Browsing by master's degree program "Englannin kielen ja kirjallisuuden maisteriohjelma"

The aim of this study is to investigate the use of topic management practices of Finnish upper- secondary school students in an English paired speaking test. Their proficiency is at level B according to the CEFR scales. Important keywords in the thesis are interactional competence, topic management, co-constructed fluency, spoken language and FUSE. The data consists of transcribed recordings taken from the FUSE corpus (Finnish upper secondary students corpus of spoken language). The recording are conversations from a paired speaking test for the spoken English course 8 in upper-secondary school. The research questions are how do Finnish upper secondary school students manage topics during a paired speaking test and how are the topic management practices related to the assessed proficiency level of the students? The categories used to analyze the conversations are topic initiation, extending own topic and extending other’s topic, as well as closing a topic. I analyzed the data by marking all instances of topic management practices in an excel document and compared it to Galaczi’s study (2014) on differences between proficiency levels in topic management practices. The findings reveal that higher proficiency-level students demonstrate more extended and coherent conversations, while lower proficiency-level speakers tend to have abrupt and monologic interactions. The study emphasizes the importance of considering the rater's role in testing situations and suggests further exploration of non-verbal markers in topic closings. It aligns with previous research highlighting the complexity of interactional competence and challenges the notion of standardized scales for assessing interactional behavior. The results also point to the need for a more comprehensive understanding of spoken language fluency, urging further research on topic management practices and teaching methods. The study suggests that open-ended tasks are more beneficial for developing interactional skills, emphasizing the importance of incorporating interactional practices in language learning. The assessment of co-constructed fluency is crucial for holistic language learning, promoting effective communication and linguistic knowledge application.

This study examines the phenomenon of Foreign Language Anxiety (FLA) in the Finnish lower and upper secondary school EFL classrooms from the teacher’s point of view. The purpose of the study is to find out how current lower secondary and upper secondary school EFL teachers in Finland view the phenomenon and how their possible previous personal experiences with FLA might inform their current teaching strategies. The study simultaneously examines the attitudes and beliefs of the teachers towards the phenomenon in order to answer the research questions it proposes. The study is inherently qualitative in nature as it uses as its primary data interviews of seven English teachers teaching at schools around Finland. The semi-structured interviews conducted for the study probed into the thoughts of the participants in order to gain insight into their beliefs and teaching strategies. By means of a thematic analysis of the data, multiple common themes were identified in relation to the symptoms of FLA as well as strategies to deal with FLA. The opinions the teachers had on these strategies differed somewhat when it came to matters such as accommodation and pushing students dealing with FLA to participate in activities. One out of the seven teachers who took part in the study shared that they had experienced FLA in the past which made possible a contrastive analysis between the practices and attitudes of teachers who had and those who had not had previous personal experiences of FLA. The results of the study concluded that the teacher who had had previous personal experience with FLA was more hesitant to push the students outside of their comfort zone and preferred to be more flexible when it came to their teaching strategies as well as ways of assessment. Next to this, it was clear that the majority of the teachers, even if they had not had previous personal experiences with the phenomenon, were still willing to learn about the topic and how to deal with it. This was evident in the way that all of the teachers agreed that FLA should be taught about more, both to future teachers as well as current teachers. Future studies should investigate this phenomenon from the point of view of the student, as well as in the context of the Finnish EFL classroom at large.

