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Purpose: Reading fluency establishes the basis for the strong literacy skills needed for academic success. We aim to trace how reading fluency develops from childhood to adulthood and identify factors that influence this development. Method: In this study, 200 families were followed. All participating children (N = 200, 47% female) were ethnic Finns and spoke Finnish as their native language. The dataset included children's reading fluency assessments (in Grades 2, 3, and 8 and at age 23), their self-reports, and parental questionnaires. For data analysis, growth curve models that included cognitive, motivational, and parental predictors were constructed. Results: Significant variations in both developmental rates and adult outcomes of reading fluency were found. The developmental rate was predicted by rapid automatized naming (RAN), letter knowledge, the formal home literacy environment (HLE) (measured in kindergarten) and reading motivation (measured in elementary school). Adult outcome (fluency at age 23) was predicted by RAN, letter knowledge, formal HLE, and parental dyslexia. Further, those who had parents with resolving reading difficulties were more likely to follow a resolving trajectory themselves compared with those whose parents had persistent reading difficulties. Conclusion: Our findings offer novel insights into how reading fluency develops into adulthood and identify key areas for future research to better understand the mechanisms behind reading fluency development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There are calls for developing ways to teach language that can inspire and motivate students to study additional languages. While previous research has pointed toward benefits of arts‐based activities in language learning, combining language and dance has mainly been studied with younger language learners. Contextualized within the course "Dance with language," this study explores spoken word choreographies—word‐ and movement‐based choreographies—that combine dance and the learning of Swedish as an additional language at a Finnish upper secondary school. The study engages with new materialist theories to understand languaging as an activity and relational, embodied, and material processes. Using diffractive analysis with comics‐based research strategies, the analysis suggests that languaging‐and‐dancing become entangled through four doings: exploring, re‐working, co‐creating, and negotiating‐and‐switching. The spoken word choreographies offer a potentially valuable way to teach language in their move beyond students' potential restrictions of vocabulary, structure, and grammar in the language to emphasize playfulness and creative explorations as part of language‐learning processes. In conclusion, the study proposes that dancing and spoken word, and the combination thereof, bring specific qualities to creating smooth languaging spaces that embrace wild, playful, creative, and unpredictable forces and movements in language‐learning practices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

LASTU is a tool for searching for Finnish language stimulus words for psycholinguistic studies. The tool allows the user to query a number of properties, including forms, lemmas, frequencies, and morphological features. It also includes two new measures for quantifying lemma and form ambiguity. The tool is written in Python and is available for Windows and macOS platforms. It is available at https://osf.io/j8v6b/. Included with the tool is a database based on a massive corpus of dependency-parsed Finnish language data crawled from the Internet (over 5 billion tokens). While LASTU has been developed for researchers working on the Finnish language, the openly available implementation can also be applied to other languages. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article focuses on rater severity and consistency and their relation to different types of rater experience over a long period of time. The article is based on longitudinal data collected from 2009 to 2019 from the second language Finnish speaking subtest in the National Certificates of Language Proficiency in Finland. The study investigated whether rater severity and consistency are affected differently by different types of rater experience and by skipping rating sessions. The data consisted of 45 rating sessions with 104 raters and 59,899 examinees and were analyzed using the many-facet Rasch model and generalized linear mixed models. The results showed that when the raters gained more rating experience, they became slightly more lenient, but different types of experience had quantitatively different magnitudes of impact. In addition, skipping rating sessions, and in that way disconnecting from the rater community, increased the likelihood of a rater to be inconsistent. Finally, we provide methodological recommendations for future research and consider implications for practice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article focuses on rater severity and consistency and their relation to major changes in the rating system in a high-stakes testing context. The study is based on longitudinal data collected from 2009 to 2019 from the second language (L2) Finnish speaking subtest in the National Certificates of Language Proficiency in Finland. We investigated whether rater severity and consistency changed over that period and whether the changes could be explained by major changes in the rating system, such as the change of lead examiner, the modus of rating and training (on-site or remote), and the composition of the rater group. The data consisted of 45 rating sessions with 104 raters and 59,899 examinees and were analysed using the many-facet Rasch model and generalized linear mixed models. The analyses indicated that raters as a group became somewhat more lenient over time. In addition, the results showed that the rater community and its practices, the lead examiners, and the modus of rating and training can influence rating behaviour. Finally, we elaborate on implications for both research and practice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examines attitudes and ideologies associated with the Finnish language and identity among successive generations of Finnish Americans in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan and Northern Minnesota, where Finnish is a postvernacular heritage language (HL). Employing ethnographic approaches including participant observation, narrative interviews, and the study of material analyzed using thematic analysis, I describe prevailing ideologies shaping perceptions of Finnishness. My findings highlight a pronounced pride and attachment to Finnish identity, which discursively and ideologically shape a sense of belonging and serve as a foundation for Finnish American identity formation. However, tensions emerge, particularly regarding the perceived pronunciation of Finnish words such as "sauna" and Finnish last names, indicating ideologies related to authenticity and purity. The evolution of terms like "Finlander" suggests generational change and reflects a history of friction with individuals not identifying as Finnish within the studied postvernacular speech communities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Among the different ways to approach discourse-structuring patterns, semantic basic figures (Grundfiguren in German) are a versatile tool that helps to understand the semantic framework of discourses. Topoi, metaphors, and other argumentative and figurative elements can be traced back to such basic concepts. My essay identifies and analyses repetitions and variations in the realisation of two such figures – ‘difficulty’ and ‘austerity’ – in a corpus of concert reviews of Jean Sibelius’ Fourth Symphony. I show how these concepts are first established and how they can be found in both verbatim repetitions and lexical and constructional variations over a period spanning several decades. My approach is based on the observation that a constantly varied repetition of certain patterns and similarly structured semantic frames is effective in coining the image of an artwork in public discourse and reaching an intersubjective understanding of its meaning and content. This applies all the more when those patterns are linked to previously established cultural (auto-)stereotypes.

