absolute rudeness, Amanda turning her
beautiful shoulders upon him, and addressing Lord Hunterston, in the very
midst of something Frederick was saying to her. A thrill of momentary fury
went through him, but next moment he was abject in his endeavours to get a
glance from her—a word of reply.
“Don’t you mind her—it’s ’Manda’s way,” said Batty, laughing as he
saw the gloom on Frederick’s face. “The more insulting she is one evening,
the nicer she’ll be the next. Don’t you pay any attention: it’s his turn to-
night, and yours to-morrow. Don’t take it too serious, Eastwood; if you’ll be
guided by me——”
“I fear I don’t quite understand you, Mr. Batty,” said poor Frederick,
writhing in impotent pride at the liberties taken with him. Upon which Batty
laughed again, more insolently good-humoured than ever.
“As you like—as you like,” he said; “you are more likely to want me, I
can tell you, than I am to want you.”
Frederick answered nothing: his mind was torn in pieces. Could he have
had strength to go away, to break those fatal chains which in a day—in a
moment—had been thrown over him, he would have done it. A sudden
impulse to fly came over him; but a hundred past yieldings to temptation
had sapped the strength of his nature, and taken away from him all power to
make such a strenuous resistance to his own wishes. The self-willed, proud
young man put down his head and licked the dust before the coarse beauty
who had stolen away his wits, and the coarse man whose familiarity was so
odious to him. He turned from the father, and addressed himself with eager
adoration to the daughter; and, perhaps because Amanda was a thorough
coquette, and enjoyed her own cleverness in pitting one admirer against
another—perhaps because the misery and earnestness in the eyes of her new
slave softened her, she was friendly to him for the rest of the evening, and
wrapped his foolish soul in happiness. Before they parted he was made
happy by another invitation. They were but to be two nights more in town,
and one of these evenings Frederick was to spend with them.
“Be sure and find out for me the very nicest thing that is to be played in
London,” she said, turning round to him as she left the theatre, though the
rival had her hand on his arm. The sweetness of this preference, the sign she
made to him as the carriage drove away, contented, and more than
contented, Frederick. He went home happy; he got through—he did not
know how—the intervening time. Next afternoon he went to call on her, at
one moment gaining a few words, which made him blessed, at another
turning away with his pride lacerated and his heart bleeding. The succession
of ups and downs was enough to have given variety to months of ordinary
love-making. Frederick was tossed from delight to despair, and back again.
He was jibed at, flattered, made use of, tormented, and consoled. Had he
been a man of finer mind, he might possibly have been disgusted; but it is
astonishing what even men of the finest minds will submit to under the
force of such an imperious passion. They console themselves by the
conclusion that all women are the same, and that theirs is the common fate.
If Frederick had any time to think in the hurry of emotion and excitement
which swept him as into the vortex of a whirlpool, he excused Miss
’Manda’s cruelties and caprices by this explanation. All women who
possessed, as she did, those glorious gifts of beauty—all the Cleopatras of
existence—were like her; they had to be worshipped blindly, not considered
as reasonable creatures. Reason! what had reason to do with those
shoulders, those cheeks, those eyes?
The evening came at last—the evening of rapture and misery which he
was to spend by her side, but which was to be the last. He counted how
many hours it could be lengthened out to, and gave himself up to the
enjoyment, not daring to forecast to himself what he might say or do before
that cycle of happiness was ended. He dressed himself with so much care
that Mrs. Eastwood, who had never forgotten that enthusiastic description
of Miss Batty, felt an uneasiness for which she could give no very distinct
reason. This time the roses in the conservatory were not enough for
Frederick. He had brought one from Covent Garden, carefully wrapped up
in cotton wool; and he spoiled half-a-dozen ties before he could tie one to
his satisfaction. His mother peeped at him from the door of her room as he
went down-stairs. In consequence of their play-going propensities, the
Battys had to dine early. It was but half-past six when Frederick left The
Elms in his hansom, which he had taken the trouble to order beforehand.