My thesis discusses the use of a fantasy-themed escape room as a learning environment for English as a foreign language classroom. Games, especially roleplaying games, have been the target of many studies and they have been shown to increase motivation, create new language scenarios and contexts as well as promote interaction between students and the gaming environment. However, the digital educational gaming industry in Finland is in its infancy. My study centers around piloting a digital fantasy-themed escape room called “The Mage’s Hut”, and this material package functions as the revision material for the course. I set to answer four research questions. The main goal is to find out how well a fantasy themed escape room functions as a learning environment. Secondly, I examine the attitudes of students and the teacher towards the game. Lastly, the fourth research question intends to answer how students’ previous gaming habits affect the gaming experience. I use relevant contemporary literature to examine gaming trends among Finnish upper secondary school students as well as delve deeper into the benefits of gamification used in formal contexts. This includes literature on roleplaying games as well as escape rooms and their utilization in formal educational contexts. The research design includes a digital fantasy-themed escape room that I have created based on the course material provided by Insights 5 -book by Otava for ENA5 course. The participants of the study included 26 Finnish upper secondary schoolers and their teacher. To gather the data, two questionnaires were constructed – one for students and one for the teacher. Twenty of the students responded to the questionnaire. The method for the study includes both qualitative and quantitative aspects. The questionnaires were analyzed by close-reading and were transformed into numerical values providing an easy way to compare results with each other. The results indicate that the attitudes of the students as well as the teacher towards the game are positive. The teacher and most of the students enjoyed playing the game and would like to see more similar games utilized in education. The game was deemed to be quite challenging, but it did not seem to negatively affect the game’s enjoyability or reported development of skills. These skills included vocabulary, grammar, reading comprehension, teamwork, information retrieval, logical and critical thinking. On the contrary, the students who deemed the game to be quite challenging reported more skills developed overall. The gaming habits of the students influenced the results partly. The students were categorized to non-gamers, casual gamers, active gamers, and hardcore gamers. Casual gamers, those with one to five hours of game time per week, reported developing the most skills out of all other groups. On the other hand, casual gamers reported the game as quite challenging the most. Therefore, it is not certain whether it is the difficulty or the game time that facilitates the development of the skills. Even though the majority of all groups reported enjoying the game, casual gamers reported the highest enjoyment rate. What we can gather from this study is that digital fantasy-themed escape rooms function well as a learning environment. The game corresponds to the learning objectives set by the Finnish curriculum and the teacher. Furthermore, the students felt that learning took place while playing the game. Both aspects of the game, the fantasy theme and the mechanics of an escape room were enjoyed, further reinforcing the previous knowledge on the functionality of roleplaying games in formal educational contexts.

Tämän tutkielman aiheena on sukupuoliolettamukset, joita tehdään anonyymeista sosiaalisen median käyttäjistä. Aihetta tarkasteltiin kyselyn avulla, johon vastasi 106 osallistujaa. Kysely sisälsi 20 näytettä sosiaalisesta mediasta kerätyistä viesteistä. Osallistujien tehtävä oli päättää, uskovatko he kirjoittajan olevan mies, nainen, vai muunsukupuolinen. Osallistujilla oli myös vaihtoehtona olla valitsematta kirjoittajan sukupuolta, jos viestissä ei heidän mielestään ollut selviä merkkejä kirjoittajan sukupuolesta tai jos viestissä oli liikaa eriäviä sukupuolistereotyyppisiä piirteitä antamaan selkeää kuvaa kirjoittajan sukupuolesta. Lisäksi osallistujille annettiin mahdollisuus kirjoittaa omin sanoin, mitkä piirteet viestissä johtivat heidät valitsemaansa vaihtoehtoon. Yksi tutkielman tavoitteista oli selvittää, vaikuttaako se, miltä sivustolta viesti on peräisin, ihmisten olettamuksiin kirjoittajan sukupuolesta. Kyselyssä käytetyt viestit kerättiin neljältä eri sivustolta, jotka olivat Twitter, Reddit, Tumblr ja 4chan. Kysely jaettiin viiteen eri osioon. Ensimmäisessä osiossa viestien lähdettä ei kerrottu