Browsing by Subject "multilingualism"

Adopting the narrative approach of linguistic biographies as the data collection method, this thesis explores the linguistic practices and ideologies of Tibetans living in Finland. Although the presence of many multilingual communities in Finland is known, not many studies on the topic have been done, and there hasn’t been any previous work involving Tibetan speakers. I was curious as to what Tibetans themselves think about their language and the ways to maintain it in an expatriate setting. I came to discover, that the present-day linguistic situation and linguistic attitudes can only be understood through the socio-cultural landscape of consultants’ native Sikkim in India. Through this research I hope to answer two main questions: what are Tibetans’ linguistic ideologies and how do the consultants’ multilingual practices manifest in daily life? The collected data is based on fieldwork interviews conducted with Tibetan consultants. In line with a more inclusive approach towards the linguistic fieldwork, I have tried to present the speakers through their own words, allowing them to speak for themselves. The lives of the consultants have been shaped in the highly multilingual landscape of Sikkim. The linguistic ideologies are deeply rooted within that landscape, but also within the Tibetan Buddhism. Consequently, the puristic ideologies and expectations of a good linguistic performance can sometimes overshadow and hinder Tibetan language learning. However, the demands of the present world are beginning to reshape individuals’ identities, whereby the linguistic performance is not anymore a preclusion for linguistic and ethnic belonging. In the second part of the thesis I analyze how the consultants’ linguistic ideologies have been shaped and what languages have a performative function and in what contexts. I go on to discuss the linguistic practices of the consultants and propose the label ‘translanguaging’ as the most adequate do describe their multilingual performance. The results of the study showcase a multilayered and complex linguistic and social landscape in which Tibetans live. I suggest that the studies geared towards small-scale multilingualism could offer a deeply holistic approach through which to study such landscapes and situations. Which in turn would shine more light on language vitality and its usage. The study’s findings suggest that the vitality of Tibetan language lies in its ability to adapt to the speakers’ world and mix fluidly with other languages. With this work I hope to bring forth the importance of individuals’ ideologies in studying linguistic change and contribute to our understanding of complex multilingual practices.

This thesis reports of a case study exploring the linguistic landscapes of four churches in Helsinki and their official websites. The aim of the study was to explore multilingualism and the status of English in the linguistic landscapes of main tourist destinations in Helsinki. In particular, the study aimed to find out how different languages, particularly English, are used in the linguistic landscape of Finnish tourism, as well as the reasons for this. Simultaneously, it explored the differences between on-site and online linguistic landscapes to find out how they affect visitors’ experiences. The data consist of photographs collected on-site in the four churches and the different language versions of the church websites. The thesis analysed the linguistic landscapes (LL) and virtual linguistic landscapes (VLL) by categorizing the collected data as monolingual or multilingual signs, as well as the appearing language order and the materiality of signs as temporary or permanent. The findings revealed that numerous languages were used in the LL and VLL, but Finnish remained the dominant language, with English, Swedish, and Russian coming in next. The number of languages on the websites was fewer than the number of languages on-site. A noteworthy discovery is that English was used more frequently than Swedish, even though Swedish is one of Finland’s national languages. English was also a common language in these churches since it was used in more temporary signs than permanent signs to transmit most of the current and up-to-date information to visitors. Based on the findings, the LL of the churches are mostly accessible to tourists, but that consistency of the signage could be thought out more thoroughly. With the increasing number of foreign tourists, more language versions of LL can be added, particularly English version, which is the world’s lingua franca. Some LL with grammatical and spelling mistakes can also be appropriately updated in order to provide visitors a better travel experience.

In recent years classrooms in Finland have become increasingly multilingual due to immigration. This has brought forward the need for more multilingual and language aware pedagogy. Multilingual and language aware teaching are emphasized in the National Core Curriculum for Basic Education which means that they should already be part of teachers’ daily practices. However, there is not a lot of research to date on teachers’ beliefs regarding multilingual education in Finland. The aim of this thesis is to investigate teachers’ beliefs about multilingualism as well as their reported multilingual teaching practices. The thesis takes a qualitative approach, and the data was collected using semi-structured interviews. Six comprehensive school language teachers from the greater Helsinki area participated in the study. The results of the study show that in general the teachers had positive beliefs about multilingualism. They were open to bringing students’ varying language repertoires to the classroom and using those as resources for learning. In addition, based on the interview data, it appears that multilingual teaching practices are part of language classrooms in Finland to some degree. However, lack of time and guidance on how to implement multilingual teaching practices were brought up as obstacles for using multilingual pedagogy.

This thesis studies the effects of translanguaging upon the learning satisfaction of students. Translanguaging is a multilingual learning tool that aims to take advantage of students’ full linguistic skills. The thesis focuses on pedagogical translanguaging in classroom learning situations and the effects of such methods upon the wellbeing and satisfaction of students. As per previous studies into translanguaging and children’s development, it is presumable that there is a strong positive correlation between pedagogical translanguaging and learning satisfaction. Previous studies into translanguaging have covered the subject through various academic subject-specific criteria, such as academic achievement or understanding of subject matter. Studies also show that there is a strong correlation between using one’s heritage, or home, language and psychological wellbeing. In this thesis, translanguaging is observed from the perspective of the learning satisfaction model, a model based on the economic customer’s satisfaction model, analysing various perspectives of student engagement, learning interaction, students’ perceived wellbeing, and pedagogical structure. This thesis conducts a systematic literature review of 12 articles covering the various effects of translanguaging in educational environments, all published after the year 2005. The materials used were collected through the Helka database and all explore translanguaging or multilingualism in relation to some aspect of learning, with exploration of the criteria for learning satisfaction. The learning satisfaction model used for analysing the materials is one previously used within educational studies into various aspects of wellbeing. The findings of the literature review show a strong correlation between pedagogical translanguaging and students’ learning satisfaction. Translanguaging in the classroom is shown to positively affect students’ motivation, social interaction, and academic achievement. Translanguaging is also shown to improve both cognitive skills, such as retention, as well as social competences, such as teamwork skills, inclusion, and tolerance. Translanguaging also significantly improved the contextualization of learned material. Furthermore, the findings offer possible reasons for the limited use of translanguaging pedagogies within schools today; many teachers believe to be acting in the students’ favour in enforcing monolingual learning.

