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Review of Tomi Riitamaa's dissertation

This study examines positive low- and high-grade assessments in service encounters between customers and salespersons conducted in Swedish and recorded in Sweden and Finland. The assessments occur in a regular sequential pattern as third-turn moves that complete request-delivery sequences, longer coherent requesting sections, or request sequences in a pre-closing context. The positive valence of the assessments coheres with the satisfactory outcome of task completion, but their function is primarily pragmatic, used for segmenting the flow of task-oriented institutional interaction. The assessments stand as lexical TCUs, and their delivery is characterized by downgraded prosody and the speaker's embodied shift away from the other. The analysis reveals distributional differences in the interactional practice: Customers produce task-completing assessments more often than the salespersons, and high-grade assessments are more frequent in the data from Sweden than from Finland. The data are in Sweden Swedish and Finland Swedish with English translations. Interaktion och variation i pluricentriska språk (IVIP).

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.

I den här studien intervjuades fyra finlandssvenska lärare om sin undervisning i språkhistoria. Intervjuerna analyserades genom interpretativ fenomenologisk analys (IPA) och resultatet kategoriserades utifrån de didaktiska frågorna vad?, hur? och varför?. Kategoriseringen visade en stor övervikt för varför- och hur-frågorna, och de finlandssvenska lärarna hade en samsyn på implementeringen av dessa. Detta kan ses som en konsekvens av styrdokumentens tydliga framskrivning av både historiemedvetande direkt kopplat till språk, en historisk medvetenhet om språket och den konsensus som skapas av utformningen av den kurs där språkhistoriemomentet är placerat i den finska gymnasieskolan. Utifrån den didaktiska varför-frågan kan följande fyra kategorier utläsas: allmänspråklig kompetens, identitet, historiemedvetande och centralstyrning. Den didaktiska hur-frågan gav upphov till tre kategorier: personlig identitetsprofilering, begrepp och litteratur samt läromedel. Didaktikens vad-fråga fanns bara i begränsad mängd i lärarnas utsagor. Undersökningen visade också att paralleller fanns mellan relativt omfattande ämnesstudier hos lärarna, inom språk i allmänhet och nordiska språk i synnerhet, och deras möjlighet att anpassa undervisningen i den tvåspråkiga miljön. Intervjustudien har ett komparativt perspektiv i förhållande till en tidigare studie. Språkhistoria i undervisningen: Att rekontextualisera styrdokumentens intentioner i en undervisningspraktik (2017) i vilken tre svenska gymnasielärare intervjuades. Ett förslag till vidare forskning i den studien var att genomföra en liknande undersökning i en ny kontext, och det finlandssvenska utbildningssystemet utgör denna nya kontext i föreliggande studie.

This study investigates cross-linguistic transfer in the production of long mid front vowels [oː] and [œː] by simultaneous bilingual Finnish and Finland-Swedish speakers in Finland. In Swedish, the phoneme /o/ can be realised as the allophones [o] and [œ], while in Finnish, only [o] is used. Combining approaches from sociophonetic and bilingual transfer research, the study used acoustic analysis to compare the height and fronting of [oː] and [œː] produced by bilingual and monolingual Finland-Swedish speakers in three different speech styles on a continuum of formality. The data from 115 participants are stratified according to language background, speech style, region, and age. The statistical analysis indicates increased overlap of [oː] and [œː] in the vowel spaces of bilingual speakers, particularly in informal speech. The results suggest a potential effect of Finnish transfer on the distinction of the phonetic variants in simultaneous Finland-Swedish bilinguals, as well as demonstrate the importance of considering speech style in bilingual transfer research.