Mrs. Eastwood opened her window, with a faint hope that perhaps the wind
might convey his instructions to the driver to her anxious ear. She withdrew
blushing, poor soul, when this attempt proved unsuccessful. It was almost
dishonourable—like listening at a door. When one does not succeed in a
little wile of this description, one realizes how ignoble was the attempt.
“Of course, if I had asked him where he was going, he would have told
me,” she said to herself.
But the truth was that Frederick had so often returned disagreeable
answers to such questions, and had made so many remarks upon the
curiosity of women, &c., that the household had ceased to inquire into his
movements. He was the only one of the family whose comings and goings
were not open as daylight to whomsoever cared to see.
His heart beat higher and higher as he threaded the streets and
approached the second-rate London inn which was to him the centre of the
world. When he was shown into the room, however, in which dinner was
prepared as usual, he went in upon a scene for which he was totally
unprepared. Seated by the fire, which had suddenly become unnecessary by
a change in the weather, and which made the little room very stuffy and hot,
was Amanda, wrapped in a great shawl. Her usual sublime evening toilette
had been exchanged for a white dressing-gown, all frills and bows of
ribbon. High up on her cheeks, just under her eyes, were two blazing spots
of pink. Her face, except for these, was pale and drawn. The sound of her
voice, fretful and impatient, was the first thing Frederick heard. By her sat a
middle-aged woman in an elaborate cap with flowers. There was a medicine
bottle on the mantelpiece. Frederick rushed forward, in wonder and dismay.
“Miss Batty—Good God, you are ill——!”
“You may see that, I think, without asking,” said Amanda; “when one is
well one does not show like this, I hope. The last night, too—the last time
for ages I shall have the least chance of enjoying myself, or having a little
fun. Oh, it is too shocking! When one is at home, with nothing going on,
one does not mind; it is always something to occupy one. Oh, go away
please. Dine somewhere with papa. He is waiting for you outside; never
mind me. Oh, aunty, can’t you be still—rustling and rustling for ever and
ever, and setting all my nerves on edge.”
A sudden blackness came over Frederick’s soul. “Dine somewhere with
papa.” Good heavens! was that the entertainment offered to him after all his
hopes? He stood transfixed as it were, immovable in a blank and horrible
pause of disappointment. The close room and the sudden revulsion of
feeling made him sick and faint. His perfect and faultless costume, the
delicate rosebud in his coat, his tie which it had taken him so much trouble
to bring to perfection, his boots upon which he had been so careful not to
have a speck—all struck Amanda with relenting as she looked at him, and
finally roused her a little out of her absorption in her own troubles. He
looked such a gentleman! Miss Batty belonged to that class which is given
to describe its heroes as “looking like gentlemen,” with often an uneasy
sense that the looks are the only things gentlemanlike about them. Frederick
impressed her profoundly and suddenly by this means. She relented as she
looked at him.
“Dinner was laid here,” she said, “as you see—but I don’t think I could
stand it,—and then when one is not dressed or anything—it would not be
nice for you——”
“It is perfectly nice for me,” said Frederick, coming to life again—“a
thousand times more nice than anything else. Your dress is always perfect,
whatever it may be. Let me stay! What do I care for dining or anything
else? Let me be with you. Let me read to you. Don’t send me into outer
darkness——”
“Oh, how you do talk, Mr. Eastwood,” said Amanda, though with a
smile. “No, of course you must dine. We must all dine. No, now go away. I
could not have it. Let some one call papa, and you can go with him——”
she paused for a moment, enjoying the blank misery that once more fell
upon Frederick’s face; then added suddenly,—“On second thoughts, after
all, it might amuse me. Aunty, ring the bell. If you are sure you don’t mind
my dressing gown—and the room being so warm—and aunty being here,—
and the medicine bottle, and the big fire,—well, perhaps,” she said, pausing
to laugh in a breathless way,—“you may stay.”
If the Queen had created him Earl of Eastwood with corresponding
revenues, it would have been nothing to the bliss of this moment. He drew a
footstool to her feet and sat down on it, half kneeling, and made his
inquiries.—What was it? How was it? was she suffering? did she feel ill?
