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This study investigates prosody and fluency of Finland Swedish as a second language (L2). The main objective is to investigate global measures of prosody and fluency as predictors of overall oral proficiency, fluency, and pronunciation ratings. We analyzed parameters related to temporal fluency, timing (based on syllable durations), and f0 change from spontaneous speech produced by 30 native and 235 non-native speakers of Finland Swedish representing proficiency levels from beginner to intermediate. We used pairwise comparisons to investigate the differences between native speech (L1) and L2 samples from different proficiency levels. To study the predictability of ratings with acoustic parameters, we fitted a multiple linear regression model for each assessed dimension of L2 skills. The comparison of L1 and L2 samples as well as L2 samples with different proficiency and fluency levels showed clear differences in f0 change and fluency parameters. Standard deviation of syllable durations also showed differences with respect to L2 learners’ fluency level. The results for multiple linear regression models, however, indicate contribution of rate-normalized standard deviation of syllable duration to fluency ratings, alongside traditionally used fluency parameters. As for proficiency ratings, f0 slope complemented fluency parameters in the prediction model. The predictive power of the parameters varied depending on the assessed dimension of L2 skills. This study provides new information on the prosodic features of Finland Swedish as a second language and suggests new research on the assessment of non-dominant varieties of pluricentric languages. The results support previous findings on the importance of speed and pausing measures in predicting oral L2 skills. However, further investigation of language-specific f0 and timing parameters as part of automated or computer-assisted speaking assessment is called for. peerReviewed

Domböckerna och den tidigmoderna tiden hör tätt ihop. I denna uppsats undersöks hur historiker och språkhistoriker utnyttjat domboksmaterial i sin forskning. Metoden är historiografisk och jämförande. Uppsatsen visar att historiker ofta varit intresserade av källkritiska aspekter medan språkhistoriker har intresserat sig för frågor förknippade med språklig variation och förändring. Utifrån analysen identifieras tre övergripande teman som är särskilt gynnsamma för ett tvärvetenskapligt samarbete kopplat till domboken som empirisk källa: protokollföring (precision och tillförlitlighet), berättelsenivåer (textstruktur och -mönster) och skrivare (den gemensamma aktören). Court records and the history of the early modern period go hand in hand. Court records are crucial for our knowledge of the period and are the most important set of data for several fields of scholarship. In this article we study how Scandinavian historians and language historians have used court records in their research. In this multidisciplinary synthesis of such historical and historical linguistic research in Finland and Sweden, the focus is research mainly in Finnish and Swedish but also in English, published between 1950 and 2020, but weighted towards the twenty-first century. We show that historians have often been interested in source criticism whereas language historians concentrate on the question of linguistic variation and change. We identify three major themes that are fruitful for multidisciplinary collaborations between historians and linguists who rely on court records as a source: the records (their accuracy and reliability), the discource levels (the records’ textual structures and patterns), and the scribes (the common denominator). The study emphasises the multidisciplinary dimensions of court record research; the researcher should preferably be alert to the theoretical and analytical discussions in both disciplines and draw on one another’s expertise. The article is an outcome of ”City scribes in the kingdom of Sweden in the early modern period (1614–1714): Their profession, agency and use of language”, a multidisciplinary research project at the University of Jyväskylä, Finland, financed by the Kone Foundation for the period 2020–2024. peerReviewed

The aim of this intervention study was to explore how the emphasised use of self-assessment in Swedish language classes affects ninth graders’ perceptions of self-regulated learning and their self-assessments in Finland. The dataset includes the survey responses of 36 students and their written self-assessments. The results suggest that the quality of the self-assessments increased during the intervention, although the level of reflection was still superficial. The students exhibited more positive perceptions of their skills in self-regulated learning at the end of the intervention. The results indicate that incorporating self-assessment into teaching boosts students’ perceptions of self-regulated learning and enhances the quality of their self-assessments. Swedish language teachers should consider the extent to which they use self-assessment in courses and whether their practices could be adjusted to promote reflection and self-regulated learning. peerReviewed