AbstractThe rich inflectional grammar of Finnish is often considered a challenge for second language (L2) learners. However, the inflectional variation is based on relatively systematic morphological and morphophonological rules. Smartphone applications could offer an effective way to train these rules by utilizing adaptive spaced repetition exercises. Currently there is little research on morphology learning via Mobile Assisted Language Learning (MALL) applications in morphologically rich languages. The present study introduces a newly developed Finnish Morphology Application (FMA) that aims to teach beginner-level Finnish morphology. In a randomized controlled trial, the test group participants (n = 33) practiced Finnish morphology with the FMA during a three-week period, and their improvements were compared to those of an active control group using a general Finnish language learning application (n = 38). The practiced morphological operations comprised transparent and semi-transparent inflections. Pre- and posttests included a visual lexical decision task and a morphological production task. In comparison to the control group, the FMA group improved substantially in written morphological production skills, especially in transparent inflections. In visual lexical decision task, there was an improvement in accuracy for trained words in the FMA group, but this improvement applied to both transparent and semi-transparent inflections as well as monomorphemic nouns. In reaction times, there were no differences between the groups. Self-ratings of perceived efficacy of the FMA regarding grammar and vocabulary varied from neutral to positive. The results suggest that the FMA is particularly useful for learning inflectional production skills in Finnish by adult beginner level learners but can also be used to train word recognition. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: The adult reading history questionnaire (ARHQ) is frequently used in research on adult dyslexia and family risk for dyslexia. However, this measure is lengthy (23 items), reducing its applicability in studies with extensive assessment batteries. Methods: We identified the best‐performing ARHQ items in a sample of 396 Finnish adults using exploratory factor analysis and item response theory. Consequently, we validated the brief questionnaire in independent Finnish and Dutch samples by comparing its performance with that of the complete questionnaire. We also evaluated how the scores on the questionnaires related to the scores on direct adult reading assessments in the Finnish samples. Finally, we tested how predictive parental questionnaires were of children's skills in the Dutch and one of the Finnish samples. Results: Five items were selected to construct the short version of ARHQ. All of them relate to childhood/adolescent reading difficulties rather than current adult skills. The scores of the complete ARHQ significantly correlated with those of the abbreviated version in all samples. Moreover, in one of the samples, direct reading assessment scores had a stronger correlation with the short ARHQ than with the full version. Additionally, across all three samples parental scores on the short ARHQ were at least as predictive of children's reading skills as the complete ARHQ. Conclusions: The short ARHQ proved to be on a par with the complete version in its usefulness for identifying adults with dyslexia. Future research should investigate whether the five selected items can effectively serve as a brief screening measure for adults with dyslexia in languages other than Finnish and Dutch. Highlights: What is already known about this topicThe adult reading history questionnaire (ARHQ) is known for its high dyslexia identification accuracy in adult samples.Recently, an abbreviated version of the ARHQ has been developed in the US (Feng et al., 2022) appearing to be a good alternative to the full version. What this paper addsThis study developed and validated a short version of ARHQ using Finnish and Dutch samples; the present short version with five items is very similar to the one recently developed in the US, which suggests the generalisability of the previous findings across contexts. Implications for theory, policy or practiceThe short ARHQ is a more convenient alternative to the complete version: when completed by parents, it is at least as predictive of children's reading skills as the full version and may thus be used to facilitate more targeted early interventions and/or support and more research with at‐risk children.The short ARHQ mostly consists of childhood‐related items, which makes it a useful measure for identifying adults who had early difficulties that resolved over time and can be used in future research focusing on factors predictive of resolving dyslexia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this study, we look at manner demonstratives (such as 'so' and similative prepositions such as 'like') in complex sentences of two Finnic languages: Finnish and Estonian. We expand previous accounts of these manner expressions (MEs) in quotative constructions and investigate their use with epistemic ('know', 'guess') and perceptive ('see', 'hear', 'feel') verbs in non-standard written communications. In addition to the results from two Finnic languages, in the discussion of this article, we pay attention to the similarities found in the use of MEs with these verbs in Finno-Ugric languages spoken in Russia. The results show that MEs contribute to the expression of epistemic processes and perception in both languages. Manner demonstratives are used as endophoric markers pointing at demonstrations and descriptions of the event perceived. Co-occurring with the epistemic verb 'know', manner demonstratives induce a non-factive construal and cancel the presupposition that the speaker considers the proposition to be true. With inherently subjective verbs like 'understand' and in some contexts with perceptive verbs like 'see, seem', and 'feel', they indicate the subjective interpretation of the event. The reportative function is observed with the auditory perceptive verbs 'hear' and 'be heard', where the manner demonstratives highlight the reporter's uncertainty or indicate the verbatim rendering of the report. Furthermore, they can express the speaker's wishful thinking while co-occurring with a visual perceptive verb 'see'. In turn, similative markers are used in reportative function as already established quotatives and mark reports as approximately reproduced or typical for the event described. Co-occurring with perceptive verbs, they can express the speaker's doubt or mark propositions as counterfactual. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Thinning borders in the modern world result in intense translingual/transcultural communication. Yet, a language is originally fit to describe its own culture, while cultural reorientation requires considerable adaptation. The paper aims at researching the mechanisms of languages’ cultural reorientation as exemplified by the Japanese-, English- and Finnish-language Russia-centred discourse. The cultural reorientation of a language is seen as a mode of translation – translation of culture. Research questions are: What linguistic techniques to introduce exocultural context are preferred by the focus languages? What elements of the source culture are selected for constructing the Russia-centred discourse in the focus languages? The research is based on data in three unrelated languages. The data is organised in manually annotated corpora of culturally loaded texts of book titles. The analysis of translation techniques employed by different languages in the process of cultural reorientation revealed (a) the specificity of the strategy of translating culture as contrasted to that of traditional translation; (b) the features of the exoculture-centred discourse as affected by language-specific linguistic factors. The study of xenonyms, selected to represent the source culture, shows a considerable variation in the choice of representatives, while the types of xenonyms are largely comparable. The cross-linguistic research of Russia-centred discourse is crucial for understanding established discursive canon, which must serve as guidance for presenting and promoting Russian culture in intercultural dialogue. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

