Kielimuureja vai yhteiseloa : odotuksia ja kokemuksia kahden kielen koulusta

Finnish and Swedish are the national languages of Finland. Yet there are few schools in Finland where instruction is given in both languages, apart from immersion or second language classes, and the issue remains highly controversial. In this study, we report some of the findings of an internet survey conducted at Pietarsaari lukio and Jakobstad gymnasium in 2013. The Finnish- speaking and Swedish-speaking upper secondary schools were put under one roof in the fall of 2013 when Pietarsaari Lukio moved in with the Swedish-speaking Jakobstad Gymnasium. Our report focuses on how Finnish and Swedish speaking students (N=111) and teachers (N=26) perceived the new opportunities for using both lan…

Segment duration in Finnish as imitated by Russians

The paper reports findings of a study in which Russian speakers without any prior knowledge of Finnish imitated utterances in that language, and, in particular, how they succeeded in imitating segmental duration. The data was analysed using acoustic measurements of segment duration as well as auditory analysis by four judges. The results show that Russian speakers faced difficulties in imitating some aspects of the complicated Finnish quantity system. On the other hand, many of the imitated words were judged as comprehensible. Index Terms: duration, length, Finnish, imitation, language learning

Voices in discourses: Dialogism, Critical Discourse Analysis and ethnic identity

In this article we attempt to combine the Bakhtinian, dialogical philosophy of language and critical discourse analysis (CDA) with our analysis of ethnic identity. The data we discuss are an interview with a Sami journalist who works in the Sami media. We analyse the interview from the points of view of dialogism and CDA to illustrate how identity must be understood as something which is both individual and social in nature.  We reject the earlier essentialist interpretations of identity which see it as purely individual and psychological in nature. At the same time, we argue that those views of identity that see it as exclusively socially constructed can be misleading as well. We aim to il…

Investigating young Finnish CLIL pupils’ perceptions of foreign language use through visual narratives

Abstract This article explores how pupils in early CLIL (Content and Language Integrated Learning) education perceive language skills and use. The participants were 25 French-medium and 16 English-medium CLIL pupils in Grade 2 (aged 8 years). They had received CLIL education since the 1st Grade. The data were visual narratives drawn by the pupils and some associated open-ended questions they answered in writing. The data were analyzed using visual and content analysis. The results show that the pupils’ perceptions of language were a combination of traditional and modern views of language. The pupils compartmentalized the different languages as separate entities. They mostly saw language bei…

ELT in Finland

Languaging in Ultima Thule: Multilingualism in the Life of a Sami Boy

Abstract In this paper we investigate multilingualism as a phenomenon which pervades different social and cultural levels but is manifested in the everyday life of multilingual individuals. As an illustration, we examine multilingualism from the perspective of a young Sami boy, Ante, and explore how different languages function as a complex – but at times problematic – set of resources for him. To capture the complexity and fluidity in the relationships between various languages in his life, we base our theorising on such concepts as ‘linguistic resources’, ‘heteroglossia’ and ‘languaging’. With the help of multimodal data we examine how the linguistic resources present in Ante's daily life…

Heteroglossia in Action: Sámi Children, Textbooks and Rap

This chapter examines heteroglossia in the complex, continuously evolving multilingual context of Samiland, the historically and culturally central area for indigenous Sami culture and languages. The analytical discussion is of a rap about textbooks, created and performed by a group of Sami children with the help of their teachers and parents that they presented as their petition for more Sami language teaching materials. The rap is viewed as an example of heteroglossic practices, a strategic mobilization, mixture and recycling of multiple meaning making resources that result in a polyphonic performance.