had she a doctor, the best doctor that London could produce, Jenner, Gull,
somebody that could be trusted? Amanda informed him that it was heart
disease from which she was suffering, an intimation which she made not
without complacency, but which Frederick felt to pierce him like a horrible,
sudden arrow—and that “Aunty” here present, whom she introduced with a
careless wave of her hand, knew exactly what to do.
“It is dreadful, isn’t it, to think I might die any moment?” she said with a
smile.
“Good God!” Frederick said, with unaffected horror, “it cannot be true!”
and he sat, stricken dumb, gazing at her, the tears forcing themselves to his
eyes. Mr. Batty entered at this moment, and the man, who was human and a
father, was touched by this evidence of emotion. He wrung Frederick’s hand
and whispered him aside.
“It ain’t as bad as it seems,” he said. “We daren’t cross her. If she wanted
the moon I’d have to tell her we’d get it somehow. We’ve known for years
that she wasn’t to be crossed; but barring that, I hope all’s pretty safe. It’s
bad for her temper, poor girl, but I’m not afraid of her life.”
Frederick spent such an evening as he had never spent in his life. He sat
at Amanda’s feet and read to her, and talked to her, and listened to her
chatter, which was soft and subdued, for she was languid after her spasms.
Mr. Batty sat by most part of the evening admiring, and so did the person
called Aunty, who kept in constant attendance. Frederick could not throw
himself at Miss ’Manda’s feet according to conventional form; he could not
declare his love and entreat her to marry him, as he was burning to do, for
he was not permitted a minute alone with her. But short of that, he said
everything that a man in love could do. He told his adoration by a hundred
signs and inferences. And he went home in such a whirl of sentiment and
emotion as I cannot attempt to describe. His love was frantic, yet so tinged
and imbued with a sense of the virtuous and domestic character of this
evening of complete happiness, that he felt as good as he was blessed. She
was going away; that was the only drawback to his rapture; and even that
impressed a certain intense and ecstatic character upon it, as of a flower
snatched from the edge of a precipice of despair.
CHAPTER XXI.
A FAMILY DINNER.
While this wild love-fever of Frederick’s had run its course, Nelly’s little
drama had also enacted itself, and the interview between Mrs. Eastwood
and Mr. Molyneux, Q.C., had taken place, so that the moment had been an
exciting one in the family story. The young people were absorbed in their
different adventures, and it was only the mother who felt, even though she
did not know, all that was going on, on either hand. She did not know what
it was which had moved Frederick so much out of his usual composure,
which had made him “engaged” and inaccessible to all family invitations or
arrangements during one entire week. He had never mentioned Miss Batty
or her beauty again, but he had been engaged every evening, going out early
and staying late, and making no allusion to where he had been. Indeed
during that period he had scarcely seen any of the family, except his mother
herself, who had waited to pour out his coffee for him at breakfast, and who
saw by his hurried manner and self-absorbed looks that something more
than ordinary must be going on. But he had offered no confidences, and
Mrs. Eastwood had not gone so far as to ask for any, partly from pride, and
partly from a compassionate unwillingness to disturb him any more than he
was already disturbed. The time when she could inquire into his troubles
and set them right was over. But she was uneasy about him, not knowing
what to think, anxious and unhappy; and she was still more distinctly
disturbed about the Molyneux business, and the engagements which she
might be forced into, against her will and her judgment, on Nelly’s account.
The shadow which thus had come upon her overshadowed the whole house,
as I have already said. It irritated Ernest Molyneux, and it made Nelly
unhappy. Nelly, poor child, had never known what it was to have any cross
influences in her life before. She had never been pulled two ways, never
divided in her affections or her allegiance. Few people appreciate the
difference this makes in a girl’s life. She is taken suddenly in the midst of
an existence which is all tender, filial duty, or that sweet counterfeit of filial
duty which animates the child’s mind who has a large part in deciding the
will of the parent who guides her, and is unconsciously the inspiration of
the very laws she obeys. This had been Nelly’s case. She and her mother