I undersökningen analyseras 11 inföddliknande S2-talares uttal av finska. Sex av talarna har finlandssvenska som S1, fem av talarna har sverigesvenska, tyska, franska, ryska resp. spanska som S1. Talarnas uttal undersöktes dels genom ett test med finskspråkiga lyssnare (n=93), dels genom att S2-talarnas uttal jämfördes akustiskt med uttalet hos talare med finska som S1. Vidare jämfördes de finlandssvenska talarnas uttal av finska och svenska. Resultaten visar att finlandssvenska talare skiljer sig som grupp från infödda finskspråkiga talare och från talare med ett annat S1 än finlandssvenska. De flesta finlandssvenskar bröt mycket svagt. Stavelselängderna och intonationen i långa ord orsakade mest problem för S2-talarna. Generellt hade lyssnarna svårt att identifiera talarnas förstaspråk, t.ex. finlandssvenska talare föreslogs oftast ha estniska som S1. Det fanns ett tydligt samband mellan startåldern för inlärningen av finska och graden av upplevd inföddlikhet, men också användningsgraden av finska och individuell inlärningsförmåga verkade vara viktiga förklaringsgrunder till skillnaderna mellan talarna. Nyckelord: finska, finlandssvenska, S2-uttal, tvåspråkighet, uttalsinlärning Tutkimuksessa analysoidaan 11 syntyperäisen kaltaisen S2-puhujan suomen ääntämistä. Kuudella puhujista äidinkieli on suomenruotsi, viidellä puhujalla ruotsinruotsi, saksa, ranska, venäjä tai espanja. Puhujien ääntämistä tutkittiin havaintokokeessa (n=93 suomalaista kuulijaa) sekä akustisesti vertaamalla puhujien ääntämistä suomalaisiin puhujiin. Lisäksi verrattiin suomenruotsalaisten puhujien suomen ja ruotsin ääntämistä. Tulokset osoittavat, että suomenruotsalaiset puhujat eroavat ryhmänä suomalaisista ja tämän tutkimuksen muista S2-puhujista. Useimmat suomenruotsalaiset mursivat hyvin heikosti. Tavukestot ja intonaatio pitkissä sanoissa aiheuttivat eniten ongelmia S2-puhujille. Yleisesti ottaen kuulijat eivät tunnistaneet kovin hyvin puhujien lähtökieltä, esim. suomenruotsalaisten lähtökielen arveltiin useimmiten olevan viro. Suomen oppimisen aloitusiällä ja syntyperäisen kaltaisuudella oli vahva yhteys, mutta myös suomen kielen käytön määrä tuntui selittävän monia puhujakohtaisia eroja. Avainsanat: kaksikielisyys, oppiminen, suomenruotsi, suomi, S2-ääntäminen Keywords: bilingualism, Finland-Swedish, Finnish, learning, L2 pronunciation

This master’s thesis considers the differences between the minority literature from Friesland, a province in the northwest of the Netherlands, and that of the Swedish-speaking part of Finland. The author of this paper tries to draw attention to the literatures of those minorities, which often are not well-known outside their own regions. The main issue discussed in this paper is: How is minority culture problematized in the novels de fûke (1966) by the Frisian author Rink van der Velde and Där vi en gång gått (2006) by the Finland-Swedish author Kjell Westö? The Frisian population in the Netherlands is considered by many as a very old people, because famous writers of the Roman Empire, such as Pliny the Elder, wrote specifically about their region and its people. Despite this, the Frisian language has been in a peripheral situation for many centuries. The Swedish minority in Finland, on the contrary, is much younger. Finland gained autonomy in 1809 and before that time the region currently known as Finland, was the eastern part of the Kingdom of Sweden. This meant that Swedish was the predominant language until that year. Later on Finnish became the main language in Finland. However, both the Frisian and the Finland-Swedish literature were not established before the nineteenth century. This changed partially as a result of ideas of the Romanticism, but also because of historical reasons. By analyzing the previously mentioned novels, Oetze Deelstra shows how the minorities in both countries fare in opposite situations. The Swedish-speaking population has often been, and continues to be, examined as upper-class. On the other hand, in Frisia should a very old countryside culture has been preserved. Those ideas have been important in forming the images of both minorities. A noticeable distinction is that the Frisian literature is defined by language, while the Finland-Swedish literature is characterized by political and ideological arguments. Dizze masterskripsje rjochtet him op de ferskillen tusken de literatuer fan Fryslân en dy fan de Sweedsktalige minderheid yn Finlân. De skriuwer fan dit wurk besiket op dy wize mear omtinken te freegjen foar de literatuer fan dizze minderheden, dy’t faak net sa bekend is bûten de eigen regio. De fraach dy’t sintraal stiet is: Op hokker wize wurdt stal jûn oan minderhedeproblematyk yn de romans de fûke (1966) fan de Fryske skriuwer Rink van der Velde en Där vi en gång gått (2006) fan de Finlânsweedske skriuwer Kjell Westö? Faak wurde de Friezen beskôge as in âld folk. Mooglik komt dat trochdat se al neamd wurde soene troch ferneamde skriuwers fan it Romeinske Ryk, lyk as Plinius de Aldere. Dochs hat it Frysk iuwenlang in net al te wichtige rol spile yn Fryslân en dêrbûten. De Sweedske minderheid yn Finlân is lykwols folle jonger. Finlân is pas sûnt 1809 autonoom en foar dy tiid wie dat wat wy hjoed-de-dei Finlân neame, it eastlike diel fan it Sweedske Ryk. Dat betsjut ek dat it Sweedsk oant doe ta de oerhearskjende taal wie. Letter waard it Finsk de wichtichste taal yn Finlân. Sawol de Fryske as de Finlânsweedske literatuer wiene lykwols net fêstige foar de njoggentjinde iuw. Dat feroaret pas yn de Romantyk, foar in diel fanwege de idealen út dy tiid, mar ek om politike redenen. Troch de earderneamde romans te analysearjen, lit Oetze Deelstra sjen hoe’t de minderheden fan beide lannen eins yn tsjinstelde situaasjes operearje. De Sweedsktalige befolking fan Finlân is faak, en wurdt no noch hieltyd, besjoen as de boppeklasse. Yn Fryslân soe oan ’e oare kant in iuwenâlde lanboutradysje bewarre bleaun wêze. Dizze opfettings hawwe wichtich west foar de byldfoarming fan beide minderheden. In opfallend ferskil is dat de Fryske literatuer fan de eigen taal út definiearre wurdt, wylst de Finlânsweedske literatuer karakterisearre wurdt troch politike en ideologyske útgongspunten.

