Tiina Räisänen | University of Oulu (original) (raw)

Papers by Tiina Räisänen

Research paper thumbnail of Making new technology understandable through multimodal orientations: A digital exercise stick in customer training interaction

Research paper thumbnail of Language Discourses and Contacts in the Twenty-First-Century Far North—Introduction to the Volume

Springer eBooks, Dec 31, 2022

With this volume, we invite you on a trip to the Far North of Europe, to Finland and its neighbou... more With this volume, we invite you on a trip to the Far North of Europe, to Finland and its neighbouring countries Estonia and Sweden, and across the Arctic circle to the Lapland area which stretches from northernmost Scandinavia in the west to northern Finland and NorthWestern Russia. This is the area in which the Saami and Finnic peoples have lived for centuries, forming language contacts and discourses that are in constant change. On the pages of this book, consisting of 10 individual chapters and this introduction, we will introduce you to some of the inhabitants in this area and familiarise you with their everyday linguistic practices

Research paper thumbnail of ‘Somewhere Between Engineering and Humanities’: Discourses of Investment in Additional Language Learning Among Students of Higher Education in Finland

Springer eBooks, Dec 31, 2022

Research paper thumbnail of Bad News Delivery as an Interactional Context for Constructing Professional Identities and Social Relations: Multimodal Approach

Research paper thumbnail of Stay abroad and foreign language users' identity construction

Research paper thumbnail of Kansallinen kyselytutkimus englannin kielestä Suomessa: Käyttö, merkitys ja asenteet

Leppänen, Sirpa, Anne Pitkänen-Huhta, Tarja Nikula, Samu Kytölä, Timo Tör-mäkangas, Kari Nissinen... more Leppänen, Sirpa, Anne Pitkänen-Huhta, Tarja Nikula, Samu Kytölä, Timo Tör-mäkangas, Kari Nissinen, Leila Kääntä, Tiina Virkkula, Mikko Laitinen, Päivi Pahta, Heidi Koskela, Salla Lähdesmäki & Henna Jousmäki National survey on the English language in Finland: Uses, meanings ...

Research paper thumbnail of Identity construction in ELF contexts : a case

This paper explores connections between identity and language use in lingua franca contexts by in... more This paper explores connections between identity and language use in lingua franca contexts by investigating identity construction among Finnish English-as-a-lingua-franca users as revealed in interviews conducted both before and after a period spent abroad. The focus is on the users’ own stories of their language use and learning and the discursive construction of identities. The study draws on poststructuralist theories on identity construction (e.g. Pavlenko and Blackledge 2004) and combines them with Norton’s (2000) views on language learners’ identity construction as well as Jenkins’ (2007) and other scholars’ conceptualizations of English as a lingua franca and its relationship to issues of identity. This article illustrates how language users actively draw on different discourses in constructing their identities as foreign language users.

Research paper thumbnail of Ethnographic study of a manager's engagements with written 'English' workplace genres in MNCs

Edward Elgar Publishing eBooks, Jan 13, 2023

Research paper thumbnail of Introduction: Multimodality and Intermediality in the North

Research paper thumbnail of GenZ white paper : strengthening human competences in the emerging digital era