had been as one soul—the one ruling, the other obeying, but neither able to
discriminate from which came the original impulse; and now she felt herself
suddenly placed in a position, if not of antagonism to her mother, yet at
least of tenderest sympathy and union with one who declared himself so far
her mother’s antagonist. This curious turn and twist of circumstances made
the girl giddy,—it gave an uncertainty to all things, it confused her old
ideas, the ideas which she had held as unchangeable till the day before
yesterday, when they were suddenly undermined, and all her old gods made
to totter in their shrines.
“Your mother does not like me,” Molyneux said to her one day, when
Mrs. Eastwood, disturbed and worried by a communication from his father,
had been cold and distant to him. “It is always the way. She was nice
enough as long as I was only a young fellow dangling about the house; but
as soon as everything is settled, and you are ready to have me, Nelly, she
turns off at a tangent. Clearly, your mother does not like me——”
“How can you say so?” cried Nelly. “Oh, Ernest, as if it were possible
——”
“Quite possible,—indeed, quite common,” he said, shaking his head.
“You don’t know the world, darling, and I don’t wish you to; but when
people have to make sacrifices to establish their children, they don’t like it.
Nobody likes to have a sacrifice to make. I suppose I thought your mother
different, because she was your mother; but human nature is the same
everywhere,—though you, Nelly, Heaven be praised, have no knowledge of
the world——”
“Is it mamma you mean by the world?” said Nelly, disengaging herself
almost unconsciously from her lover’s arm.
“Don’t be vexed dear. Mothers are just like other people. When our
interests come to be in opposition to those of our nearest and dearest——”
“How can mamma’s interests be in opposition to ours?” said Nelly, with
open eyes.
“Well, I suppose our parents have got to provide for us,” said Molyneux.
“They have got to part with so much, on one side and the other, to set us up
—and they don’t like it—naturally. When it comes to be our turn we shall
not like it either. There is always a struggle going on, though your dear,
innocent eyes don’t see it; we trying to get as much as we can, they to give
us as little as they can;—that is what makes your mother look so glum at
me.”
“We trying to get as much as we can,—they to give us as little as they
can?” repeated Nelly, with a dreamy wonder in her tone. She dwelt on the
words as if she were counting them, like beads. She had withdrawn, quite
involuntarily and unawares, from his side.
“I don’t want to vex you about it,” he said, drawing closer to her. “It
can’t be helped, and after it is settled, things will come right again. You
don’t know anything about business, and I don’t want you to know about it
——”
“I know all about mamma’s business,” said Nelly. She withdrew again
with a little impatience from his close approach. She fell amusing and
thinking, and made some excuse, soon after, to get away from him. She was
startled beyond measure in the straight-forwardness of a soul unacquainted
with business. Very strange to her was this unexpected distinction and
separation. Was it really possible that her mother’s interests were opposite
to her own, for the first time in her life? “We trying to get as much as we
can,—they to give us as little as they can,” she said to herself, in the
solitude of her room, putting the fingers of one hand against those of the
other, as if to count the words. Nelly was bewildered,—her head was dizzy
through this strange whirlabout of heaven and earth,—the firm ground
seemed failing beneath her feet.
It was about this time that another person appeared on the family scene,
a man about whom none of the Eastwoods felt any particular interest, or
rather, against whom they had all a decided prejudice. This was John Vane,
a distant cousin of Innocent’s father, a squire in the north country, with
considerable, but poor estates, who had lived a wandering life for some
years, and who was considered by all who knew him “eccentric,” to say the
least. His true name was Reginald or Roland, or something of a sentimental
and ornamental description represented by the letter R; but Society, which
has a way of identifying character by this simple means, called him John.
He was a man of three or four and thirty, with a brown complexion tanned
by much exposure to wind and weather, and a golden brown beard, which
was the chief feature about him to a stranger. His hair had worn off his
temples, and he had a threatening of baldness, as if the forest on his chin
had drawn all his locks downwards. His forehead was clear and open and
