Complexity and interaction: comparing the development of L1 and L2

In research into first and second language development, the focus has mainly been either on the formal features of learner language alone (both L1 and L2) or on the interaction between learners and their caretakers (L1) or native speaker peers (L2).These research traditions have been kept a part even though it has been widely acknowledged that both first and second languages are appropriated essentially in social interaction. This paper aims to strengthen the connection between social and formal approaches by combining interactional views with those focusing on the structural complexity of learner language. Some excerpts from L1 and L2 interaction data (in the Finnish language) are discusse…

Omaa paikkaa etsimässä : edistyneisyys suomea toisena kielenään puhuvien kokemana

This article takes up a central question of Kirsti Siitonen’s dissertation – how advancedness in Finnish as a second language can be characterized – and investigates it from the perspective of research terminology as well as the lived experience of language users. We first discuss how and with what implications advanced learners of Finnish have been referred to in the research literature, i.e. whether they have been regarded as learners, speakers or other kinds of language users. Applying a small stories approach to interview data from different research projects, we then explore what advancedness means to such language users themselves. We conclude that advanced learners navigate a complex…

Monikielisyyden etnografiaa

Ohjeita, tietoa ja turvaa kielen keinoin. Ulkomailta palkatut sairaanhoitajat ammatillista suomen kielen taitoaan osoittamassa

Advice, information and safety by means of language: internationally recruited nurses demonstrating their professional Finnish language skills  he focus of this paper is on the professional language used by four internationally educated nurses working in Finnish in Finland. The data comes from a tailor-made professional language test module including integrated material-based tasks. The module was designed by the project Health care Finnish: developing and assessing Finnish proficiency among health care professionals (2014−2015) to complement the skill profiles based on the test results of the National Certifi- cates of Language Proficiency (NCLP) intermediate level test. None of the partic…

Finnish L2 proficiency for working life : towards research-based language education and supervision practices

In all Nordic countries, the L2 proficiency needed at work has become a key area in the language education provided for adult immigrants. This paper is part of a series of articles that gives an overview of language policies and research activities in the Nordic countries related to L2 in working life, together with a presentation of novel empirical analyses. Here, the focus is on the Finnish perspective. The aims of this paper are twofold. First, it provides an overall picture of the policies and research findings underlying recent tendencies in Finnish L2 language education in/for working life. After this, the article presents two case studies of clinical supervision practices in health c…

Kielen oppimisen virtauksia ja pedagogiikan pyörteitä : näkökulmia tutkimukseen ja laajeneviin oppimisympäristöihin

In this introduction to the Yearbook of the Finnish Association for Applied Linguistics (AFinLA), we outline current theoretical flows in research on language learning and teaching. Recently, phenomena such as multilingualism, increasing migration, multimodality and the emergence of technologically-mediated learning environments have led researchers of L2 learning and pedagogy to reconsider central notions in their fields. In current theorization of language learning, conceptualizations of language, learning, learners and the world they inhabit increasingly emphasize the dynamic and situated nature of the learning process. In outlining this changing theoretical landscape, we draw on the thr…

Lexically specific vs. productive constructions in L2 Finnish

ABSTRACTIt is assumed from a usage-based perspective that learner language constructions emerge from natural language use in social interaction through exemplar learning. In L1, young learners have been shown to develop their constructions from lexically specific, formulaic expressions into more productive, abstract schemas. A similar developmental path has been shown for L2 development, with some exceptions. The aim of the current study is to explore to what extent the default assumption holds for L2 learning. The development of two constructions was traced in four adults learning L2 Finnish. Free-response data, collected weekly over a period of 9 months, were used to investigate the produ…

Variation and variability in L2 learning trajectories : Learning the Finnish existential construction

