L2-ruotsin lausepainon sanallinen kuvaaminen – menetelmällisiä käänteitä ääntämisen arviointiin

In this study, we explore how sentence stress is described in pronunciation assessment. The data, also used in two previous studies, consist of listener ratings of Finnish-speaking learners’ pronunciation in read-aloud and free speech. The listeners rated the speakers’ pronunciation on segmental and suprasegmental level on a numeric scale and verbally. Typical descriptions of sentence stress in the data focus on specific error categories and general comments. The sentence stresses that were assessed with the lowest ratings were often described in more detail than those with higher ratings. According to the raters’ comments, the sentence stresses that got the lowest ratings typically occurred too often or not often enough. The sentence stresses with the highest ratings were also described with positive comments. There were differences between the rater groups when it comes to the amount of comments and the proportion of specific and general comments. Differences between read-aloud and free speech concerned the proportion of general comments and the frequency of too many stressed words. The results can be utilized in pronunciation assessment, as assessing pronunciation is often considered challenging.

Aktivistinen kielimaisema: pilottitutkimus

Urban linguistic landscapes consist of various kinds of signs in different languages, together transmitting a myriad of messages to the people living in, visiting or passing through the city. Official authorities are the authors of some signs, e.g. street names and tourist information, while businesses operating on a local or global level are the authors of other signs, e.g. advertisements and information about opening hours. In addition, individual persons or groups of people give their input to the urban linguistic landscapes, e.g. by attaching a sticker to a bus stop or writing a slogan on a park bench. The current article explores this third, unofficial layer of the urban linguistic landscape, and the topics, discourses and ideologies it encompasses. Through a pilot study of the activist linguistic landscapes at two railway stations in Helsinki, the article discusses the methodological underpinnings of this kind of linguistic landscape research.

A Making project at school as a nexus of practice

Despite an abundance of research on collaboration between participants with different disciplinary backgrounds, there is less research available on researchers’ reflections on their working process. This study sheds light on the interdisciplinary work of a research group in the context of a Making project involving design and digital fabrication at school. Nexus analysis is used as a research strategy. The research material includes researchers’ reflective writing, a video recording of their group discussion and their participatory observations throughout their longstanding collaboration surrounding the short-term Making project. The findings highlight the diversity and roles of the key social actors, and how their historical bodies and discourses in place related to doing research in academia are relevant for the actual Making project at school. The study provides implications for methodological development, interdisciplinary work and for carrying out projects with participants beyond university.

Osallisena yhteisessä arjessa

This paper studies what migrant mothers in Finland say about their social relationships, language use and sense of belonging. The main focus of my study is on the mothers’ stories and the factors that they consider relevant for their socialization into the local language and sense of belonging. This longitudinal ethnographic study (2012–2018) explores the case of eleven migrant mothers. The data is analyzed applying nexus analysis (Scollon & Scollon 2004). The study focuses on language socialization and languaging. In everyday contexts, language is understood as a target and it is also used as a central tool in action. The results indicate that multilingual contexts in everyday life are relevant for constructing the sense of belonging since they offer possibility to give and receive social and linguistic support.

Methodological turns in applied language studies

The theme of the AFinLA 2020 Yearbook Methodological turns in applied language studies is discussed in this introductory article from three interrelated perspectives, variously addressed in the three plenary presentations at the AFinLA Autumn Symposium 2019 as well as in the thirteen contributions to the yearbook. In the first set of articles presented, the authors examine the role and impact of technological development on the study of multimodal digital and non-digital contexts and discourses and ensuing new methods. The second set of studies in the yearbook revisits issues of language proficiency, critically discussing relevant concepts and approaches. The third set of articles explores participation and participatory research approaches, reflecting on the roles of the researcher and the researched community.

“Nice to get to know you”

Virtual exchange comprises online collaborative activities in facilitated, educational contexts across borders. This paper offers a multimodal approach to the study of social presence in students’ asynchronous online discourse in the context of virtual exchange. It draws on the Community of Inquiry model of online learning (Garrison 2017) and interprets social presence as the dynamic discursive process of social interaction and self-presentation. The data consists of screenshots collected in a closed Facebook group during the first assignment of a Czech-Finnish virtual exchange project in 2017. The study aims to explore how the method of multimodal discourse analysis can be used to describe the three dimensions of social presence. The students’ self-introductory posts, reactions and comments were examined in three modes of meaning-making: the linguistic, the visual and the action mode. The study offers a model for the qualitative multimodal discourse analysis of social presence construction in asynchronous social media interaction.

Sujuvuustutkimuksen käänteitä

Fluency is a multifaceted concept used in language teaching and language learning research. Fluency is often approached as cognitive, utterance or perceived fluency. This review article focuses on Finnish fluency studies in which fluency has been examined with explicitly defined measures or criteria in a specific language skill. Our goal was to investigate what kinds of methods have been used and which subskills have been studied from the perspective of fluency. We also aimed to identify potential gaps in fluency research. According to our review, Finnish studies on L2 fluency have mostly focused on productive language skills (speaking and writing), while L1 fluency research has mostly focused on reading (dyslexia). Listening fluency has not been studied explicitly. The reviewed studies concerned various languages, populations and employed both quantitative and qualitative methods. We conclude that more research is needed on receptive skills, especially listening, multimodal fluency and fluency in new learning environments.

Kysymys-vastausjaksot myyjän ja asiakkaan etäneuvottelussa

This paper examines technology-mediated sales interaction in which a prospective customer receives a salesperson’s video call in a research laboratory. The paper focusses on the prospect’s requests for information, the salesperson’s answers, and the prospect’s third position receipts. When the prospect asks potentially critical questions, the salesperson tries to maintain a no-problem impression by not attending to the reluctance implied in the customer’s questions. After the salesperson’s answer, an automated analysis of the prospect’s facial expressions reveals emotions of anger and contempt that are, however, not explicated in her verbal response. Simultaneously, a detailed analysis of the sequential organization of conversation specifies the results of the facial expression algorithm: the prospect’s successive and stepwise more critical questions convey that she treats the salesperson’s answers as insufficient. The data consist of two video-recorded business negotiations, supplemented by an automated analysis of the prospect’s facial expressions and galvanic skin response.