During the process of integration into Finnish classrooms, immigrant children and adolescents receive extra support with the official languages of the country, in order to have equal opportunities with their peers whose native language is Finnish or Swedish. Concerning other school subjects, they attend the same number of hours as their Finnish peers for the same purpose of obtaining equal opportunities. Due to historical and cultural reasons Russian-speaking adolescent immigrants, who represent a significant part of people with foreign backgrounds relocating to Finland, have a lower mastery of English than their Finnish peers. For the latter English is not only a school subject but also a highly appreciated means of informal communication. This study aims to collect the opinions of Russian-speaking adolescent new immigrants about their attitudes towards English both as a school subject and as a means of peer communication, to determine the connection between the participants’ level of English and their immediate environment, and to find dependence between their self-perception as English speakers and their general feeling of inclusion into peer groups. The study was based on the questionnaire responses of 24 Russian-speaking adolescents aged 12-17 who immigrated to Finland between 2017-2021. The data were quantitative and were collected via polar, multiple-choice, and Likert scale questions. The results of the study showed that over a third of the participants estimated their English skills as insufficient or non-existing. A strong connection was found between the participants’ evaluation of their English skills, their parents’ English skills, and with availability of books in English or movies without dubbing at home. None of the participants reported receiving supplementary English lessons at school on a permanent basis, and only few of them were given extra help from time to time. The participants’ academic achievements coincided with their degree of ability to communicate in English with their peers in informal situations. All the participants with an unsatisfactory level of English reported sensing discomfort when their peers used English, with almost one-third feeling excluded from communication, with 80% of the participants with unsatisfying English skills assuming they would have more Finnish-speaking friends had they spoken English fluently.

Statistical learning (SL) is a set of cognitive mechanisms which allow an organism to subconsciously pick up recurring patterns from its environment. While research in this field has flourished over the past decades, its relationship with multilingualism remains unclear. Our goal is to estimate the extent of this relationship by comparing individual language skills with the performance in a statistical language learning (SLL) task. For this purpose, we conducted an online experiment to collect information about the participants' linguistic background and to test their SL ability via a Statistically Induced Chunking Recall (SICR) task. Additionally, visual linguistic stimuli were generated to examine how the phonotactic rules of the participants' native tongue would impact SL. In particular, we tested how violating vowel harmony in Finnish affected the performance of participants with different degrees of multilingualism. To measure multilingualism, we created the Multilingualism Score (MS), a multifactorial index designed to gauge one's multilingualism level and to analyse its relationship with the performance in the SICR task. Our results exhibit positive correlation between these two factors, suggesting that multilingualism and SLL are significantly correlated. We also observed overall lower performance associated with the violation of vowel harmony. However, we were not able to establish a clear connection between multilingualism and the performance gap.

Tavoitteet. Varhaiskasvatuksella on merkittävä rooli suomen kielen ja suomalaisen kulttuurin opettamisessa vieraskielisille lapsille (Halme, 2011, s. 86-101). Tämän tutkielman tehtävänä on selvittää ja kuvata keinoja, joilla varhaiskasvattajat voivat tukea vieraskielisen lapsen suomen kielen kehittymistä sekä millaisia kokemuksia varhaiskasvattajilla on suomi toisena kielenä- opetuksen toteuttamisesta. Menetelmät. Tutkimus toteutettiin käyttäen sekä laadullisen että määrällisen tutkimuksen menetelmiä. Aineisto on kerätty kyselylomakkeella, joka jaettiin kahdessa suomi toisena kielenä- opetukseen liittyvässä Facebook-ryhmässä. Aineiston analyysi eteni käyttäen teoriaohjaavaa sisällönanalyysiä sekä luokittelemalla strukturoitujen kysymysten vastauksia taulukoiksi. Kyselyyn vastasi 29 henkilöä. Tulokset ja johtopäätökset. Tulosten perusteella varhaiskasvattajat tukevat vieraskielisten lasten suomen kielen kehittymistä mielestäni monipuolisin keinoin, niin auditiivisia kuin erilaisia visuaalisia keinoja ja menetelmiä hyödyntäen. Suurin osa vastaajista (26/29) oli kuitenkin sitä mieltä, että eri päiväkotien välillä on eroja vieraskielisten lasten suomen kielen tukemiseen liittyen. Vastaajista 12/29 koki suomi toisena kielenä- opetuksen toteuttamisen laadukkaasti ja monipuolisesti mahdottomaksi käytössä olevilla resursseilla. Lisäksi muun muassa aika koettiin liian rajalliseksi vieraskielisten lasten suomen kielen oppimisen tukemiseksi. Kyseessä on siis osittain jopa haastavaksi koettu pedagoginen toiminta, joka on tärkeä ja jopa välttämätön apu ja tuki monelle lapselle varhaiskasvatuksen piirissä. Suomen kielen oppiminen on kuitenkin merkittävä tavoite varhaiskasvatusvuosina ennen koulun aloitusta (Pitkäranta, 2016, s. 4).