Search results for "languages"
showing 10 items of 2101 documents
Assessing learners’ writing skills in a SLA study: Validating the rating process across tasks, scales and languages
2014
There is still relatively little research on how well the CEFR and similar holistic scales work when they are used to rate L2 texts. Using both multifaceted Rasch analyses and qualitative data from rater comments and interviews, the ratings obtained by using a CEFR-based writing scale and the Finnish National Core Curriculum scale for L2 writing were examined to validate the rating process used in the study of the linguistic basis of the CEFR in L2 Finnish and English. More specifically, we explored the quality of the ratings and the rating scales across different tasks and across the two languages. As the task is an integral part of the data-gathering procedure, the relationship of task p…
Investing in indigenous multilingualism in the Arctic
2018
Abstract This article explores the dynamics between language and identity categories and the boundaries produced in a changing multilingual, indigenous context in the Arctic region of Finland. In this moment of transition, indigenous multilingualism has high stakes. It can be a resource for political and economic development but also for management and regimentation, open to winners and losers. Drawing on a longitudinal critical discourse ethnography of producing language and identity categories in the Finnish Arctic, I discuss three circulating discourses relevant for the ways in which indigenous identity boundaries are made to matter, namely strategic, aspirational and affective multiling…
Reforming the national core curriculum for bilingual education in Finland
2016
This article explores the discourses surrounding the act of writing Section 10 Bilingual education in the new Finnish national core curriculum, which will be implemented in 2016. This section will set the parameters for programs that integrate language and content learning, where a minimum of two languages are used for instruction in content subjects. The main research questions discussed in this article are how and why certain discourses are expressed, or left unexpressed, in the final draft version of the curriculum. The data for qualitative analysis consists of participatory observations and minutes of meetings in the working group assembled for writing the draft.
Rapping the ‘Better folk’: Ideological and scalar negotiations of past and present
2017
Drawing on sociolinguistics of globalization, discourse studies and global hip hop studies, this article examines how the ideological sociocultural and -historical reality of Finland is (re)constructed and (re)negotiated in a local rap song and how the song takes issue with the official, but often tension-ridden Finnish–Swedish bilingualism. Its specific, ironic take arises from the fact that the rap artist is Finnish-speaking, but echoes a Swedish-speaking minority who are traditionally and stereotypically seen as a privileged, historical elite. The song exemplifies how rap can constitute a site for investigation of language ideological debates in bi/multilingual societies and how national…
Variation in the use of constructed action according to discourse type and age in Finnish Sign Language
2022
This paper presents a study of the use of constructed action (CA) in the stories and conversations of adult Finnish Sign Language (FinSL) signers of different ages. CA is defined here as a type of depiction in which a signer enacts the actions, feelings, thoughts and utterances of discourse referents with different parts of their body. Most studies on CA in sign languages have been done on the basis of signed storytelling, and little is known about how the use of CA varies in different discourse types. The use of CA has also been noted to vary between individual signers, but we do not yet know much about the socio-individual phenomena that may be linked to this variation. In the present stu…
Speaking English in Finnish content-based classrooms
2007
: CLIL (Content and Language Integrated Learning) is a term widely used in Europe to refer to different forms of content based education, often conducted in English. Earlier research on CLIL has tended to focus on matters of language learning or content mastery rather than on details of classroom interaction. This paper investigates how English is used in Finnish biology and physics CLIL classrooms. Classrooms are approached from a discourse-pragmatic perspective which involves close attention to social and interpersonal aspects of language use as it unfolds in authentic settings. The findings suggest that CLIL students claim ownership of English by the way they confidently use it as a res…
Assemblage of art, discourse and ice hockey : designing knowledge about work
2021
This article examines speculative design's capacity to co‐produce knowledge about contradictions and potentialities of work in professional ice hockey. Building on the Deleuzian concept of assemblage, speculative design has been used for two purposes: (a) to bring together the perspectives of art, anthropology, discourse studies, and professional sports in co‐constructing knowledge about hockey work; and (b) to analyze and present the key findings of an ethnography on hockey work through an art exhibition of speculative hockey memorabilia. As such, these art pieces showed the intertwined relationships of material, discursive, and affective aspects in hockey work as well as the multiplicity …
Multi-sited and historically layered language policy construction: parliamentary debate on the Finnish constitutional bilingualism in 1919
2018
In this article, we analyse the construction of Finnish constitutional bilingualism in the aftermath of gaining independence, a traumatic civil war and during the construction of a new republican polity based on regulated parliamentarism in 1917–1919. We take a multi-sited and historically informed approach to the dynamics of political discourse at the parliamentary level, analysing the discursive cycles of people, nationality and nation. We demonstrate the interconnectedness of language policy discourses with historically and spatially multi-sited and highly complex contexts and show how language policy confrontations can add important dimensions to increase our understanding of power stru…
Music video covers, minoritised languages, and affective investments in the space of YouTube
2017
AbstractWhile interest in affective processes has led to an affective turn in cultural studies, in sociolinguistics this perspective has been given less attention. This study takes up the ‘lens of affect’ and directs it on two cases exemplifying the circulation of minoritised languages in new media spaces: music video covers from two minority-language contexts, Irish and Sámi, uploaded on YouTube. Combining recent theorising on affect with insights from sociolinguistic research, the study investigates how the YouTube users’ affective investments contribute to a (re)evaluation of the two minoritised languages, their speakers, and the related ethnic/national belongings, and how these investme…