Biography
I am Walther Glödstaf and I am pursuing the minor in EU studies while doing a PhD in Linguistics at UIUC. I came to UIUC after my undergrad in English Literature and Linguistics at the University of Glasgow, and after my masters in Linguistics at Utrecht University. I am originally from Finland but grew up mainly in Stockholm. My thesis is focused on understanding the mechanisms of structural priming better in cross-linguistic contexts, particularly when it comes to Finnish as an immigrant language. I do this to model language change in immigrant languages spoken by longterm immigrants and their children. My work with the EU Center looks at how a deeper linguistic understanding of minority languages and their situation can inform policy, and how current policy in this area (which often is not informed by this as much) affects the EU’s Normative and Market Power. I for instance compared the legal rights and current protection of autochtone minority languages that differ in whether they are spoken on the continent of Europe, or in the EU’s Overseas Countries and Territories (OCTs); and how this affects the EU’s Normative Power. As an extension of this project, I currently work on investigating what effect language policy as a predictive variable has on the GDP of EU countries, and thus, by extension the effect of language policy on EU’s Market Power.