Sweden and Finland were one country for more than 600 years and there are many remaining links between the two countries. Throughout the period, but even today there are Swedish and Finnish populations on both sides of the Gulf of Bothnia. When Russia conquered the Finnish part of the country in 1809, the state and its population were separated and the situations for the language groups changed and developed differently in Sweden and Finland. During the period studied in this thesis, 1866-1939, a new type of nation emerged in Europe, based on versions of nationalism constructed on ethnicity and language. Elementary schools played an important role in this nation building, spreading the mother language and the nation’s history. Elementary school textbooks were designed in relation to nation building, language and ethnic identification. The thesis compares how Swedish and Finland-Swedish textbooks describe ethnicity and common history in Sweden and Finland in a period of nationalism. The main aim of the thesis is to compare how two textbooks-traditions describes their Swedish and Finnish populations and if, or how, the textbook history is to be seen as related to these descriptions. The textbooks examined were written for elementary schools from 1866-1939 to be used in the teaching of history and geography. The research question focuses on descriptions of Swedes and Finns and whether it is possible to see differences in the nation’s historiography. Patterns of reproduction or transformation are also analysed in the textbooks. In the study 105 textbooks were examined and the quotations from the textbooks connected to the aim are sorted and analysed using Critical Discourse Analysis. The results show that Finns are rendered invisible in Swedish history textbooks. The geography textbooks describe Swedes as cultural and civilised with a peace-loving national character, while Finns are described as uncultured, peripheral and stubborn. This pattern is similar in Swedish and Finland-Swedish geography textbooks. At the beginning of the study it is a positive stubbornness, portrayed as brave and truthful to Sweden. Later on, the stubborn Finn is described negatively as old-fashioned and clinging to old habits. The Swede´s are described as more flexible through time; they have refined their national character and developed cultivation and democracy. The historiography differs in what is described, and how. One example is that the Finns´ contribution to the common country is quite hard to find in the textbooks. Swedish textbooks also seem to want to steal the honour from any Finnish success by placing Swedish ethnicity before Finnish national identity in cases where Swedish-speaking Finns have done great things. These types of descriptions are both reproduced and transformed as the actual relations between Finland and Sweden change and it is obvious that textbook history does not tell about the past but rather the story that the present wants to propagate.