"The Verticalization Model of Language Shift: The Great Change in American Communities" by Joshua R. Brown explores the concept of language shift in American communities. The book proposes the verticalization approach, which suggests that language shift occurs when decision-making power shifts from local to external institutions. The book presents case studies on immigrant and indigenous language communities in the United States, examining their transitions from minority to majority language use. The volume also includes commentaries that critique the verticalization model and offer alternative perspectives. Overall, the book provides valuable insights into language maintenance and shift, highlighting the complex factors that drive these processes. [Extracted from the article]

The book review discusses the edited volume "Language, Global Mobilities, Blue‐Collar Workers and Blue‐Collar Workplaces," which explores the linguistic consequences of global mobility for workers in blue‐collar jobs. The book takes a critical perspective on language and work, examining the role of language learning and multilingualism in job opportunities, social mobility, and legal concerns about migration status. The book includes empirical chapters that cover a range of contexts and time periods, showcasing diverse methods of analysis. The chapters highlight the complex issues surrounding language and work for individuals at the lower end of the socioeconomic scale. [Extracted from the article]

This article provides an overview of the early research on Finnish Sign Language (FinSL) conducted at Helsinki University starting in 1982. The research was led by Professor Fred Karlsson and Liisa Kauppinen, the executive director of the Finnish Association of the Deaf. The article includes personal accounts from researchers involved in the early stages of FinSL research, discussing their experiences and challenges. The research focused on analyzing the structure and semantics of FinSL, including the study of mouth movements in signed production. The article also highlights the work of Terhi Rissanen, Päivi Rainò, and Ritva Takkinen, who conducted research on various aspects of FinSL, such as morphology, syntax, societal and linguistic changes in the signing community, and sign language acquisition and structure. The text also mentions the impact of cochlear implants on sign language transmission and the decline of sign language education in Finland. The authors emphasize the importance of studying sign language and the need for further research in the field. [Extracted from the article]