Kolmen yliopiston yhteisessä tutkimushankkeessa selvitetään ruotsinopettajaksi ja kielikylpyopettajaksi opiskelevien ajatuksia tulevaisuudesta kielen ammattilaisena. nonPeerReviewed

Artikkelissa tarkastellaan maahanmuuton kielikysymyksiä Unkarista Suomeen ja Ruotsiin työllistyneiden terveydenhuollon ammattilaisten näkökulmasta. Neksusanalyyttisessä viitekehyksessä tutkitaan sitä investointia, jonka nämä työntekijät tekevät oppiakseen uutta, työssä tarvitsemaansa kieltä eli suomea tai ruotsia. Tutkimusasetelma on pitkittäinen, ja analyysi perustuu terveydenhuollon ammattilaisten sekä muutamien kielikoulutuksesta ja rekrytoinnista vastaavien henkilöiden haastatteluihin. Kirjoittajat aloittivat omat tutkimuksesta itsenäisesti mutta yhdistivät voimansa ennen toista aineistonkeruukierrosta. Tämän myötä analyysissa voitiin kattaa useampia kulttuurisia ja ajallisia ulottuvuuksia. Kaiken kaikkiaan kahdeksalle vuodelle yltävä ajanjakso avaakin näkymiä niin valmistautumisvaiheeseen ja kaikkiin niihin pelkoihin ja toiveisiin, joita kuviteltuun tulevaisuuteen liittyy, kuin myös muuton jälkeiseen elettyyn todellisuuteen kahdessa eri Pohjoismaassa ja toisella kielellä työskentelyyn siellä. Tulokset osoittavat, että suomen tai ruotsin kielen oppimiseen investoiminen kietoutuu tiiviisti maastamuuttopäätökseen. Investoinnin mielekkyys puolestaan todentuu sen myötä, kun legitiimi asema toisen kielen käyttäjänä ja yhteisön jäsenenä vähitellen saavutetaan. Niin aiemmat elämänkokemukset, kansainväliset rekrytointikäytänteet, kielipoliitikka kuin kieli-ideologiatkin vaikuttavat prosessiin. Esimerkiksi aiemmat työolot ja kokemukset kansainvälisestä liikkuvuudesta sekä lähtömaassa tarjottava maksuton kielikoulutus vaikuttavat ratkaisevasti muuttopäätökseen. Sekä viralliset että käytännön ammatillisessa arjessa koetut kielitaitovaatimukset ovat niin ikään merkittäviä tekijöitä: stressiä ja riittämättömyyden tunteita koetaan etenkin alussa jopa siinä määrin, että osa päätyy luovuttamaan. Toisaalta työskentely toisella kielellä käy koko ajan sujuvammaksi; tietoisuus oman kielitaidon kehittymisestä ja kollegoilta eri tilanteissa saatu kielellinen tuki koetaan erityisen merkityksellisiksi. Työpaikan vuorovaikutustilanteet ovatkin keskeisesti muovaamassa yksilöiden ammatti-identiteettiä työperusteisen maahanmuuton kontekstissa. This article investigates the interrelationship of migration and language in the context of the migration experience of healthcare workers migrating from Hungary to Finland and Sweden and becoming speakers of Finnish or Swedish in the process. A nexus analytical approach is applied in studying the investment of the healthcare workers in learning a new language for work. The analysis is based on interviews made with individuals either participating in or facilitating labour migration. The findings show that the investment in learning a new language in a labour migration context is intertwined with the migration decision itself, and the migrants usually realise a return on this investment while becoming legitimate second language speakers and community members. Individual life histories, global recruitment practices, language policies and language ideologies influence the process. The communicative situations at the workplace play a crucial role in reconstructing professional identities in this context. peerReviewed

Lektio soveltavan kielitieteen oppiaineeseen sijoittuvan väitöskirjan tarkastustilaisuudessa Jyväskylän yliopistossa 24.10.2020. nonPeerReviewed