This chapter provides a summary of global megatrends related to digitalisation and the adoption a... more This chapter provides a summary of global megatrends related to digitalisation and the adoption and use of new technologies. The summary is based on reports published by the UN SDG (2020), (Sitra, 2020), the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) (2016), McKinsey (2017) and Deloitte (2020) and other international bodies. 2.1 Digitalisation shapes communications During the last 50 years, digital devices, tools and practices have increasingly shaped communication and communication habits (OECD, 2016, p. 14). The members of Generation Z-the generation born after 1995-are the first to have always been surrounded by digital communication tools and are viewed by many as digital natives. The digitalisation megatrend will continue to shape everyday communication (OECD, 2016, p. 15). Humans will be increasingly surrounded by, communicating through or interacting with digital technologies. Human communication and digital technologies will be even more closely intertwined in the future. This trend will be stimulated, for example, by faster wireless technologies made possible by 5G and 6G (the latter in the 2030s). At the same time, the reliability, stability and safety of digital communication will be a pressing issue in the future (OECD, 2016, p. 14). Ubiquitous connectivity will continue to help ease 'the strains of mobility' (OECD, 2016, p. 9). There will be countless options to interact with family members, friends and colleagues, regardless of distance, place and time, affecting when and how we are available and accessible to interaction. The use of a digital device or platform will more often be the only means of contacting service providers, public administrations or officials. The range of languages used for digital communication may narrow down. This is because the English language will continue to play a key role in global communication (OECD 2016, p. 9), but at the same time, it may present a serious hindrance to people's access to information and possibilities to communicate. Digital communication will be even more multimodal and intermedial-involving talk, writing, and visual information-than today. More realistic digital spaces and places for interaction will become commonplace. Social interactions will be possible in and through 'mixed reality' environments, where realistic 3D images of places, objects and people can be projected and replicated to remote places in real time and in full motion (Matinmikko-Blue et al., 2020). Interactions with artificial and intelligent assistants-dramatic improvements to chatbots or the current versions of Alexa and Siri-will be capable of more realistic interactions with humans over time. Along with the accelerating pace of digitalisation and the practices and habits of communication, interaction and co-presence will continue to change (OECD, 2016; McKinsey & Company, 2017; Monitor Deloitte, 2017). For example, with the number of routine-based jobs decreasing, it will be commonplace for work tasks and activities to involve more communication, requiring workers with good interactional, managerial and problem-solving skills (McKinsey & Company, 2017, p. 20, 32, 39). There is a need to better understand how digital technologies afford communication and shape communicative practices across different aspects of life (Monitor Deloitte, 2017, p. 6) (see Section 3.1). This is particularly important in postpandemic societies, where digital and hybrid interactions will be commonplace.

Research paper thumbnail of Cultural Knowledge as A Resource in BELF Interactions: A Longitudinal Ethnographic Study of Two Managers in Global Business

This paper contributes to the growing field of research on English as a business lingua franca (B... more This paper contributes to the growing field of research on English as a business lingua franca (BELF) and extends discussion on the role of culture and cultural knowledge in business interactions. It aims to provide insights into the relationship between cultural knowledge and professionals' management of BELF interactions. The paper is based on a longitudinal ethnographic study of two Finnish professionals' trajectories of socialization into global working life and their work as managers. It draws on interview data in which the research participants orient to Finnish and Chinese professional and everyday practices and differences between them and thereby display their cultural knowledge. The main aim of the paper is to investigate, using discourse analysis, how this cultural knowledge, as depicted in interviews, manifests in BELF interactions and functions as a resource for transactional and relational purposes. The findings show that cultural knowledge emerges in explicit ...

Research paper thumbnail of 4. Discursive Identity Work and Interculturality during Blue-Collar Work Practice Abroad: Finnish Engineering Students as Language Learners and Users

Study Abroad, Second Language Acquisition and Interculturality, 2019

This chapter addresses foreign language learners' and users' discursive identity work and intercu... more This chapter addresses foreign language learners' and users' discursive identity work and interculturality in the context of blue-collar work practice abroad. It focuses on Finnish engineering students who were working in Germany with the aim of learning about their field of study. The participants had learnt English as a foreign language at school but had little or no previous knowledge of the local language of the host country. The study aims to find out what discourses the students draw on, how they orient to sameness and difference and what identities they make relevant in these discursive processes. The data used for this study are interviews collected at the beginning and after the students' four to six months' stay abroad and analyzed from a perspective that combines ethnography, discourse analysis and sociolinguistics. The findings show that the students' interculturality is connected to language policies and choice, discourses of global and local language, the ability to use one's communicative repertoire, and identity struggles caused by the challenges posed by languages during the stay abroad.

Research paper thumbnail of Conceptualizing 'English' as a multifaceted resource in the strategic internal communication of MNCs

Research paper thumbnail of Tutkimustuloksia työelämän viestintätaidoista insinöörinäkökulmasta

Tässäkin verkkolehdessä on pohdittu sitä, mitä työelämän kielitaito on ja millaisia haasteita työ... more Tässäkin verkkolehdessä on pohdittu sitä, mitä työelämän kielitaito on ja millaisia haasteita työelämässä tapahtuneet muutokset asettavat työntekijän kielitaidolle. Lisäksi on kartoitettu työelämän kielitaitotarpeita ja sitä, mitä kaikkea työelämässä tarvittavat kielelliset taidot ovat. On hyödyllistä pohtia millaisista asioista ”kielitaito” koostuu erilaisissa autenttisissa työelämän tilanteissa, sekä sitä, millaisena yksilöt itse oman kielitaitonsa kokevat ja miten he kussakin tilanteessa kielellisellä repertuaarillaan, eli niin sanotulla kielivarannollaan, toimivat.