osallistujille. Loput neljä osiota sen sijaan oli varattu kullekin aiemmin mainituista sivustoista, ja viestien lähde tuli osallistujille ilmi osion otsikosta ja selitteestä. Jokaisen sivustolle osoitetun osion lopussa osallistujia pyydettiin kertomaan, käyttävätkö he sivustoa ja minkälainen sukupuolijakauma heidän näkemyksensä mukaan sivustolla on. Kyselyn tulosten perusteella ihmiset tekevät sukupuoliolettamuksia anonyymeista kirjoittajista perustuen stereotyyppisiin näkemyksiin sukupuolten erilaisesta käyttäytymisestä. Vahvimpia kielellisiä merkkejä, jotka johtivat osallistujat uskomaan viestin kirjoittajan olevan nainen, olivat emojien käyttö, tunneilmaisut (esim. ”I love”, ”it’s sad”) ja kohteliaisuus. Sen sijaan pilkkaava kielenkäyttö ja aggressio nähtiin merkkeinä mieskirjoittajasta. Vaikka kiroilu nähtiin pääasiassa maskuliinisena piirteenä, myös moni viesti, jonka uskottiin olevan naisen kirjoittama, sisälsi kiroilua. Viestien aiheella oli usein jopa suurempi merkitys osallistujien mielikuvaan kirjoittajan sukupuolesta kuin lingvistisillä piirteillä. Tulokset antoivat myös viitteitä ihmisten käsityksistä siitä, miten muunsukupuolisuus voi ilmetä tekstistä. Viestit, joissa puhuttiin avoimesti sukupuoli-identiteeteistä ja niiden moninaisuudesta, osoittautuivat merkittävimmiksi indikaattoreiksi muunsukupuolisesta kirjoittajasta. Kuitenkin myös tarkoitukselliseksi koettu sukupuolellisten viitteiden puuttuminen, tai sekoitus eri sukupuolistereotyyppisiä piirteitä (esimerkiksi maskuliiniseksi koettu tyyli puhua feminiinisestä aiheesta) saattoi johtaa osallistujat arvelemaan, että kirjoittaja on muunsukupuolinen. Viestien lähteellä ei ollut suurta merkitystä, kun katsoo tuloksia kokonaisuudessaan. Osallistujien kommenteista kävi kuitenkin ilmi, että yksilöllisellä tasolla mielikuvat sivustojen käyttäjäkunnista vaikuttivat joidenkin osallistujien näkemyksiin kirjoittajan sukupuolesta. Erityisesti 4chanin käyttäjät oletettiin valtaosin miespuolisiksi. Reddit ja Tumblr lähteinä vaikuttivat myös jonkin verran osallistujien olettamuksiin, ellei viestin sisältö poikennut huomattavasti siitä, mitä kyseisten sivustojen käyttäjiltä odotetaan. Lisäksi jotkin viestit, joiden lähdettä ei paljastettu, olivat osalle osallistujista tunnistettavissa tietyn sivuston tyyliseksi, mikä vuorostaan vaikutti heidän olettamuksiinsa kirjoittajan sukupuolesta.

With gender being omnipresent and an inseparable aspect of our identity, misunderstandings and incorrect assumptions about gender are bound to occur in the anonymous settings of social media, where we spend an increasing amount of time. This thesis investigates how misinterpretations of gender are made on Reddit, as well as the (implicit) attitudes redditors communicate having about gender and its expression. In doing so, this research contributes to an unexplored area of language and gender. The data used consists of a selection of comment threads posted in late 2023, where a misinterpretation of a redditor’s gender occurs. A mixed methods approach with an emphasis on qualitative analysis is adopted through approaching the data with corpus-assisted discourse studies. A sample of the original posts, comments, or a combination of the two were analyzed for such linguistic features which in earlier research have been found to be indicative of either binary gender; the purpose is to see how gendered features are used on Reddit. Further, the distribution of the incorrect assumptions was calculated and the discourse following them analyzed to gain an understanding of how gender and its explicit expression is received on the platform. This thesis also investigates how the assumptions were made in terms of use of gendered words. All threads contained gendered features, and all contained both feminine and masculine features, except for one thread, which only contained masculine features. Most often redditors were incorrectly thought to be male, which reflects the general (jocular) understanding that “there are no women on Reddit.” When a correction of a misinterpretation received a response, it was more likely to be accepting than negative. Even so, it was more common not to see any discourse after a correction had been posted, rather than finding it receive either a positive or a negative response. Assumptions were most often gendered nouns (e.g., ‘man,’ ‘girl’) serving a vocative function. The findings show that while redditors generally are at least not unreceptive to being corrected on misgendering others, they do rely on fairly traditional ideas of what constitutes a man or a woman when making their assumptions. Further research is needed for instance to address a greater number of threads or gendered features, or the effect a user’s L1 may have on how gender is approached in anonymous CMC settings.