This article discusses how the relationship between the institution producing texts and the intended reader of the text is construed in Swedish institutional texts about pensions from both Sweden and Finland. The texts are published in 2012 by Pensionsmyndigheten, the Swedish Pensions Agency, and Kela, the social security institution in Finland. The theoretical framework of the study is systemic-functional linguistics (see Halliday & Matthiessen 2004). The article studies what lexicogrammatic alterms are used to name the institution and the reader, what processes the institution and the reader are participants in and what ergative roles the institution and the reader are assigned in the processes.The results show that there are differences between the texts in all three cases. For example, in the Swedish texts the most common ergative role for both the institution and the reader is Medium, followed by Beneficiary and Agent. In the Finland-Swedish texts, however, the institution is most commonly Agent, followed by Medium and Beneficiary, whereas the reader is most commonly construed as Beneficiary, followed by Medium and Agent. The results show that the relationship between the institution and the reader is construed as more explicitly asymmetrical and authoritative in the Finland-Swedish texts than in the Swedish texts.

The advertising business is often said to favour a modern, innovative language use. This is a statement not easily verified. Newspaper ads are in fact the genre of written language that linguists have paid the least attention to. People writing texts for newspaper ads are individuals representing contemporary language use. Advertisements representing different periods therefore diverge not only regarding the change of style and form advertising undergoes over time, but changes in the language itself also reflect the continuous process of alteration in a speech community. Advertisements and marketing material on the whole, are also read by many individuals who otherwise are not accustomed to reading at all. The marketing manager, the copywriter and the Art Director, in other words, produce texts that unconsciously function as language models. Changes are not created by, or urged on by linguistic expertise, but by ordinary users confronting other ordinary users. From a sociolinguistic perspective the widely diffused advertising language is therefore a most influential factor.

Reklam sägs använda ett modernt, gärna ett nyskapande språk. Detta är ett påstående som inte så lätt kan verifieras. Tidningsannonsen är troligen den skriftspråksgenre som har fått minst uppmärksamhet av språkforskare. De som skriver texten i en tidningsannons är personer som representerar det samtida språkbruket. Annonser som representerar olika tidsepoker skiljer sig därför från varandra inte bara genom att annonsen förändras i fråga om stil och form. Annonsens språk avspeglar också den språkliga förändringsprocess som kontinuerligt pågår i varje språksamhälle. Annonser, och marknadsföringsmaterial över huvud taget, läses också av många människor som i övrigt läser mycket litet eller kanske inte alls. Marknadsföraren, reklamskribenten (copywriter) och AD:n producerar m.a.o. texter som på ett omedvetet sätt kommer att vara språkmodeller för sina läsare. Förändringar i språket kreeras inte och drivs inte på av språkforskare, utan av vanliga språkbrukare i interaktion med andra språkbrukare. Sett ur ett sociolingvistiskt perspektiv har det vitt spridda reklamspråket därför inflytande på språket i samhället. Syftet med det reklamspråksprojekt som presenteras i föreliggande rapport är att analysera hur och när förändringar i svenskan som uppträder i Sverige dyker upp i annonser som skrivs på svenska i Finland. Reklam på svenska Finland under 1900-talet står i fokus, och tidningsannonser för Stockmanns varuhus i Helsingfors utgör primärmaterialet. Tidningsannonser för varuhuset Nordiska Kompaniet (NK) i Stockholm under motsvarande tid tjänar som jämförelsematerial. I denna rapport presenteras projektets syfte, de uppställda forskningsfrågorna, och resonemanget illustreras med exempel ur projektmaterialet. Rapporten innehåller också en beskrivning av projektets reklamdatabas och basfakta om material och metoder. The advertising business is often said to favour a modern, innovative language use. This is a statement not easily verified. Newspaper ads are in fact the genre of written language that linguists have paid the least attention to. People writing texts for newspaper ads are individuals representing contemporary language use. Advertisements representing different periods therefore diverge not only regarding the change of style and form advertising undergoes over time, but changes in the language itself also reflect the continuous process of alteration in a speech community. Advertisements and marketing material on the whole, are also read by many individuals who otherwise are not accustomed to reading at all. The marketing manager, the copywriter and the Art Director, in other words, produce texts that unconsciously function as language models. Changes are not created by, or urged on by linguistic expertise, but by ordinary users confronting other ordinary users. From a sociolinguistic perspective the widely diffused advertising language is therefore a most influential factor. The aim of the present project is to analyze how and when changes in standard Swedish emerge in advertisement texts in Swedish in Finland. The basic material for this project consists of advertisements for the Stockmann Departement Store in Helsinki from the entire 20th century. The comparative material includes advertisements from the Swedish Department Store Nordiska Kompaniet (NK) in Stockholm from the corresponding period. In this report the aim of the project and its the basic research questions are presented and the reasoning is illustrated by examples from the collected material. The report also includes a description of the project’s advertisement database and presents facts about the material and methods.