Research paper thumbnail of Translingual Practices in Global Business. A Longitudinal Study of a Professional Communicative Repertoire

Translanguaging as Everyday Practice, 2018

This chapter draws on a longitudinal ethnographic study of a Finnish engineer's communicative rep... more This chapter draws on a longitudinal ethnographic study of a Finnish engineer's communicative repertoire that develops in the process of professional migration. The participant first works as a factory intern in Germany, then as a project engineer and project manager in Finland, and latterly as an operations manager in China. Here, repertoire is viewed through dynamic and flexible translingual practices, in which people follow, appropriate and invent norms, combine and shuttle between languages, ways of speaking, semiotic resources and modalities in the transnational work space in order to meet, interact, make meaning and build relationships and, ultimately, do their jobs. The data selected for this chapter provide an overview of the professional's translingual practices in speaking (face-to-face and computer-mediated) and writing at work. The analysis combines temporal and spatial dimensions and demonstrates how the professional communicative repertoire manifests itself through translingual practices, some of which remain in the repertoire over time while others change.

Research paper thumbnail of Monikielisyys ja viestintätaidot : työelämään siirtyneet diplomi-insinöörit ja tekniikan alan korkeakouluopiskelijat kielten oppijoina ja käyttäjinä

Research paper thumbnail of 9th International Workshop on Management & Language, Helsinki, Finland, 10-12 June, 2015

Research paper thumbnail of Professional communicative repertoires and trajectories of socialization into global working life

Jyväskylä studies in humanities, 2013

Räisänen, Tiina Professional communicative repertoires and trajectories of socialization into glo... more Räisänen, Tiina Professional communicative repertoires and trajectories of socialization into global working life Jyväskylä: University of Jyväskylä, 2013, 202 p. (Jyväskylä Studies in Humanities ISSN 1459-4323 (nid.), 1459-4331 (PDF); 216) ISBN 978-951-39-5469-7 (nid.) ISBN 978-951-39-5470-3 (PDF) This longitudinal study explores the construction of professional communicative repertoires of Finnish engineers across their trajectories of socialization from the educational through stay abroad to global working life contexts. Taking a biographical perspective on lives with English, this study investigates repertoire construction in relation to community memberships, identity work within discourses, participation in interaction and enregisterment processes of ways of speaking. Utilizing ethnographic, sociolinguistic and discourse analytic theories, this study conceptualizes repertoires as biographical and indexical of macro-level phenomena of globalization, global working life and Engl...

Research paper thumbnail of Dangerous multilingualism : northern perspectives on order, purity and normality

Introduction Endangering Multilingualism J.Blommaert , S.Leppanen & M.Spotti PART I: ORDER - DISO... more Introduction Endangering Multilingualism J.Blommaert , S.Leppanen & M.Spotti PART I: ORDER - DISORDER Finland's Official Bilingualism - a Bed of Roses or of Procrustes? O-P.Salo Linguistic Diversity as a Problem and a Resource - Multilingualism in European and Finnish Policy Documents T.Nikula , S.Poyhonen , T.Saarinen & T.Kangasvieri Dealing with Increasing Linguistic Diversity in Schools - the Finnish Example M.Suni & S.Latomaa Problematic Plurilingualism - Teachers' Views S.Voipio-Huovinen & M.Martin PART II: PURITY - IMPURITY Hard Currency or a Stigma - the Russian-Finnish Bilingualism Among Young Russian-speaking Immigrants in Finland M.Lahteenmaki & M.Vanhala-Aniszewski Finnish Culture and Language Endangered - Language Ideological Debates on English in the Finnish Press from 1995 to 2007 S.Leppanen & P.Pahta Multilingualism in Nordic Cooperation - a View from the Margin M.Martin The Dangers of Normativity - the Case of Minority Language Media S.Pietikainen & H.Kelly-H...