Taking an onomasiological approach and a dynamic usage-based perspective, this study explores how four beginning L2 learners of Finnish develop in expressing existentiality (‘there is something somewhere’) before and after instruction. Data were collected weekly over a period of nine months and examined for conventionalized and non-conventionalized constructions that express existentiality. As expected from a dynamic usage-based perspective, both inter-individual variation and intra-individual variability were identified. The initial repertoires of two of the learners were quite variable, as they used several different non-conventionalized constructions before settling on more conventionali…

Suomi toisena ja vieraana kielenä -alan bibliografia 1967-2001

Miten produktiivisen syntaksin indeksi palvelee toisen kielen tutkimusta

Tassa artikkelissa tarkastellaan sita, miten produktiivisen syntaksin indeksi eli IPSyn toimii analysoitaessa suomea toisena kielenaan oppivien lasten puhetta. Paahuomio on menetelman kaytettavyyden arvioinnissa seka tutkimusprosessin ja sen tulosten erittelyssa. Produktiivisen syntaksin indeksi on varsinaisesti suunniteltu ensikielen kehityksen seurannan valineeksi, ja sen kehittelytyo ja toimintaperiaate on esitelty toisessa taman julkaisun artikkelissa (Nieminen s. 69 – 83; ks. myos Nieminen & Torvelainen 2003). Nama artikkelit muodostavatkin kokonaisuuden, jossa jalkimmaista ei voisi olla ilman edellista.

The impact of Finno-Ugric languages in second language research: Looking back and setting goals

This state of the art review aims at discussing the potential relevance of Finno-Ugric languages in the larger context of second language research. Key results received in the studies conducted in the field of Finno-Ugric languages as second languages are introduced, and some interim conclusions based on them are made. The main areas in focus are cross-linguistic influence, forms and constructions, second language interaction, and motivation, identities and integration. Furthermore, some future lines of investigation are suggested for the researchers of the field. The research activities are recommended to get more closely bound to the internationally established or emerging paradigms, and …

Kieli ja luku- ja kirjoitustaito sosiaalisessa kontekstissaan

Dynamic Usage-based Principles in the Development of L2 Finnish Evaluative Constructions

Abstract This study investigates the formal verbalizations of evaluation used by four beginning L2 learners of Finnish from a dynamic usage-based perspective. Longitudinal data collected weekly were used to investigate what kind of constructions learners use to express evaluation and how these interact and develop over time. The results show that when a new construction is acquired in the L2, another related construction might regress. The results also point to increased variability in the construction during a phase of rapid development and reduced variability in the phases of regression or slower progress. These findings add to our understanding of a developing L2 as a system in which cha…

Toista kieltä vuorovaikutuksessa : kielellisten resurssien jakaminen toisen kielen omaksumisen alkuvaiheessa

Suomalaiset väittävät usein ulkomaalaisille, että suomi on maailman vaikein kieli. Sekä maahanmuuttajien suomen kielen opettajille että kielen oppimisen tutkijoille on kuitenkin selvää, että väite on pohjimmiltaan pötyä. Suomi on opittavissa siinä missä mikä tahansa muukin kieli. Jos suomenkielinen voi oppia esimerkiksi englantia, voi englanninkielinenkin oppia suomea. Mikään kieli ei ole itsessään vaikea tai helppo, vaan kokemus vaikeudesta liittyy oman äidinkielen ja opittavan kielen lingvistiseen ja kulttuuriseen etäisyyteen. Vironkielisille suomi on etenkin alussa helpompaa kuin muille, ja viro on vastaavasti suomenkielisille helpompaa kuin moni muu kieli. Vietnaminkielisille suomi sen …

Avaimet osaamiseen ja tulevaisuuteen : selvitys maahanmuuttajataustaisten nuorten osaamisesta ja siihen liittyvistä taustatekijöistä PISA 2012 -tutkimuksessa

Awareness of second language inflectional morphology: A case study on Finnish as a second language

