Extract
Poles are by far the largest group of ‘immigrants’ to Norway
represented by more than one hundred thousand individuals. Nevertheless, the presence of Polish has been – at least until recently – somewhat hard to spot in public spaces. Polish presence in Norwegian broadcasting media is limited, and previous studies in educational settings have claimed that Polish pupils are overlooked in schools. So far, there are relatively few sociolinguistic studies of Poles in Norway. This chapter explores and reflects on the presence of Polish in public spaces in an area of the capital Oslo, drawing on parallel field observations from three women. To some extent, the data support an impression of invisibility. However, Polish presence is observed across several dimensions in public space (such as advertising billboards, construction sites and professional settings, e. g. in public hospitals).