In this article we present results from a case study of five business professionals and their workplace literacy practices and literacy events. The five interviewees are Swedish-speaking Finns, part of a 5 % minority in Finland, and they live both in the Helsinki capital area and in the Vaasa region. The business professionals work for two anonymized companies: Delta, a global business consultant company, and Zeta, a Scandinavian bank. Our theoretical framework is New literacy studies (Barton 2007/1994). All the interviewees use at least three languages at their work: their mother tongue Swedish, their second language Finnish (both are national languages in Finland), and English. High skills of both national languages are needed to perform the work tasks, and national languages are used more than English. The writing tasks are diverse and connected to the specialized work tasks of each employee, with the exception of e-mails that all interviewees write daily. The language choices are influenced by several factors, among them the language preferences of the recipient and the task at hand. Evidently, the companies have managed to make the best use of the language skills of the interviewees.

This article explores the language practices and choices of four teachers in a co-located kindergarten in Finland. Following Finland’s official bilingualism, the education system is built on two tracks –Finnish and Swedish. As official languages of Finland, the two languages share the same status, but since Finnish is the registered language of the vast majority of the population, Swedish can be seen as a de facto minority language –one reason why Swedish education has been seen as an important space for maintaining Swedish language and culture. This constitutes an important perspective for research on Finnish and Swedish early childhood education units that are located in the same building. In this article, the language practices and choices of four kindergarten teachers are examined.The teachers workedin different groups: two of them in Swedish groups and two in Finnish groups. These teachers’ everyday activities were observed and recorded,and the teachers were interviewed about their language practices and choices. Through data source and methodological triangulation, this article illustrates how the teachers worked side by side in collaboration and across language borders, and thus created a feeling of community between the Finnish and Swedish groups. Sharing some of the spaces and activities broadened the space and made it more bilingual. At the same time, the teachers’ language practices gave extra support to Swedish, which was used not only in the Swedish groups but also with bilinguals in the Finnish groups. peerReviewed

This article is about navigating asylum, employment and language policy in a new country as an asylum seeker. Through the story of one individual, we show that profound inequalities are exacerbated when forced migrants are limited in their choice of language they might study or use. The individual is Tailor F, an Iraqi man seeking asylum, and the country is Finland, officially bilingual, with a majority language (Finnish) and a minority language (Swedish). Finland’s official bilingualism does not extend evenly to language education provided for asylum seekers, who are taught Finnish regardless of the region where they are placed. Upon arrival, Tailor F was housed in a reception centre for asylum seekers located in a Swedish-dominant rural area of the country. Through our linguistic ethnography we examine how he navigates multilingually in his early settlement, his current work and his online life. We relate his story to explicit and implicit official bilingualism in Finland and discuss his lived experiences in relation to the contexts of asylum policy and employment. Tailor F’s story shows how, through his practices, he has contested implicit language policy for asylum seekers in order to gain membership of the local Swedish-dominant community, achieve a sense of belonging, and potentially realise his aspirations for the future.

Kieliparipäiväkodit, -koulut ja -kampukset sekä kaksikielinen koulutus suomeksi ja ruotsiksi ovat herättäneet keskustelua jo reilun vuosikymmenen ajan. Kieliparitoiminta suomen- ja ruotsinkielisten yksiköiden välillä voi tarjota mahdollisuuksia monenlaiseen yhteistyöhön ja monikieliseen työskentelyyn. Samalla suomenkielisten määrällinen enemmistöasema voi aiheuttaa haasteita ennen kaikkea ruotsin kielen näkökulmasta, vaikka kielillä onkin sama asema kansalliskielinä. Väitöskirjassani tarkastelen erään kieliparipäiväkodin kielipolitiikkaa, kansallisten ohjausdokumenttien vaikutusta kielipolitiikkaan sekä päiväkodin varhaiskasvattajien kielellistä toimintaa. Tutkimustulokseni osoittavat, että toiminta päiväkodissa pohjautui sekä rinnakkaiseen yksikielisyyteen että dynaamisempaan kaksikielisyyteen. Kieliparipäiväkodit voivatkin tarjota mahdollisuuden hedelmälliselle yhteistyölle, mikäli yhteistyö suunnitellaan hyvin molemmat kielet ja konteksti huomioon ottaen., Co-located kindergartens, schools, and campuses as well as bilingual education in Finnish and Swedish have been discussed lively over a decade. Co-located kindergartens and schools can create possibilities for co-operation and multilingualism. At the same time, co-locations can be seen as challenging from the point of view of Swedish language. Despite the equal status as national languages, Finnish can be seen as de facto majority language. In my doctoral thesis, I examined the language policy of a co-located kindergarten as well as the possible effect that national steering documents have on kindergarten’s language policy. In addition, I examined the language use of the teachers. The results show actions that were based on both parallel monolingualism and more dynamic bilingualism. Thus, co-located kindergartens can be seen as a possibility for fruitful co-operation between the units if the co-operation is planned well and both languages and the context are taken into consideration.