This thesis investigates adult students’ views on Business English as Lingua Franca (BELF), a topic that has received limited attention in previous research. The theoretical framework explains the concepts of English as Lingua Franca (ELF) and BELF. In addition, BELF is discussed in the context of cross-cultural communication, BELF skills and BELF teaching. The data for this study were collected from adult learners taking part in BELF courses around Finland, either in a higher education organization or in an extracurricular course in a continuous learning institution. The research questions set to find out: 1) how much do the participants use BELF at work, for what purposes and with whom, 2) what do the BELF students consider as their most important reasons to participate in BELF courses, 3) which skills do the participants view as the most essential BELF skills and why, and 4) are there any recurring differences in the participants’ views of the most important BELF skills among the students that took a BELF course on a voluntary versus mandatory basis? The data consists of 63 anonymous online questionnaire responses, including both numerical and open-text data. The numerical data was analysed by using descriptive statistics, whereas analysis triangulation was used for the open-text data by combining qualitative content analysis and descriptive statistics. The results show that almost all adult students (92%) use English at work to some extent. Many participants report that they use English orally (49%), while 25% use it both orally and in written form and 17% use it for writing only. The most common purposes for English usage include 1) searching for information, 2) oral communication (especially with customers) and 3) reading instructions and/or manuals. Mostly, the participants reported to use English either with other English as a foreign language (L2) speakers (41%) or with both L2 speakers and native speakers of English (40%). The most important reasons for participating in a BELF course were: 1) the wish to improve general confidence in English communication situations, 2) obligation, 3) improving oral communication and 4) enhancing professional vocabulary. The BELF skills that were perceived as most important were: 1) achieving mutual comprehension both in oral and written form, 2) understanding different English varieties, 3) the ability to socialize in English, 4) professional vocabulary skills and 5) goal-oriented operational skills (such as asking questions and giving instructions). The participants saw these skills as tools that enable them to communicate effectively with others. Furthermore, the most important BELF skills were considered to be a basic professional skill requirement in the job market. The voluntary course-goers perceived operational, social and written communication skills as the most important BELF skills. In contrast, the mandatory course-goers perceived the skills related to comprehension as the most important. Both groups gave their lowest ratings to the skill of sounding as close to a native speaker as possible in oral communication as well as to negotiation and sales skills. The findings suggest that the most important goal in BELF situations, at least for the study participants, is to achieve mutual comprehension and communicate meaning successfully. This is enabled by having specific types of oral and written communication skills, professional vocabulary and operational skills. Linguistic errors are tolerated and accepted, since BELF is seen primarily as a communication language. This observation is in line with previous literature. Furthermore, BELF skills are considered as success factors in individual BELF communication situations and one of the basic skill competence requirements of modern working life. The findings implicate that BELF is seen as a goal-oriented communication language and successful BELF communication requires both specific and adaptation skills.