This article aims to explore the discourse construction through the institutional apparatus and technologies within Pyhä-Luosto National Park, one of the first two national parks established in Finland, by analysing visitors’ reviews. This article investigates the causes behind the differing levels of emphasis that tourists of various languages (Finnish and other languages) and cultural backgrounds place on environmental values or physical activities during their visits. By employing a mixed-methods approach, merging quantitative (frequency analysis) and qualitative (discourse analysis) methodologies, the analysis reveals a distinct divergence in the visitor experiences of the national park based on the background of visitors. Finnish-speaking visitors exhibit a stronger preference for landscape, while international visitors emphasize the experiences derived from physical activities. Through a closer field study in PyhäLuosto National Park, it is proposed that these differences originate from distinct cultural contexts and environmental engagements that shape each visitor’s interaction with the natural landscape. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Listen-and-repeat training has previously been successfully used to train the perception and production of non-native vowel quality and duration contrasts. This study used a one-day listen-and-repeat training paradigm for the production of a non-native vowel duration contrast, /tite – tiːte/ with no feedback or other instructions. Learning results were assessed by acoustic analysis of the produced durations, and identification of the productions by listeners with quantity contrasts in their native Finnish language. Training participants were 18 Namibian speakers of various Bantu and Khoe languages. The results showed that the majority of the speakers did not produce a consistent acoustic duration contrast between the target words. In the identification task, the listeners' performance was at essentially chance level for almost all of the speakers. The results are discussed in terms of earlier results using the same stimuli, training design and language background. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Immigration into Finland has increased in recent years. Learning Finnish is essential for integrating into Finnish society. We investigated L1 Finnish speakers' language choices and language switching in everyday conversations with L2 Finnish speakers, and their reasoning for these choices. The data were gathered in an online survey with 358 respondents. The majority of L1 Finnish speakers reported starting conversations with L2 Finnish speakers in Finnish. However, 95% of respondents also reported switching the language of the conversation to English. The reported reasons were efficiency, speed, politeness and the desire to help. Most respondents also assumed that L2 Finnish speakers would react positively to the language switch. The results outline the need for mutual agreement on language choice and switching in everyday discussions. L1 Finnish speakers should understand the importance of offering possibilities to speak Finnish speakers should understand the importance of offering possibilities to speak Finnish to facilitate language learning and to ensure equality in discussions and aid participation in Finnish society. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The study examines the concept of free(ly produced) ('vapaa') speech. The expressions free ('vapaa'), spontaneous ('spontaani'), natural ('luonnollinen'), authentic ('aito') and everyday ('arki-') are the subject of the analysis. The research material consists of 51 doctoral dissertations dealing with dialects published in the field of Finnish language studies between 1871 and 2017, from which previously mentioned expressions have been searched qualitatively by means of close reading and mechanically by word searches. The research shows that free(ly produced) ('vapaa') speech can be defined in different ways and that speech produced in different speech situations appears at different contexts as both free(ly produced) and non-free(ly produced) speech. The study discusses phonetic experiments, elicitation methods, and interview and conversation as data acquisition methods and speech situations in language research. The study shows that although the scientific field has emphasized that no speech is more natural and authentic than another, in practice such assessments are made in research discourses (dissertations). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Breathiness (perception of turbulence noise in the voice) is one of the major components of hoarseness in dysphonic voices. This study aims to validate a multiparameter analysis tool, the Acoustic Breathiness Index (ABI), for quantification of breathiness in the speaking voice, including both sustained vowels and continuous speech. One hundred and eight speakers with dysphonia (28 M, 80 F, mean age 50, SD 15.4 years) and 87 non-dysphonic controls (18 M, 69 F, mean age 42, SD 14 years) volunteered as participants. They read a standard text and sustained vowel /a:/. Acoustic recordings were made using a head-mounted microphone. Acoustic samples were evaluated perceptually by nine voice experts of different backgrounds (speech therapists, vocologists and laryngologists). Breathiness (B) from the GRBAS scale was rated. Headphones were used in the perceptual analysis. The dysphonic and non-dysphonic speakers differed significantly from each other in the auditory perceptual evaluation of breathiness. A significant difference was also found for ABI, which had a mean value of 2.26 (SD 1.15) for non-dysphonic and 3.07 (SD 1.75) for dysphonic speakers. ABI correlated strongly with B (rs = 0.823, p = 0.01). ABI's power to distinguish the groups was high (88.6%). The highest sensitivity and specificity of ABI (80%) was obtained at threshold value 2.68. ABI is a valid tool for differentiating breathiness in non-dysphonic and dysphonic speakers of Finnish. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study explores the dialogical nature of agency when two immigrant pupils, who are learning Finnish as their new target language, are authoring their selves. Bakhtin's dialogism was the inspiration for this examination of the discourses that surround the L2 pupils' agency and how they respond to discourses through their agency. Ethnographically oriented data collection included classroom observations, the pupils' portfolios, and interviews with the pupils (as main participants) and meaningful adults. These data yielded a set of narratives from multiple voices. The results show that the pupils negotiate more subjective meanings of their selves, and re-color them with their internal goals and values, through the act of answerability, while the other sides of their selves react to others' voices. It is concluded that we, L2 education providers, need to recognise the high level of engagement of young language learners' agency and remember how our own voices might affect their navigation process of authoring their selves. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While mobile app-mediated communication between children and members of their family represents a substantial part of contemporary family communication and language input, we still know very little about the role of these technologies in family language policy (FLP). With an explorative questionnaire survey, the current study set out to examine (1) how Finnish state and language-in-education policies intersect with how families make use of their languages in spoken and in app-mediated communication, and (2) to what extent app-mediated FL practices function as a space for spoken and literacy language development. 