white, in contrast with the tanned and much-lined surface of the more
exposed parts of his face. He was by no means the nearest or even a near
relation of Innocent, but he had lost no time in seeking her out. He arrived
on the very day when this first touch of doubt and pain came into Nelly’s
belief in her lover; and it was by no means a happy household in which the
new comer appeared one bright spring morning shortly after the events we
have been telling. His mission was to ask what had become of his cousin’s
child, to ascertain in the most delicate way possible what was her position
in her aunt’s house, and to offer her, should that prove necessary, a refuge in
his own. He made this offer with so much grace and natural kindness that
Mrs. Eastwood’s prejudices against him fled like the morning dew. She was
prejudiced against everything (except poor Innocent) that bore the name of
Vane, and against this John Vane in particular, whose father had been a man
of very unsettled opinions, and who was understood to have been badly
brought up. Innocent, too, poor child, had been very badly brought up, and
Mrs. Eastwood shuddered at the idea of what might follow if the one
uninstructed nature was put into the hands of the other. But Mr. John Vane
had that sure passport to a woman’s favour—a frank and open countenance,
and a pair of smiling eyes which met your gaze frankly. He made so
pleasant an impression that Mrs. Eastwood ended by inviting him to a very
solemn dinner party which was to take place at her house that evening—a
dinner at which “the Molyneuxes” were to be present, though the
negotiations between Ernest’s side and Nelly’s side were yet far from being
completed. Major Railton, who had been one of the invited guests, had felt
his courage fail him at the last moment, and had sent an excuse on account
of his health. “Mr. Vane is a kind of a connexion,” Mrs. Eastwood said,
doubtfully, when she explained the change to her son. Frederick, who was
full of other thoughts, made no objection, and Mr. Vane, who was not less
pleased with his new acquaintances than they were with him, accepted
frankly. This dinner-party was a very great event in the family; and though
dinner-parties are not generally exciting occurrences, I may perhaps be
pardoned, for the sake of the issues, if I dwell upon it a little. The chief
guests were the Molyneuxes—Mr. and Mrs. and Miss, the latter of whom
we may drop out of the present history, having already enough people on
our hands. They were both of opinion that Mrs. Eastwood had “kept her eye
upon” Ernest for years, and that Nelly had made “a dead set” at him; and
they were accordingly dignified and a little condescending in their
cordiality. Mr. and Mrs. Brotherton also formed part of the company, along
with two other of Mrs. Eastwood’s advisers—Mr. Parchemin and Mrs.
Everard; and the party was made up to the number of sixteen (which was all
that could be comfortably accommodated at the Elms dinner table) by the
presence of Sir Alexis Longueville and his sister. In opposition to the
selection of this guest, Nelly had put forth the moral objections to him
which her lover had on a certain evening pressed so warmly upon her, but
had found, to her great amazement, that Ernest laughed at the whole matter,
and declared Longueville one of the best fellows going; while Mrs.
Eastwood silenced her with some indignation, declaring that she had known
him for twenty years, and would not have any old scandals raked up. Poor
Nelly, who knew nothing about the old scandals, but who felt the whole
responsibility thrown upon her, withdrew, hot with angry blushes, from the
discussion, feeling as if she had shown a shameful knowledge of the evil
reports of the past, which the poor child was, in fact, as ignorant of as a
baby. “We must forgive and forget,” even Ernest said to her. “Don’t be such
a terrible moralist, Nelly.” This, too, wounded poor Nelly, in the ignorance
and innocence of her youth.
The dinner went off as such dinners do everywhere. There was a great
display of all the Eastwood plate, and the meal itself lasted two hours and a
half, and included everything that was out of season, and all that was most
costly in the way of eating and drinking. Mrs. Eastwood, at the head of her
own table, with Sir Alexis on one side of her and Mr. Molyneux on the
other, tried her very best to feel no sort of opposition to the latter, and to
look as if nothing but family love and union was symbolized by their
meeting. Frederick, at the other end, with his head full of Amanda Batty,
endeavoured to give his best attention to the gorgeous Mrs. Barclay and the