This thesis examines the connotations of the adjectives ‘international’ and ‘global’ in English textbooks for upper secondary level Swedish speakers in Finland. The goal is to investigate which kind of ideologically constructed entity does ‘English’ refer to in the textbooks. To narrow down the scope of the thesis, two subservient research questions are addressed: Which kind of internationalism and globalization is ‘English’ associated with in English textbooks, and how is the English language portrayed in English textbooks as part of the internationalization of Finland? The study is situated within the field of language ideologies. To answer the questions, multiple methods are used. A quantitative analysis shows that English is mainly connected to the inner circle and the expanding circle in Braj Bihari Kachru’s model of World Englishes. This means that English is constructed as a national language, the ownership of which belongs to Anglo-American countries (circle one). Moreover, English is also often portrayed as a lingua franca (circle three). Kachru’s circle two, comprised of countries formerly colonized by the United Kingdom, are seldom mentioned. This contributes to the mythification of the English language as naturally spread. Methods developed within cognitive semantics are applied and developed when scrutinizing the connotations of ‘global’ and ‘international’. The meaning of ‘international’ can be depicted as three different schemata: one reflecting the denotation of the word (‘inter’ + ‘national’), another reflecting inbound ‘international’ and a third reflecting outbound ‘international’. Outbound ‘international’ is connected to Finnish businesses, showing them as successful. Inbound ‘international’ forms an anonymous international domain, within which backgrounds of those joining international communities can be faded away. The study shows that English is mostly presented as a natural, neutral and beneficial language of globalization, as criticized by Alastair Pennycook. For their part, the textbooks can be seen as contributing to the mythification of the English language. Because the textbooks are significant agents in so-called Language Making, their scrutinization through an ideological lens is important.

Metallimusiikin ympärille on kerääntynyt maailmanlaajuinen yhteisö, jonka sisällä vallitsee vahva identiteetin tunne. Tutkielmani pyrkii selvittämään, millainen tämä identiteetti on sekä miten se rakennetaan ja välitetään kuulijalle metallikappaleiden sanoituksien välityksellä. Tutkimus käsittelee ”metallista kertovia metallikappaleita” (Metal Songs about Metal), joiden sanoitusten aiheena on metallimusiikki tai -kulttuuri itse ja joissa metalliyhteisön arvot ja identiteetti ovat selkeämmin esillä kuin muissa kappaleissa. Tutkielman analyysi jakautuu genreanalyyttiseen ja diskurssianalyyttiseen osaan. Genreanalyysin tarkoituksena on määrittää metallista kertovat metallikappaleet omaksi diskurssigenrekseen Swalesin (1990) määrittelyn mukaan. Osana tätä prosessia myös metalliyhteisön todetaan täyttävän diskurssiyhteisön kriteerit, koska Swalesin teorian mukaan diskurssigenren taustalla on aina jokin sitä keskinäisessä viestinnässään käyttävä yhteisö. Tutkimuksen diskurssianalyyttinen puolisko analysoi kappaleiden sanoituksia ideologisen diskurssianalyysin ja asenneanalyysin keinoin. Se pohjautuu pääasiassa van Dijkin (1995) kuvaukseen piilevistä ideologioista (underlying ideologies) ja Englebretsonin (2007) esittämiin ajatuksiin asenteellisen kielenkäytön (stancetaking) esiintymismuodoista. Aineistonani toimivat viidenkymmenen metallikappaleen sanoitukset, joita analysoidaan kvalitatiivisen lähilukumetodin kautta tarkastelemalla tiettyjä kielellisiä elementtejä. Genremääritys tapahtuu vertaamalla aineiston ja metalliyhteisön yleisiä piirteitä Swalesin genremalliin. Aineistoa tarkastellaan pääasiassa sanoitusten toimijoiden, sisä- ja ulkoryhmien asemoinnin sekä kappaleissa esitettyjen asenteiden ja ideologioiden näkökulmista. Tutkimus osoittaa, että metallista kertovat metallikappaleet voidaan luokitella omaksi diskurssigenrekseen, jonka pääasiallinen viestinnällinen tarkoitus on rakentaa metalli-identiteettiä ja välittää sitä kappaleen kuulijalle. Sanoituksissa tämä ilmenee on metallimusiikin ja -yhteisön ylistävänä kuvailuna sekä ulkoryhmien eli ”toisten” (Others) asemointina metallin vastustajiksi ja vihollisiksi. Sanoituksissa esiintyy tyypillisesti asetelma, jossa kappaleen puhuja on esittävän yhtyeen laulaja, joka puhuttelee yleisöään kannustavasti tai kuvitteellista ”toista” vihamielisesti. Nämä kielelliset keinot paitsi luovat kuvaa metalliyhteisöstä ja sen identiteetistä, myös ottavat kuulijan osaksi yhteisöä. Metalliyhteisöä määrittäviksi piirteiksi esitetään ylpeys ja periksiantamattomuus, yhteisöllisyys, metallimusiikin ja sen historian arvostaminen, hedonistinen elämäntapa sekä autenttisuus. Tätä identiteettiä välitetään kuulijalle inklusiivisella kielenkäytöllä, samastuttavalla kerronnalla ja suoralla puhuttelulla.

