Search results for "english"
showing 10 items of 846 documents
Identity and language discourses in elf context : a case study of five Finnish university students working in an international student organization i…
2016
Tämän tutkielman tarkoituksena oli selvittää, kuinka englantia työssään virallisena kielenä käyttävien suomalaisten korkeakouluopiskelijoiden identiteetti rakentuu englannin kielellä. Työn keskiössä ovat diskurssit ja identiteetti, jonka nähdään rakentuvan diskursiivisesti kielestä ja kaksikielisyydestä puhumisen kautta. Essentiaalisen identiteetin sijaan tutkielmassa sovelletaan käsitystä dynaamisista, päällekkäisistä ja samanaikaisista identiteeteistä. Työn taustan muodostaa toisen kielen ja lingua franca –englannin identiteettitutkimukset. Tutkimuskysymykset ovat: 1) Millaisia diskursseja haastateltavat tuottavat puhuessaan englannin kielestä ja kaksikielisyyd…
From conceptualization to constructions in Finnish as an L2 : a case study
2017
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…
Guiding and assessing development of L2 writing process : the role of peer collaboration
2022
This study, informed by Vygotskian notion of mediation and reporting on a partnership between a researcher (the first author) and a teacher (the second author), aims at exploring how peers’ comments can inform teacher assessment and guidance of learners’ L2 (second/foreign language) writing. The participants were 19 L2 English learners in an upper secondary school in Finland. We largely focus on the notes that one pair of learners made on each other’s essays and how they responded to peer assistance. Triangulating these data with classroom observation and a questionnaire, we traced how learners co-constructed their understanding of how their texts can be developed. The foci and how the iden…
Investigating Syntactic Complexity in EFL Learners' Writing across Common European Framework of Reference Levels A1, A2, and B1
2019
Abstract The study investigates the linguistic basis of Common European Framework of Reference (CEFR) levels in English as a foreign language (EFL) learners’ writing. Specifically, it examines whether CEFR levels can be distinguished with reference to syntactic complexity (SC) and whether the results differ between two groups of EFL learners with different first languages (Sindhi and Finnish). This sheds light on the linguistic comparability of the CEFR levels across L1 groups. Informants were teenagers from Pakistan (N = 868) and Finland (N = 287) who wrote the same argumentative essay that was rated on a CEFR-based scale. The essays were analysed for 28 SC indices with the L2 Syntactic Co…
The roles of linguistic confidence and integrative motivation on cross-cultural adaptation of Asian degree students Finland
2015
While cross-cultural adaptation of international students has become more and more popular topics in the field of intercultural communication, there are few studies related to students who come to non-native-English-speaking countries to study international programs. Specifically, the number of Asian students enrolling in international degree programs in Finland has been increasing recently. Besides other difficulties, language has become one of the most baffling issues in the process of both sociocultural adaptation and psychological adaptation of strangers in the host country (Maza, 1963). By narrowing the impacts of integrative motivation and linguistic confidence, they have drawn some r…
Current L2 self-concept of Finnish comprehensive school students : The role of grades, parents, peers, and society
2021
L2 (second/foreign language) motivation research in Finland has been scarce. Furthermore, international motivational research has focused more on ideal and ought-to selves, leaving the current L2 self-concept in the background. In the present study, we attempted to address this gap, exploring what shapes L1 (mother tongue) Finnish students' understanding of themselves as users and learners of L2s. Using structural equation modelling, we studied the relationships between students' (n = 1206) current L2 self-concept and parental encouragement, peer pressure, societal expectations, and grades. We further studied which of these factors are the best predictors of students' current L2 self-concep…
Motivation to learn English : a case study of a 7th grade class
2017
Motivaatiota ja sen vaikutusta kielen oppimiseen on tutkittu laajalti. Tämän tutkimuksen tarkoituksena on selvittää 7. luokkalaisten opiskelumotivaatiota, kun he ovat aloittaneet yläkoulun uudessa koulussa, uudessa luokassa ja uuden opettajan kanssa. Keskeisenä kysymyksenä on: Mikä saa 7. luokkalaisen ymmärtämään motivaation merkityksen englannin kielen opiskelussa? Tämä tutkimus keskittyy oppilaiden narratiivisiin kirjoitelmiin, jossa he tuovat esiin omia näkökulmiaan ja ajatuksiaan oppimiseen motivoivista tekijöistä sekä oppimisen motivaatiota heikentävistä tekijöistä. Tutkimus toteutettiin narratiivisten kirjoitelmien avulla tapaustutkimuksena. Tutkimukseen osallistui oppilaita vain yhde…
The Other Side as a Rule Rather than an Exception
2015
Abstract Currently, intercultural and heterogeneous realities set the tone in 21st literary education. Therefore, the role of multicultural children's literature plays an essential role in order to reflect this intercultural diversity in Spanish classrooms. In this regard, The Other Side (2001) portrays an African American experience where interaction, communication and negotiation become crucial aspects for their protagonists. In this way, this picture book can be used not only to teach English as a foreign language in primary school, but also to show values like respect, tolerance and partnership.
L'écart et l'entre-deux : traduire la culture
2011
Comparative linguistics seems to suggest that the gap between two languages can be filled by grammar. But mapping the structural gaps between languages hardly makes for the more fundamental gap that is created by the writing of a new text, a supposedly identical addendum to the first. Writing that new text entails questions about the nature of texts, their intentions, their interpretations. Translation must therefore develop a hermeneutical approach. This critical stance is about sorting out what belongs to the languages and what belongs to the text as a specific unit, as a cultural and authorial unit. Because of its cultural nature, translation questions the way one can carry meaning acros…
André Brink : Under the Sign of Dialogue
2005
This paper explores the question of self-translation. The aim is to understand why André Brink chose to translate his own novels into English, and to analyse the relationships between different versions of the same novel.