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Copyright of European Journal of Applied Linguistics is the property of De Gruyter and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Aims and objectives: This study examines fennicisms (i.e., Finnish loanwords and calques) in Finland-Swedish, a Swedish variety spoken in Finland. We investigate how fennicism frequency relates to speakers' regional backgrounds and fluency in Finnish. Methodology: 134 participants from four regions in Finland performed a picture-naming task designed to elicit fennicisms. The participants also rated their own fluency in Finnish. Data and analysis: A regression analysis with the outcome variable of fennicism frequency and the predictors of region, fluency in Finnish, and gender was performed. Findings: Results show that speakers from the more bilingual regions of Southern Finland and Helsinki used significantly more fennicisms than speakers from Ostrobothnia or Swedish-speaking Åland. The study suggests that fluency in Finnish was a strong predictor for fennicism use, as speakers with low or moderate knowledge of Finnish used fewer fennicisms than speakers with high or native(-like) fluency. No significant effect of gender was found. Originality: While fennicisms are considered widespread in Finland-Swedish, there is little previous research on their use and distribution. Implications: The results demonstrate that while many of the fennicisms are well-established in the Finland-Swedish variety, their use is limited to certain groups and communities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Normative ratings are a means to control for the effects of confounding variables in psycholinguistic experiments. This paper introduces a new dataset of normative ratings for Swedish encompassing 111 concrete nouns and the corresponding picture stimuli in the MultiPic database (Duñabeitia et al. 2017). The norms for name agreement, category typicality, age of acquisition and subjective frequency were collected using online surveys among native speakers of the Finland-Swedish variety of Swedish. The paper discusses the inter-correlations between these variables and compares them against available ratings for other languages. In doing so, the paper argues that ratings for age of acquisition and subjective frequency collected for other languages may be applied to psycholinguistic studies on Finland-Swedish, at least with respect to concrete and highly imageable nouns. In contrast, norms for name agreement should be collected from speakers of the same language variety as represented by the subjects in the actual experiments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines regional and stylistic variation in the merger of front vowels /eː/ and /ɛː/ in Finland-Swedish. The study investigates the merger by comparing formant data from 141 speakers from four Swedish-speaking regions in Finland. Additionally, intraspeaker variation is explored by incorporating samples from three contextual styles. The results indicate cross-regional differences between Finland-Swedish dialects, with a more distinct variant of /ɛː/ being used on the monolingually Swedish-speaking Åland Islands, compared to other regions. However, the findings show that speakers from mainland Finland also demonstrate significantly different formant values for the vowels, particularly in formal speech styles. These results challenge the assumption of a complete /eː-ɛː/ merger in Finland-Swedish, instead pointing to a near-merger, whereby two sounds sound the same to speakers, despite them being differentiated in production. The findings also shed new light on stylistic variation in the variety. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Romanian Journal for Baltic & Nordic Studies/Revista Romana de Studii Baltice si Nordice is the property of Sciendo and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The interpenetration of nationalism and socialism is a seminal problem for understanding 20th century labour movement history. This article approaches the issue of ideological interpenetration by way of a close examination of the relationship between minority nationalism and socialist unity during a formative phase for the Finnish labour movement in the post-war period. More precisely, the article investigates the Swedish-speaking minority within the Finnish labour movement and its attempt to unify different ideological factions in the labour movement through minority nationalism. The article contributes to the study of the relation between socialism and nationalism by extending the discussion to include national minorities and their relation to the socialist labour movement. The main theoretical innovation of the article is the concept of socialist minority nationalism. This concept will function as a heuristic tool for analysing the intersection of nationalism and socialist class-consciousness within the Finnish labour movement. The Swedish-speaking agents of the Finnish labour movement, and their socialist Finland-Swedish identity-project, has hitherto been neglected in Finnish labour history. Through historical investigations of national or ethnic minorities, or other past and present marginalized groups and individuals in labour history, it is possible to problematize the hegemonic historical narratives of the majority. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Nordand is the property of H. Aschehoug & Co. (W. Nygaard) AS and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

This article focuses on the Russian and Finland-Swedish writer Zinaida Lindén’s debut novel I väntan på en jordbävning (Waiting for an earthquake, 2004). Lindén was born in Leningrad, studied Swedish at Leningrad State University and immigrated in 1991 to Finland, where she began writing translingual fiction in Swedish. She has published some of her texts in Russian in self-translation. The article compares I väntan på en jordbävning and its Russian edition V ozhidanii zemletriaseniia (2005) with a focus on translingual and transcultural aspects. When viewed as a whole consisting of two versions (one in Swedish and the other in Russian), the novel belies the traditional dichotomy between “original” and “translation”. Self-translation in this context offers a form of cultural mediation between two (or more) target languages and cultures. The analysis shows that translingual writing and self-translation constitute an integral part of the creation and poetics of Lindén’s novel. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]