The Finnish language has a very extensive inflectional morphology, whereas Vietnamese, as an isolating language, has no inflection at all. Therefore, the major challenge encountered by Vietnamese immigrants learning Finnish is to develop awareness of the existence, function and use of inflection. This paper examines how this process manifests itself in native-non-native speaker (NS-NNS) conversations during the initial stages of second language acquisition. All the negotiation sequences including overt signals of problems in understanding were subjected to a closer analysis, and the linguistic modifications performed to solve the problems were analysed on the level of both interaction and g…

From conceptualization to constructions in Finnish as an L2 : a case study

AbstractThis study traces the individual learning trajectories of an adult beginner L2 Finnish learner in expressing the extralinguistic concept of evaluation from a dynamic usage-based perspective. Our results provide support for the view of learner language as a dynamic system in which patterns wax and wane and in which a change in one component has the potential to affect the whole system. In the early stages of learning there was a strong preference to use lexical verbs first, and then adjectives. The study also shows that variability plays a role. Finally, the study confirms that the learning of L2 constructions is in some cases item based. However, another highly frequent and superfic…

Toista kieltä yhteisen toiminnan kautta

Kirja-arvostelu Arvioitu teos: Marjo Savijärvi: Yhteisestä toiminnasta yhteiseen kieleen. Keskustelunanalyyttinen tutkimus toisen kielen oppimisesta kielikylpypäiväkodin arkitilanteissa. Helsinki: Helsingin yliopiston suomen kielen, suomalais-ugrilaisten ja pohjoismaisten kielten ja kirjallisuuksien laitos 2011. 243 + 13 s. ISBN 978-952-10-7308-3 (nid.), 978-952-10-7309-0 (pdf). nonPeerReviewed

Maahanmuuttotaustaisten opiskelijoiden tasa-arvoisen osallisuuden tukeminen ammatillisessa koulutuksessa

Työelämässä tarvittavan kielitaidon haltuunotto edellyttää tasa-arvoista osallisuutta ja monipuolisia mahdollisuuksia käyttää kieltä jo ammatillisten opintojen aikana. Tässä artikkelissa tarkastellaan käytänteitä, jotka tukevat opiskelijoiden tasa-arvoista pääsyä vuorovaikutustilanteisiin ja samalla heidän ammatillisen kielitaitonsa ja identiteettinsä kehittymistä. nonPeerReviewed

Healthcare professionals on the move: Investing in learning a new language for work

Artikkelissa tarkastellaan maahanmuuton kielikysymyksiä Unkarista Suomeen ja Ruotsiin työllistyneiden terveydenhuollon ammattilaisten näkökulmasta. Neksusanalyyttisessä viitekehyksessä tutkitaan sitä investointia, jonka nämä työntekijät tekevät oppiakseen uutta, työssä tarvitsemaansa kieltä eli suomea tai ruotsia. Tutkimusasetelma on pitkittäinen, ja analyysi perustuu terveydenhuollon ammattilaisten sekä muutamien kielikoulutuksesta ja rekrytoinnista vastaavien henkilöiden haastatteluihin. Kirjoittajat aloittivat omat tutkimuksesta itsenäisesti mutta yhdistivät voimansa ennen toista aineistonkeruukierrosta. Tämän myötä analyysissa voitiin kattaa useampia kulttuurisia ja ajallisia ulottuvuuk…

Toista kieltä vuorovaikutuksessa. Kielellisten resurssien jakaminen toisen kielen omaksumisen alkuvaiheessa.

Väitöksen alkajaisesitelmä Jyväskylän yliopistossa 29.3.2008 nonPeerReviewed

Suomea kaiken ikää – kotouttamistyötä tukevaa täydennyskoulutusta

Täydennyskoulutus rajoittuu usein yhden ammattiryhmän muutaman aktiivin käynteihin lyhytkursseilla. Suomea kaiken ikää -koulutuksen ideana oli tarjota moniammatillisille ryhmille tukea uudentyyppisen kotouttamistyön toteuttamiseen ja saattaa erilaisia asiantuntijoita yhteen pitkäjänteisemmin. nonPeerReviewed