1002 nine to twelve year-olds in minority-language Swedish-medium schools in Finland responded to the survey. The results showed the dominance of the two national, high-status languages Swedish and Finnish in the families, with texting being the most common app practice. Languages other than Swedish and Finnish (LOTSF) were used in 17% of the families and to a great extent also in the family apps. While app-mediated family communications overall were shown to serve as significant spaces for language and literacy development, in some cases of LOTSF with a lower status and less educational support, and with linguistic and writing systems deviating from Swedish and Finnish, children refrained from texting in the apps. The findings suggest that the relationship between choice of modalities in language(s) of different status and educational support is complex and needs further attention in future FLP studies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present study investigated whether the number of syllables affects developing readers' word recognition when controlling for word length and word frequency and, if so, whether the effect is dependent on reading fluency. The target language was Finnish, a language with a transparent orthography and a simple syllable structure. Eye movements of 142 third and fourth graders were recorded during silent reading of two stories. Reading fluency was assessed separately. For analyses, a data subset containing words of a certain length (6,7,9 letters) and varying syllable number (2,3,4 syllables) was extracted from the data set. Using linear mixed-effects modeling, the effect of the syllable number on various eye-tracking measures across different levels of reading fluency was studied. Results revealed a statistically significant, impeding number of syllables effect in first fixation duration but non-significant effects in the later reading measures. Furthermore, fluent and dysfluent readers did not differ regarding the number of syllables effect. These findings suggest that in Finnish developing readers, syllabic parsing is a highly rapid and automatized process, which predominantly takes place during the early holistic orthographic processing of a word, and that qualitatively similar orthographic processing occurs in fluent and dysfluent beginning readers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This is the first study to use longitudinal population register data to illustrate that marital stability may relate to the adoption of the spouse's language. The paper draws on theories of boundary shifting and boundary crossing to examine two main ancestral groups in Finland, Finnish speakers and Swedish speakers, between whom intermarriage is common. Administrative changes in how the question about language/ethnicity was registered between the censuses of 1975 and 1980 make it possible to distinguish between persons who are concordant or discordant on the main language used and ethnic affiliation. Using data on the entire married population, and adjusting for several individuals and couple characteristics, we estimate the couples' divorce risk as a function of language convergence with Cox regressions. Discordance in terms of adopting the Finnish language used by the partner is associated with a higher divorce risk, as compared with couples who are exogamous in terms of both language use and ethnic affiliation. Adopting the Swedish language, on the other hand, is associated with a slightly reduced divorce risk. Thus, these data provide some evidence that marital stability may relate to language convergence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study explores the relationship between lower-than-expected frequencies of word forms and inherent gaps in Finnish inflectional paradigms. The research aims to determine whether it is possible to predict paradigmatic gaps from lower-than-expected frequencies of word forms. We examined Finnish nouns inflected in a marginal case (the instructive) and hypothesized that some of these nouns may potentially have gaps in their inflectional paradigms. However, we found that such gaps are contingent and do not cause uncertainty when filled. We find that the correlation between inherent gaps and lower frequencies is one-directional: predicting inherent gaps from lower-than-expected frequencies is problematic. The results suggest that any paradigmatic gap suggested by corpus frequency is more likely to be contingent than inherent, and that the less semantic need there is for a particular word form, the more likely it will be unattested even in a large corpus. The research highlights the importance of considering semantic profiles when analyzing the grammaticality of word forms and suggests that statistical tests like Fisher's exact are not necessarily the right approach to tackle the problem of negative evidence in corpus studies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Languages differ in how grammatically salient gender is. We explored if grammatically gender-neutral pronouns in Finnish and Turkish, two grammatically genderless languages, are gender neutral or male biased, thereby activating male, rather than female, exemplars. We also tested whether differences in national level gender equality influence the male bias. Results indicated a male bias in both languages, whereas national level gender equality had no influence. Implications for gender-fair language reforms in grammatically genderless languages are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The autonomy created for Åland in 1920 along with the linguistic and cultural guarantees stipulated in the 1921 Åland Agreement established Åland as a monolingual Swedish-speaking province within otherwise bilingual Finland. In particular, the Ålandic municipalities could themselves decide whether Finnish was to be taught in their primary schools. One hundred years later, Åland is still monolingually Swedish-speaking. The Finnish language, however, has been a hotly debated topic on Åland over the years. This article examines the status of the Swedish and Finnish languages that was established by the Autonomy Act and the Åland Agreement and explores the degree to which the Finnish language was present in Ålandic society during the first decades of the autonomy. The arguments and ideas presented in one particular political dispute that took place in 1968 between the speaker of the legislative assembly, Thorvald "Thusse" Eriksson, and the premier of the provincial government, Martin Isaksson, are then analyzed in more detail. The debate was precipitated by, among other things, an upcoming reform of the school system that called attention to the question of whether Finnish were to be taught in Ålandic schools. Eriksson and Isaksson disagreed on what attitude Åland should have toward Finland, Finnish speakers, and the Finnish language and on whether Finnicization was a threat to Åland. Eriksson saw any intrusion of the Finnish language as a threat to Åland's autonomy, while Isaksson believed Ålanders had to know some Finnish to be competitive on the job market. The overall aim of the article is to broaden our understanding of how ideas and perceptions related to language and autonomy have developed over time on Åland and to put them in a broader perspective through the use of the concept of societal cultures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article provides a historical overview of Finland's geopolitical shifts and ethnic diversity, which have shaped the various communities within modern Finland. It highlights the division of territory between Sweden and Russia in 1809, resulting in Swedish-speaking communities finding themselves in a state with a Finnish-speaking majority. The article also discusses the strategic importance of the Baltic and the impact of events such as the destruction of the Russian fortress at Bomarsund on Åland during the Crimean War. It further explores Finland's independence from Russia in 1917, the autonomy granted to Åland, and its demilitarized status. The article concludes by mentioning Finland's membership in the European Union and the recent shift in defense ties with Western allies, which may impact the identity of Swedish-speaking communities within Finland and Åland. [Extracted from the article]