The language of evaluation enables us to share opinions, cement values, and create interpersonal meaning. It is a fundamental aspect of both social media communication and political discourse. This study uses Martin and White’s (2005) Appraisal Framework to investigate how political actors use evaluation to express emotions and confer judgement in their attempts to increase support on social media. Drawing on a corpus of 1,212 tweets from Boris Johnson and Jeremy Corbyn during the 2019 British General Election campaign, this study focuses on how the individual politicians use ATTITUDE to build positive-self and negative-other evaluations. The analysis then considers the wider performance of populism in political discourse by examining positive appraisals of the people, presented against negative judgements of a corrupt elite. Finally, the thesis explores how specific Twitter features can be incorporated into the Appraisal Framework to better capture evaluation in tweets as complete objects. Contrary to expectations about the prevalence of negative messaging in electoral campaigns, the findings show that both candidates preferred to post positive evaluations on Twitter. Corbyn favoured judgements of his party that empathised their moral superiority (PROPRIETY), and Johnson praised his party for their ability to negotiate a departure from the EU (CAPACITY). Both candidates performed elements of populism, but the presentation and evaluation of the people was very different, with Johnson performing an exclusionary form of populism and Corbyn presenting a more inclusionary form. Whilst there are challenges in applying the Appraisal Framework to online campaigning, the results give a much more nuanced understanding of the evaluation inherent to this discourse than automated sentiment analysis is able to, particularly in identifying the interplay of positive-self and negative-other evaluation. However, Appraisal reaches beyond the text, and many features were present in the media attached to the tweets, and future studies would benefit from incorporating these aspects into the analysis. The evaluative force of other resources, such as emoji and hashtags, and Twitter practices, such as retweeting, should similarly not be underestimated, and this study concludes by suggesting how these aspects can be brought into the Appraisal Framework.

Tiivistelmä – Referat – Abstract This thesis examines Ta-Nehisi Coates’s autobiographical book Between the World and Me. I investigate the various ways racial hierarchies crush individuals and erode societies. Coates provides a rich and extensive overview of the all-encompassing nature of racism and its devastating impact on the psyche of the victims. The act of resistance is a central theme – the only way to reclaim one’s basic humanity is to resist the forces of white supremacy. This thesis analyzes the various ways oppression and resistance are represented in Coates’s writing. I combine a close reading of Coates’s work with various theories and ideas sampled from different disciplines. Since Between the World and Me is a male-centered text exploring the father-son relationship, I investigate structural racism and systemic violence through the lens of the criminal justice system. Black men are especially victimized by this form of oppression. I investigate police brutality using critical race theory, and I examine how Black men have been criminalized for centuries. This supposed “criminality” and “danger” has been the primary justification for oppressive social control in the form of draconian laws and extra-judicial punishments. Khalil Gibran Muhammad’s work in this sphere was particularly useful. I also rely on many primary sources ranging from newspaper articles stretching back to 1914, and first-hand accounts of prison labor. In addition, I examine the destructive effects of racism on the human psyche through studies published in journals of psychology. This thesis also explores questions of “othering” and cultural imperialism through postcolonial theory. My analysis demonstrates that oppression appears in various forms in Between the World and Me. However, I claim that Coates’s resistance is highly personal and particularized. There is no collective call to action. The struggle is not political, but rather existential and metaphysical in nature. Coates reclaims a sense of identity separate from the narratives imposed by a racist society. It is through this struggle that Coates finds meaning and agency in his life. Coates cannot control the color of his skin or the social/historical circumstances of his birth, but he can control how he responds to them. And for Coates, the only appropriate response is resistance. It is a precondition for maintaining one’s sanity in the face of overwhelming oppression.