Syftet med denna studie är att analysera avancerade finskspråkiga inlärares uttal av finlandssvenska i fritt tal: vilka är de svåraste inlärningsmålen i S2-uttal (andra- och främmande språk) och hurdana skillnader finns det mellan talare på olika färdighetsnivåer? Därtill undersöks om finskspråkiga lyssnare värderar uttalet på samma sätt som svenskspråkiga lyssnare. S2-talarnas prestationer i en monologuppgift värderas av finskspråkiga och svenskspråkiga lyssnare gällande hur bra talarna kan segment och prosodi i finlandssvenska. Forskning i finskspråkiga talares S2-uttal av finlandssvenska ger oss ett speciellt perspektiv på S2- uttalsinlärning. Eftersom språken liknar varandra fonetiskt bör svårigheterna inte vara alltför stora och inlärningen av ett inföddliknande uttal kan anses vara ett realistiskt mål. Uttalet sägs ju vara ett av de svåraste inlärningsmålen i S2 särskilt om inlärningen inte påbörjats mycket tidigt. Resultaten visar att S2-uttalet präglas av segmentella och prosodiska avvikelser även på de högsta färdighetsnivåerna. Skillnaderna mellan färdighetsnivåerna är störst i segment och satsprosodi. De svenskspråkiga lyssnarna är striktare i sina värderingar än de finskspråkiga lyssnarna. Utöver det teoretiska värdet för S2-uttalsinlärningsmodellerna kan resultaten utnyttjas i språkundervisning och i värdering av muntliga språkfärdigheter. This study examines advanced Finnish-speaking learners’ pronunciation of Finland-Swedish in free speech: what are the greatest difficulties in L2 (second and foreign language) pronunciation and how do speakers on different proficiency levels differ? Furthermore, it is of interest whether Finnish-speaking and Swedish-speaking listeners differ as pronunciation raters. The L2 speakers’ pronunciation in a monologue task is assessed by Finnish-speaking and Swedish-speaking listeners regarding segmental and suprasegmental features. Research on Finnish-speakers’ L2 pronunciation of Finland-Swedish gives us an interesting perspective on L2 pronunciation learning. Because the languages are phonetically similar, there should be no major difficulties and learning of a native-like pronunciation can be considered a realistic goal. Pronunciation is, however, regarded as one of the most difficult areas in L2 learning, particularly if learning has not been started at an early stage. Results show that L2 pronunciation is characterized by deviations in segments and prosody even on the highest proficiency levels. Differences between the proficiency levels are greatest for segments and sentence prosody. Swedish-speaking listeners give stricter ratings than Finnish-speaking listeners. Besides the theoretical value for L2 pronunciation learning models, the results also benefit language teaching and oral language skills assessment. peerReviewed

The purpose of this study was to investigate if fluently bilingual Finland-Swedish speakers have an accent in their Finnish, and whether this possible accent can be heard by native Finnish listeners. Furthermore, the aim was to investigate what acoustical features characterize a possible accent in the Finnish spoken by Finland-Swedish speakers. To answer these questions two studies were carried out: a listening test with 55 native Finnish listeners who were asked to categorize 20 speakers as native or nonnative speakers of Finnish, and if the speakers were regarded as non-native, how strong the speaker’s accent was: weak, moderate, or strong. The 20 speakers included native Finnish informants (4), Finland-Swedish speakers with Swedish as their L1 (15), and one speaker with Greek as his L1. The results of the listening test show that the Finland-Swedish speaker group is heterogeneous: roughly one-third of the speakers were categorized as native speakers of Finnish, another third of the speakers caused problems for the listeners as the speakers were almost equally often classified as 1) native speaker of Finnish or 2) a speaker with a weak accent. The last third of the speakers was by an overwhelming majority of listeners categorized as non-native Finns. The acoustical analysis shows that the most significant non-Finnish features were shortening of phonologically long syllables in unstressed position, and relatively short rhythmic phrases. peerReviewed