In the present study, cross-modal (i.e., across sensory modalities such as smell and sound) iconicity (i.e., resemblance) and indexicality (i.e., contiguity) in lexical sensory and emotional signs in Finnish Sign Language will be considered from an articulatory perspective (i.e., the production of signs). Such cross-modal iconicity has not been extensively studied previously, so here, with the help of cognitive semiotics, I aim to carefully describe the cross-modal patterns observed across 118 signs, including 60 sensory signs and 58 emotional signs. The analysis is framed within the theoretical model of Semiotic Hierarchy, which entails a non-reductionist view of meaning. In addition, a pheno-methodological triangulation will be applied: phenomenology (first-person method), literature of phenomenological and semiotic descriptions (second-person perspective) and experimental findings (third-person perspective). The results of this analysis show that (a) 71 of the 118 sensory and emotional signs are cross-modally indexical, (b) only 10 of the 71 signs can be regarded as cross-modally iconic, (c) cross-modal iconicity is highly diagrammatic, (d) iconicity and indexicality are highly integrated, and (e) articulatory feedback matters in the formation of semiotic patterns. This study contributes to our understanding of cross-modal iconicity in signed languages, as well as studies in semiotic systems more generally. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article concerns insubordination, that is, the use of clause types which are ordinarily considered subordinate but occur without main clauses. We study the use of insubordinate relative clauses (RCs) in Finnish with data from two corpora, the Arkisyn corpus of contemporary conversation and the Agricola corpus from the 16th century. Our main findings are that the construction is put to very similar uses in the two corpora, but that it is more common in the newer corpus. We show that insubordination of RCs existed along with subordination already in the earliest records of Finnish language use. Thus, insubordination of RCs is not a more recent development than their use as subordinate clauses. We conclude that the more frequent use in the newer data is likely not a result of a process of grammaticalization that would have occurred since the 16th century. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Finnish language is one that offers two translations of the concept 'democracy,' demokratia and kansanvalta (people's power), which have remained in active political use. We analyse the existence of two terms as a linguistic affordance, providing political agents with possibilities for resisting and supporting the prevailing interpretations of democracy. We ask how and where the different versions occur in parliamentary speech (1980-2021) and in the MPs' interviews (1998-2018). In quantitative analysis, we study the relative appearance of words close to these terms. In qualitative analysis, we study such terms (e.g. representative, Finnish and western) that have different profiles with demokratia and kansanvalta and study how these terms characterise and shape democracy. This way, we are able to question the dictionary-based understanding of these terms as synonyms. The difference between them is both geographical, kansanvalta referring more strictly to domestic phenomena, and functional, since demokratia covers most of the issues of procedural democracy and kansanvalta more distinctively the realisation of the presumed will of the people. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper discusses how persons of multicultural backgrounds describe in interviews their everyday experiences when using Finnish. The focus is on categories of linguistic (non)belonging described in interview interactions. The data consist of 23 single and pair interviews of 33 informants in total and come from two interview datasets. Data are analyzed discursively, taking into account positions and identities constructed in interviews. First, the study concentrates on descriptions where the informants' interlocutors (particularly customer service persons) switched to English and the interviewees assumed reasons for it. Secondly, the recounted experiences where multiculturals have received comments on their Finnish language use are examined. According to the informants, language choices and evaluations arise from the perception of difference by the interactant. When language choice is discussed, categorizations of the informants as non-Finnish speakers arise. When the focus is on received comments, the informants discuss the categorizations of non-nativeness and origins. The informants position themselves in relation to these categories: They discuss the motivations and conditions for them. The study takes a closer look at how, in the interviews, there is space to criticize linguistic practices contrary to many everyday situations. The study brings to light the informants' interpretations of switching language and commenting on one's language as well as underlying ideologies of these situations, thereby also bringing about the possibility for change. The descriptions are multilevel, and we discuss how the categories of identification are constructed and how they are perceived in the interviews. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Musicology may seem a specific small sector of humanitarian scholarship to the layman, but it hides variety within from highly theoretical subjects such as music theory to the fieldwork with indigenous repertoires and their performance, as found in ethnomusicology. There is a shift in contemporary musicology, its focus moving more towards studies of musical performances and the use of empirical study designs to complement the analysis of musical scores. These interdisciplinary empirical studies cross the border of humanitarian scholarship and apply the methods of the natural sciences, for example spectrogram analysis of singing and the measurement of the temporal structure of recorded music. The cognitive sciences of music (CSM) can be looked at as an umbrella term for branches of musicology that use empirical research methods and draw their research questions from music related individual and group processes. One of the major topics of CSM relates to research in linguistics. Music and language, as well as speech, are closely linked as the human voice is a natural part of vocal music and is considered a quintessential element in musical thinking, vocal and instrumental alike. The music-language-speech relationship intrigues Estonian musicologists as research questions focusing on related topics arise in different fields of musicology, including natural settings and functional songs (musical development, spontaneous singing, runosong, ecclesiastical singing) to the vocal art music performed by professional singers (some chronological examples: Ross & Lehiste 2001; Raju 2015; Lippus & Ross 2017; Jõks 2021; Vurma et al. 2022). The purpose of this referative overview article is to introduce a selection of previous research and discuss the results. The endeavour of the authors is to find an abstract common denominator of selected CSM research projects to establish the most estimable useful knowledge that Estonian CSM has to offer to the international scholarly community, as well as to follow-up research in Estonia. Although we can see the results of that support, and we can see the universal perception and cognitive processes of language and music in Estonian research, there are also several interesting prosodic-musical differences relating to the fact that Estonian belongs to the Uralic language family, more specifically Western Finnish language group. Indo-Germanic (mainly German, Russian, Latin, Italian, and English) language related prosody and singing culture does not necessarily support the natural language usage and therefore represses emotional and spontaneous involvement in singing. It seems that in the process in which Estonian scholars deal with their distinctive mother tongue, indigenous musical repertoires, and idiomatic singing, intuition - more precisely a scholarly intuition -, might play an important role. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article investigates Twitter as an arena of organizations' impression management. We look into the ways organizations use this social media platform for establishing an image of competence and expertise around a new technological innovation. This study is based on a discourse analysis of 3,033 Finnish language tweets, sent between 2015-2018. These tweets were selected on the basis of containing the hashtag #blockchain, which allowed us to explore how organizations and their representatives engaged in "blockchain talk" in the Finnish Twittersphere. Our findings indicate that while this blockchain talk most commonly manifested through news and information dissemination, it was also used to construct expertise and to highlight organizational values. Even organizations that had nothing to do with actual blockchain applications seemed to want to participate in the blockchain talk. In addition to presenting new insights into the online discourse on technological innovation, this study contributes to research on Twitter as a forum for organizational communication. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores the increasing digitalization of workplace communication. Drawing on the material environment in a complex, technology-mediated workplace environment, the article investigates how remote sales interaction is constructed and managed by its participants. The data consist of web conferences conducted in Finland between a salesperson (SP) and a prospective customer (C). During the meeting, SP delivers a software solution demonstration on a shared computer screen on which only SP is able to take actions. Deploying the method of multimodal conversation analysis, the research focuses on how the shared computer screen is used as an interactional resource to achieve joint attention and to direct participants' focus during the sales meeting. First, the shared screen view is SP's resource; for instance, when SP describes the functionalities of the software, he/she recurrently uses deictic expressions and other linguistic means in combination with coordinated keyboard activity. Later, the shared screen view evolves into a medium for both participants' actions. The findings suggest that, as the negotiation gets closer to the context of the customer organization's business, C may use the screen as a vehicle for his/her own interactional purposes. Through a gradual growth in understanding of the software, C begins commenting on the screen view or guides SP's actions on the shared screen, enabling both a collaborative sales interaction and knowledge construction in a complex technological environment. Unlike previous studies on technology-supported institutional telephone interactions, SP's screen view in the present study is a resource shared by both the professional and the client. The study contributes both to the field of technology-mediated workplace studies as well as to the field of sales and marketing research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of the study is to identify common and distinctive features of Mordovian and Finnish phraseological units with the zoonym component “bird”. The relevance of this study is due to the need for a comprehensive study of phraseological units in order to identify common and specific features inherent in these linguistic cultures. The object of the study was the phraseological units of the Mordovian and Finnish languages, in which the zoonym component “bird” was identified. Based on the methods of descriptive, comparative, component analysis, the semantic characteristics of phraseological units are studied, dominant images are identified, universal phenomena and distinctive features in the meanings conveyed by phraseological units in the compared languages are determined. The main material of the study is presented by phraseological units with a zoocomponent, identified by continuous sampling from explanatory monolingual and bilingual dictionaries, as well as phraseological developments, texts of fiction and journalistic literature. The properties that the Mordovians and Finns attribute to poultry are in most cases similar, which is why both languages have a lot of phraseological units that coincide in meaning. In both Mordovian and Finnish cultures, the bird is considered a creature that is not very smart. The observed phenomenon is to a greater extent associated with domestic poultry, and to a lesser extent with wild birds.