Research paper thumbnail of Discourses of Proficiency and Normality — Endangering Aspects of English in an Individual’s Biography of Language Use

Individuals’ life-worlds and their experiences with languages are important in sociolinguistic an... more Individuals’ life-worlds and their experiences with languages are important in sociolinguistic analyses of multilingualism. Studies of the possibilities and constraints caused by languages shed light on the sociolinguistic realities of people’s lives today (Heller, 2001; Pietikainen et al., 2008). Dealing with individual multilingualism (Blommaert et al., this volume), this chapter focuses on an individual’s biography of language use in the context of globalized Finland. From within an ethnographic, discourse analytic and sociolinguistic framework1 it looks at the problems and dangers that language causes to a person’s life. As part of a larger study2 of five Finnish engineers’ trajectories from educational and stay abroad contexts to globalized working life, this chapter explores three interviews with an individual who has learned English as a foreign language at school, has his first daily experiences in using it during a four-month stay abroad period in Germany as a student, and ...

Research paper thumbnail of Making new technology understandable through multimodal orientations: A digital exercise stick in customer training interaction

Research paper thumbnail of Language Discourses and Contacts in the Twenty-First-Century Far North—Introduction to the Volume

Springer eBooks, Dec 31, 2022

With this volume, we invite you on a trip to the Far North of Europe, to Finland and its neighbou... more With this volume, we invite you on a trip to the Far North of Europe, to Finland and its neighbouring countries Estonia and Sweden, and across the Arctic circle to the Lapland area which stretches from northernmost Scandinavia in the west to northern Finland and NorthWestern Russia. This is the area in which the Saami and Finnic peoples have lived for centuries, forming language contacts and discourses that are in constant change. On the pages of this book, consisting of 10 individual chapters and this introduction, we will introduce you to some of the inhabitants in this area and familiarise you with their everyday linguistic practices

Research paper thumbnail of ‘Somewhere Between Engineering and Humanities’: Discourses of Investment in Additional Language Learning Among Students of Higher Education in Finland

Springer eBooks, Dec 31, 2022

Research paper thumbnail of Bad News Delivery as an Interactional Context for Constructing Professional Identities and Social Relations: Multimodal Approach

Research paper thumbnail of Stay abroad and foreign language users' identity construction

Research paper thumbnail of Kansallinen kyselytutkimus englannin kielestä Suomessa: Käyttö, merkitys ja asenteet

Leppänen, Sirpa, Anne Pitkänen-Huhta, Tarja Nikula, Samu Kytölä, Timo Tör-mäkangas, Kari Nissinen... more Leppänen, Sirpa, Anne Pitkänen-Huhta, Tarja Nikula, Samu Kytölä, Timo Tör-mäkangas, Kari Nissinen, Leila Kääntä, Tiina Virkkula, Mikko Laitinen, Päivi Pahta, Heidi Koskela, Salla Lähdesmäki & Henna Jousmäki National survey on the English language in Finland: Uses, meanings ...

Research paper thumbnail of Identity construction in ELF contexts : a case

This paper explores connections between identity and language use in lingua franca contexts by in... more This paper explores connections between identity and language use in lingua franca contexts by investigating identity construction among Finnish English-as-a-lingua-franca users as revealed in interviews conducted both before and after a period spent abroad. The focus is on the users’ own stories of their language use and learning and the discursive construction of identities. The study draws on poststructuralist theories on identity construction (e.g. Pavlenko and Blackledge 2004) and combines them with Norton’s (2000) views on language learners’ identity construction as well as Jenkins’ (2007) and other scholars’ conceptualizations of English as a lingua franca and its relationship to issues of identity. This article illustrates how language users actively draw on different discourses in constructing their identities as foreign language users.

Research paper thumbnail of Ethnographic study of a manager's engagements with written 'English' workplace genres in MNCs

Edward Elgar Publishing eBooks, Jan 13, 2023

Research paper thumbnail of Introduction: Multimodality and Intermediality in the North

Research paper thumbnail of GenZ white paper : strengthening human competences in the emerging digital era