Pääkirjoitus 3/2022

Digitaaliset kielikokeet ovat nykypäivää muun muassa ylioppilastutkinnossa, ja lähes jokaisessa oppilaitoksessa on jonkinlainen digitaalinen oppimis- ja opetusalusta. Tekniikka on mullistanut kielitaidon testaamisen ja harjoittelun, mutta täysin automaattiset suullisen kielitaidon kokeet ovat vielä harvinaisia kansainvälisestikin. Tekoäly on kuitenkin arkipäiväistymässä monilla elämänalueilla, ja se herättää monenlaisia mielikuvia ja pohdintaa sen vaikutuksista ja eettisyydestä. Artikkelissa kartoitamme ja analysoimme ihmisarvioijien näkemyksiä digitaalisesti toteutetusta arviointiprosessista, jossa keräsimme ihmisarvioijilta arvioita suomen ja ruotsin puhenäytteisiin. Tutkimme myös arviointikierroksille osallistuneiden näkemyksiä suullisen kielitaidon automaattisesta arvioinnista. Kolmas tutkimuskysymyksemme (ks. luku 2) liittyy tehtävänannon ja puheen ulottuvuuksiin, joita puhesuorituksista arvioidaan. Tutkimus on osa DigiTala-tutkimushanketta (Kautonen & von Zansen 2020), jossa kehitetään puheentunnistusta, automaattista puheen arviointia sekä automaattista palautetta suomen ja ruotsin oppijoille (von Zansen ym. arvioitavana). Automatiikka lisää mahdollisuuksia puheen itsenäiseen harjoitteluun (von Zansen ym. arvioitavana). Suurissa ja tärkeissä (high-stakes) kokeissa se voi toimia ihmisarvioinnin tukena, vähentää arvioijien työtaakkaa sekä lisätä arvioinnin objektiivisuutta. Ihmisen tekemään arvioon voivat vaikuttaa esimerkiksi erilaiset testattavan yksilölliset tai kielelliset piirteet, kuten aksentteihin liittyvät ennakkokäsitykset (Halonen ym. 2020). Nykynäkemyksen mukaan arviointiin osallistuvien monien toimijoiden välinen tiedonkulku ja dialogi ovat tärkeitä laadukkaalle arvioinnille. Näitä osallisia (stakeholders) ovat niin laatijat ja käyttäjät kuin arvioitavatkin (Hidri 2020), ja kaikkien osapuolten näkemykset on syytä huomioida jo arviointivälineiden kehittelyvaiheessa. Arvioijien tai edes opettajien käsityksiä automaattisesta suullisen kielitaidon arvioinnista ei tietojemme mukaan ole aikaisemmin tutkittu. Tutkimustiedon avulla voimme kehittää automaattisen arvioinnin menetelmiä oikeudenmukaisiksi ja käyttökelpoisiksi. This study investigated human raters’ perceptions of automated assessment of oral language skills. The raters (n = 37) participated in three assessment rounds organized by the DigiTala research project using Moodle and Zoom. The raters assessed Finnish and Swedish learners’ speech samples using one holistic and five analytical rating scales created in the project. After the assessment, the raters responded to a questionnaire that included Likert-scale and open-ended questions. Numerical responses were analyzed with descriptive statistics, open responses with content analysis. The raters think that automated scoring could support human rating. The assessment rounds were carried out successfully. The selected dimensions proved to be essential parts of the speaking performances. The results will benefit those working on automated assessment and oral language assessment. peerReviewed