Alava shows how even while the rise of President Yoweri Museveni and his National Resistance Movement relativizes both the DP and the UPC, the Catholic-Anglican contestation continues today among the older generations. Alava, Henni, I Christianity, Politics, and the Afterlives of War in Uganda: There is Confusion i , City: Bloomsbury Academic, 2022, 267 pp. [Extracted from the article]

Many universities in non-English speaking countries have been adopting English as a medium of instruction to internationalize their education. We set out to compare the language policies of a Finnish and a Japanese university using the lens of language ideology – a set of normative beliefs about the social dimension of language. Data were collected from selected documents of the two universities, and analyzed utilizing critical discursive psychology. This social constructionist approach allows mapping out language ideological landscapes – interrelationships among different co-occurring language ideologies – from which students may draw ideas about how they orient themselves towards their peers on international campuses today. Our analysis shows that different language ideological landscapes are constructed in the language policies of the two universities, affording them different positioning in the phenomenon of internationalization. The findings suggest that both multilingualism and languaging would be important discursive resources for universities to maintain ethnolinguistic nationalism and ensure equality among students with different linguistic backgrounds, in the process of internationalization of higher education through English. On international campuses where multilingualism is prevalent, students are likely to be constructed as cosmopolitans for inclusion, locals and foreigners for exclusion, or 'native/native-like and non-native speakers' for hierarchy through different monolingual language ideologies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Labor shortages and labor mismatches are common emergent problems in Finland, ones which will occur on a much broader scale in the future in an aging society. Immigrants constitute an important pool of labor, but sometimes it is difficult for them to find even a first job in local labor markets. Studies have shown that mastering the language of the host country is a crucial factor in the success of immigrants' employment. The AboaNova development project in Turku, Southwest Finland, funded by the European Social Fund, aimed to promote two-way integration by developing new methods and pedagogical tools to speed up employment and support the linguistic skills of immigrants in the Finnish language. As one example, the project applied interactive digital pedagogy and learning analytics to support both language learning and guidance for on-the-job learning to enter the labor market. However, the challenge in implementing new tools often has to do with resistance and suspicious attitudes encountered at different organizational levels during development projects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Reading experience has been researched and defined, in various ways and contexts, as an emotional, intellectual, or even physical event. The role of language in reading experience has been recognized, but the way reading experience is connected to language acquisition and plays the role of a formative experience has not been dealt with in literary studies. In this article, I reflect on the shared reading experience of adult learners of Finnish with academic backgrounds in reading circles organized by the research project Struck by the Unknown: Fiction as Promoter of the Finnish Language among Adults with Im/migrant Background. In the reading experience as this is connected to cultural language learning in a reading circle, it is impossible to separate cognitive processes and emotions from the intellectual event. An appropriate venue to explore the cognitive, emotional, and intellectual together is a reading circle, where aesthetic experience permeates a learning process. I will bring up some facets of shared reading as experience formation by reporting on how our research team and reading circle participants experienced the project. Facets of this shared experience of reading include a dialogical transborder approach that creates space to articulate emotions. Finally, I reflect briefly on the issue of using or instrumentalizing literature. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In policies and research, migrant children tend to be seen as underprivileged and vulnerable. This discourse ignores the more privileged migrant children, those labelled expatriates or third culture kids. Finland wants to attract skilled professionals from abroad. They are often accompanied by their children. Although the families typically intend to sojourn in the country temporarily, Finnish society tends to see them as ‘permanent immigrants’ who need to be integrated. This is visible in international schools that follow the national curriculum, including extensive Finnish language studies and exposure to Finnish culture. This article is based on an ethnographic study among expatriate children in an international school in a Finnish town. I ask how the integration aims affect the expatriate children’s lives, and how they navigate those aims. Using empirical examples, I elaborate on the contradiction between being a ‘privileged’ temporary expatriate child and being defined as an ‘underprivileged’ permanent immigrant. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract Background The Kerlan-Jobe Orthopaedic Clinic Shoulder and Elbow score (KJOC) is developed to evaluate the shoulder and elbow function in overhead athletes. To date, the score has not been adapted into Finnish language. The aim of this study was to perform a cross-cultural adaptation of the Kerlan-Jobe Orthopaedic Clinic Shoulder and Elbow score (KJOC) into Finnish language and evaluate its validity, reliability, and responsiveness in overhead athletes. Methods Forward–backward translation method was followed in the cross-cultural adaptation process. Subsequently, 114 overhead athletes (52 males, 62 females, mean age 18.1 ± 2.8 years) completed the Finnish version of KJOC score, Disabilities of the Arm, Shoulder and Hand (DASH), American Shoulder and Elbow Surgeons Standardized Shoulder Assessment Form (ASES) and RAND-36 to assess validity of the KJOC score. To evaluate reliability and responsiveness, the participants filled in the KJOC score 16 days and eight months after the first data collection. Validity, reliability, and responsiveness of the Finnish KJOC score were statistically tested. Results Minor modifications were made during the cross-cultural translation and adaptation process, which were related to culture specific terminology in sports and agreed by an expert committee. Construct validity of the KJOC score was moderate to high, based on the correlations with DASH (r = − 0.757); DASH sports module (r = − 0.667); ASES (r = 0.559); and RAND-36 (r = 0.397) questionnaires. Finnish KJOC score showed excellent internal consistency (α = 0.92) and good test–retest reliability (2-way mixed-effects model ICC = 0.77) with acceptable measurement error level (SEM 5.5; MDC 15.1). Ceiling effect was detected for asymptomatic athletes in each item (23.2–61.1%), and for symptomatic athletes in item 5 (47.4%). Responsiveness of the Finnish KJOC score could not be confirmed due to conflicting follow-up results. Conclusion The Finnish KJOC score was found to be a valid and reliable questionnaire measuring the self-reported upper arm status in Finnish-speaking overhead athletes.

The purpose of the study is to identify common and distinctive features of Mordovian and Finnish phraseological units with the zoonym component «domestic animal» based on a comparative study of the characteristics of the studied phraseological units. The relevance of this study is due to the need for a comprehensive study of phraseological units with a zoonym component in the Mordovian (Erzya, Moksha) and Finnish languages in order to identify common and specific features inherent in these linguistic cultures. The obvious insufficiency of studies of phraseological units of the considered thematic group also explains the study of phraseological units, which have zoonymic components in their composition. The object of the study was the phraseological units of the Mordovian and Finnish languages, in which the zoonym component «domestic animal» was identified. Based on the methods of descriptive, comparative, component analysis, as well as the method of continuous sampling, this article highlights the components of the semantic aspect of phraseological units with zoonym components; the dominant images in phraseological units with the seme-zoonym are revealed, the frequency of their use in two languages is analyzed, and the universal and specific phenomena in the Mordovian and Finnish languages are determined. The main material of the study is presented by phraseological units with a zoocomponent in the Mordovian (Erzya and Moksha) and Finnish languages, identified by continuous sampling from explanatory monolingual, bilingual and phraseological dictionaries, as well as texts of fiction and journalistic literature.