dignified Mrs. Molyneux. He had his Charles the First look upon him, and
he was not judged severely by these ladies, who thought him superior to the
rest of the family, and very probably worried by his mother, whom Mrs.
Molyneux considered a scheming and worldly person. The other members
of the party had, no doubt, their own cares; but their cares do not concern us
greatly, except in so far as Nelly was concerned, whose poor little heart was
wounded and her mind confused, and who, in her position of fiancée, felt
this sort of formal reception of her by her lover’s parents to suggest all
kinds of strange doubts and miseries, and to throw uncertainty instead of
security upon the bond which had been tied so tightly, yet so happily, in the
cold, half-frozen garden but a little while before. No doubt that she loved
Ernest Molyneux, or that his love made her perfectly happy, had crossed her
mind then. She had been as full of gentle bliss as a girl could be, when she
had stolen in with him into the drawing-room in the firelight, frightened lest
any one should see how he held her hand, and yet unable to conceive how
anything or any one in the world could be ignorant of the new great flood of
light and joy which had flooded earth and heaven. In that beatific moment,
however, no idea of settlements or negotiations, or the suggestion that
Ernest might have done better, or that it was his business and hers to try to
get as much as they could, had entered into her mind. There are well-
seasoned and justly-regulated minds, even of twenty, which understand all
these accessories as well as the oldest of us, and have no nonsense about
them, and are robust enough to enter into the whole question “as a matter of
business.” But Nelly was not one of these. She had a great deal of nonsense
about her. She was shocked, chilled, brought to a stand suddenly, in the first
outset of her independent career. Her love seemed to have ceased to be real,
now that it was being talked about and struggled over, and Ernest, Ernest
himself——. She would not say, even in the depths of her own heart, any
more than this; but her poor little heart gave an inarticulate cry when he
opened up his philosophy to her with so much confidence, and
congratulated himself that she knew nothing of business. Nelly did not
know whether, perhaps, among the strange confusions of this world, he
might not be right. She saw no way out of the maze. She did not know how
she herself, if left to herself, could have bettered it; but her instinctive sense
of what was noble and ignoble, lovely and unlovely, was deeply wounded.
She was put out of harmony with herself and every one. If life was so—if
such gulfs were ready to open under your feet at your very first step in it,
was it worth living? Such was the painful question, not yet put into words,
that breathed through poor Nelly’s heart.
Mr. John Vane was on one side of her, and Ernest on the other; but Mrs.
Everard, who was a great conversationalist, had taken possession of young
Molyneux, and was putting him through a catechism. Nelly did not feel
herself capable of talk, but the kind looks of her next neighbour were
comforting, and he was touched by her downcast, yet bright, face.
“Miss Eastwood,” he said, “may I guess at something? I am a stranger,
but I am a connexion. You know your mother admitted my claims. This is a
solemn family assembly to celebrate something that is to make your

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 anguage Development Across the Life Span. English in Iceland:

 niversity Instructors’ Views on Using Curriculum Materials

Birna Arnbjörnsdóttir and Hafdís Ingvarsdóttir

B. Arnbjörnsdóttir (*) • H. Ingvarsdóttir

© Springer International Publishing AG 2018 1

2 Motivation and Purpose of the Book

national identities. This is somewhat of a contrast to the multilingual context such

5 Structure of the Book

The chapters “English Exposure and Vocabulary Proficiency at the Onset of

Kirkpatrick, A. (2007). World Englishes: Implications for international communication and

© Springer International Publishing AG 2018 19

2 The Presence of English in Iceland

2.1 A Brief Historical Overview

were mostly imported from Denmark (written in Danish), as were movies.

2.2 A Common Nordic Policy

WHAT IT IS TO BE “IN LOVE.”

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anguage Development Across the Life Span. English in Iceland:

niversity Instructors’ Views on Using Curriculum Materials

2 Motivation and Purpose of the Book

5 Structure of the Book

2 The Presence of English in Iceland

2.1 A Brief Historical Overview

2.2 A Common Nordic Policy