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This retrospective review applies a language socialisation perspective in examining the findings of a four-year research project on Swedish immersion in Finland. Findings from nine sub-studies within the project are reported with a point-of-view from three key actors’ (teachers, students, and parents) language socialisation processes. Results show that a special feature of immersion teacher socialisation is its continuous attention toward the additive multilingual nature of immersion education, which requires sustained attention to multilingual language use and development. Students in Swedish immersion are socialised into the use of multiple languages in school and act as socialisation agents also outside school. They bring the immersion language to their homes and influence the family language use. Immersion may thus have a considerable influence on how majority language speakers self-identify as language users. Altogether, the sub-studies demonstrate that the benefits of immersion education extend well beyond learning success of students.

Kielibuusti-hanke selvitti syksyllä 2021 korkeakoulujen kansainvälisille tutkinto-opiskelijoille ja kansainväliselle henkilökunnalle tarjottavan kotimaisten kielten opetuksen ja oppimisen tuen tämänhetkistä tilannetta. Kyselystä raportoitiin opintohallinnon näkökulmasta Kieli, koulutus ja yhteiskunta -lehden maaliskuun 2022 numerossa. Tämä artikkeli tarkastelee korkeakoulujen tarjoamaa kotimaisten kielten oppimisen tukea koulutuksen järjestäjien ja opetussuunnitelmien toteuttajien, opettajien, näkökulmasta. nonPeerReviewed

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In this study, we used the Many-facet Rasch measurement (MFRM) to explore the quality of ratings as well as the functioning of five analytic rating scales developed for automated assessment of L2 speech. This study is part of a multidisciplinary research project that develops automatic speech recognition (ASR), automated scoring and automated feedback for L2 Finnish and Swedish. The data include the analytic ratings (task completion, fluency, pronunciation, range, accuracy) gathered from human raters (n=14) who assessed L2 Finnish learners’ (n=64) speech samples using Moodle. The four-facet Rasch analysis showed that the raters performed and the rating scales functioned well, although task completion seems to be more challenging to apply consistently than the other criteria. Moreover, it proved to be more difficult to receive a certain score on some dimensions, namely fluency and range, than others. The study has implications for score reporting. We demonstrated that a) the different analytical rating scales have somewhat different structure, b) scores do not advance with equal intervals and c) a certain score on a certain dimension might require a bigger leap forward in ability than on other dimensions. The results will be used for designing encouraging and accurate automated feedback to L2 Finnish and Swedish learners. peerReviewed

The chapter discusses discourses of “language” indexing social tasks of universities. We are interested in how talk of “language” is used to index the political, economic, educational, cultural etc. nature of higher education; in other words, what we talk about when we think we talk about language. We are mainly focusing on the position Swedish in the tensions of national language policies, higher education policies and internationalisation. In the chapter, we show the various ways in which higher education policies and language policies are intertwined, producing both intended and unintended language policy outcomes. peerReviewed

Kirja-arvostelu

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This study describes a pilot attempt to use acoustically determined sentence stress in distinguishing native and L2 speakers of Finland Swedish at different proficiency levels. The study is part of the DigiTala project that examines and develops automatic tools for spoken L2 assessment. Stressed syllables were detected in 235 L2 and 30 L1 speech samples using combinations of f0, intensity, and duration. Differences were found in the relative number of stressed syllables between native and L2 speakers using f0 and duration or all three features. Further research with more consistent speech data is needed to establish reliable automatic measures of sentence stress. nonPeerReviewed

Arvioidut teokset: Marika Tandefelt (toim.): Finländsk svenska från medeltid till 1860. Svenskan i Finland – i dag och i går III:1. Helsinki: Svenska litteratursällskapet i Finland 2019. 416 s. isbn 978-951-583-456-0. Marika Tandefelt (toim.): Finländsk svenska från 1860 till nutid. Svenskan i Finland – i dag och i går III:2. Helsinki: Svenska litteratursällskapet i Finland 2019. 458 s. isbn 978-951-583-457-7.