Focus is cross-linguistically associated with a number of different strategies, such as fronting, clefting, markers, and prosody. In some cases, the choice between one strategy or another is determined by language-specific rules, while in others, two or more strategies seem to be optional, and thus, somehow "unpredictable". In this experimental study, we investigate the syntactic strategies employed in object focusing in Finnish and in Italian by examining the syntactic, semantic, and pragmatic features underlying the choice of a specific Focus strategy. In particular, the present experiment is aimed to investigate two strategies employed in both languages for object Focus realization, namely, Focus in situ and fronting, in order to verify whether the choice between them is influenced by a specific type of feature, a combination of Focus-related features, the verb category involved, or the interplay between these three factors. The incidence of alternative constructions, in particular clefting in Italian and the -hAn discourse marker in Finnish, is also taken into consideration, and relevant asymmetries are analyzed in a comprehensive, comparative account. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study investigates why language professionals of the standard Finnish language are unwilling to change a known problematic orthographic norm and how their arguments are based on overt and covert conceptions of standard language. It also analyzes how dominant language ideologies, namely standard language ideology (SLI) and linguistic purism, form the bases of these conceptions. The study is based on a qualitative survey, and it explores the metalanguage of the answers to one open-ended question using content analysis. The concepts of language are presented as conceptual metaphors. The analysis reveals six concepts that represent a particular ideological notion belonging to purism, SLI, or both. The respondents conceptualize language as value judgments and through functions and social connotations. Some concepts are based on non-linguistic but emotionally powerful values, others on usability or language’s ability to serve as a marker of status or social bonds. The study highlights the deep impact of language ideologies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Lähivõrdlusi / Lähivertailuja is the property of Eesti Rakenduslingvistika Uhing (ERU) / Estonian Association for Applied Linguistics 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.)

Copyright of Journal of Education Research (1680-6360) is the property of Angle Publishing Co., Ltd. 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.)

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to explain the reversal of language hierarchy in a Finnish multinational corporation (MNC) from a political perspective. This paper situated the language hierarchy in the historical context of the colonial-style relationship between Finland and Russia. From a post-colonial perspective, the colonial legacy of Russia has had an influence on language strategy and everyday translation work in the Finnish multinational until the present day. Design/methodology/approach: This paper undertook a case study based on qualitative secondary analysis of existing data sets. These data sets originated from two previously conducted studies of the same Finnish MNC. Findings: The findings revealed a reversal of the traditional corporate language hierarchy. Russian, as the host country language of powerful local subsidiaries, rose to the top of the hierarchy at the expense of English, the common corporate language, and other languages. The colonial-style relationship was enacted by professional and paraprofessional translators who collaborated by using "the master's language and imitating the master's voice" to reap the strategic benefits of local responsiveness. Originality/value: In contrast to previous work drawing on post-colonial theory in the study of MNCs, this paper represents the headquarters in Finland as the "colonised" party and the Russian subsidiaries as the "coloniser." Owing to its colonial legacy, Russian, the host country language, became very powerful and influenced the language strategy of the entire MNC. This paper conceptualized translation as a multilevel phenomenon and offers a holistic explanation of why the language hierarchy in the Finnish MNC was reversed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As Koptjevskaja-Tamm points out, the division of labor between the elative and the partitive case in partitive constructions largely corresponds to the distinction between partitive nominal constructions (elative) and pseudo-partitive constructions (partitive), as shown in Figure 2 (from [50]: 533). 2.2 Partitive elements Partitive constructions may also develop into "faded" partitives, a term introduced by [51] to indicate seemingly partitive constructions in which, however, there is only a vague hint to a possible part-whole relation, as discussed in De Hoop ([34]: 193-206; see also [75]). As observed in Section 1, the term "partitive", "partitives" has been used with different meanings, comprising partitive and pseudo-partitive constructions, faded partitives and indefinite or "generalized" partitives. Section 3.2.2 is devoted to so-called "generalized" partitives, i.e. partitive cases, partitive genitives, partitive articles that express notions other than partivity, such as indefiniteness or unboundedness. Partitive constructions and their developments In this section we present some basic notions related to partitivity, focusing on types of constructions connected with the notion of part/whole relation, i.e. the partitive nominal construction, or "proper partitive", and the pseudo-partitive construction (Section 2.1). [Extracted from the article]

Cross-Cultural and Cross-Linguistic Perspectives i by Dmitrij Dobrovol'skij and Elisabeth Piirainen by Elsevier ([1]), we now have access to a new, revised and updated edition of this reference work in phraseology and figurative language research, this time courtesy of De Gruyter Mouton. In addition, they consider that complex linguistic structures such as idioms, figurative proverbs or figurative compounds accumulate more culturally and semiotically significant information than simple structures, which allows for contrasting languages and cultures, one of the aims of the book. Dobrovolskij and Piirainen consider that the main prerequisite for a reasonable comparison of idioms with semantically parallel constituents is their underlying semantic resemblance. [Extracted from the article]

Over the last couple of decades, working life in Finland has become more multilingual, multi-sited, mobile and digitalised. At the same time, Finland increasingly relies on work-based immigration to fill gaps in the workforce. Since language skills are considered key to employment, language education plays an important role in migrants' integration into the Finnish labour market and work communities. This article discusses the role of language(s) and language education in increasingly complex working life contexts with particular emphasis on Finnish as a second language. We first provide an overview of ongoing developments in Finnish working life and issues regarding recruitment, language requirements and language practices at multilingual workplaces. Second, we describe how language education in vocational education, integration training and higher education is (re)designed to facilitate migrants' employment. Finally, we discuss how work communities and language educators can respond to the challenges of an increasingly complex and multilingual work life. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]