This chapter provides a summary of global megatrends related to digitalisation and the adoption a... more This chapter provides a summary of global megatrends related to digitalisation and the adoption and use of new technologies. The summary is based on reports published by the UN SDG (2020), (Sitra, 2020), the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) (2016), McKinsey (2017) and Deloitte (2020) and other international bodies. 2.1 Digitalisation shapes communications During the last 50 years, digital devices, tools and practices have increasingly shaped communication and communication habits (OECD, 2016, p. 14). The members of Generation Z-the generation born after 1995-are the first to have always been surrounded by digital communication tools and are viewed by many as digital natives. The digitalisation megatrend will continue to shape everyday communication (OECD, 2016, p. 15). Humans will be increasingly surrounded by, communicating through or interacting with digital technologies. Human communication and digital technologies will be even more closely intertwined in the future. This trend will be stimulated, for example, by faster wireless technologies made possible by 5G and 6G (the latter in the 2030s). At the same time, the reliability, stability and safety of digital communication will be a pressing issue in the future (OECD, 2016, p. 14). Ubiquitous connectivity will continue to help ease 'the strains of mobility' (OECD, 2016, p. 9). There will be countless options to interact with family members, friends and colleagues, regardless of distance, place and time, affecting when and how we are available and accessible to interaction. The use of a digital device or platform will more often be the only means of contacting service providers, public administrations or officials. The range of languages used for digital communication may narrow down. This is because the English language will continue to play a key role in global communication (OECD 2016, p. 9), but at the same time, it may present a serious hindrance to people's access to information and possibilities to communicate. Digital communication will be even more multimodal and intermedial-involving talk, writing, and visual information-than today. More realistic digital spaces and places for interaction will become commonplace. Social interactions will be possible in and through 'mixed reality' environments, where realistic 3D images of places, objects and people can be projected and replicated to remote places in real time and in full motion (Matinmikko-Blue et al., 2020). Interactions with artificial and intelligent assistants-dramatic improvements to chatbots or the current versions of Alexa and Siri-will be capable of more realistic interactions with humans over time. Along with the accelerating pace of digitalisation and the practices and habits of communication, interaction and co-presence will continue to change (OECD, 2016; McKinsey & Company, 2017; Monitor Deloitte, 2017). For example, with the number of routine-based jobs decreasing, it will be commonplace for work tasks and activities to involve more communication, requiring workers with good interactional, managerial and problem-solving skills (McKinsey & Company, 2017, p. 20, 32, 39). There is a need to better understand how digital technologies afford communication and shape communicative practices across different aspects of life (Monitor Deloitte, 2017, p. 6) (see Section 3.1). This is particularly important in postpandemic societies, where digital and hybrid interactions will be commonplace.

Research paper thumbnail of Cultural Knowledge as A Resource in BELF Interactions: A Longitudinal Ethnographic Study of Two Managers in Global Business

This paper contributes to the growing field of research on English as a business lingua franca (B... more This paper contributes to the growing field of research on English as a business lingua franca (BELF) and extends discussion on the role of culture and cultural knowledge in business interactions. It aims to provide insights into the relationship between cultural knowledge and professionals' management of BELF interactions. The paper is based on a longitudinal ethnographic study of two Finnish professionals' trajectories of socialization into global working life and their work as managers. It draws on interview data in which the research participants orient to Finnish and Chinese professional and everyday practices and differences between them and thereby display their cultural knowledge. The main aim of the paper is to investigate, using discourse analysis, how this cultural knowledge, as depicted in interviews, manifests in BELF interactions and functions as a resource for transactional and relational purposes. The findings show that cultural knowledge emerges in explicit ...

Research paper thumbnail of 4. Discursive Identity Work and Interculturality during Blue-Collar Work Practice Abroad: Finnish Engineering Students as Language Learners and Users

Study Abroad, Second Language Acquisition and Interculturality, 2019

This chapter addresses foreign language learners' and users' discursive identity work and intercu... more This chapter addresses foreign language learners' and users' discursive identity work and interculturality in the context of blue-collar work practice abroad. It focuses on Finnish engineering students who were working in Germany with the aim of learning about their field of study. The participants had learnt English as a foreign language at school but had little or no previous knowledge of the local language of the host country. The study aims to find out what discourses the students draw on, how they orient to sameness and difference and what identities they make relevant in these discursive processes. The data used for this study are interviews collected at the beginning and after the students' four to six months' stay abroad and analyzed from a perspective that combines ethnography, discourse analysis and sociolinguistics. The findings show that the students' interculturality is connected to language policies and choice, discourses of global and local language, the ability to use one's communicative repertoire, and identity struggles caused by the challenges posed by languages during the stay abroad.

Research paper thumbnail of Conceptualizing 'English' as a multifaceted resource in the strategic internal communication of MNCs

Research paper thumbnail of Tutkimustuloksia työelämän viestintätaidoista insinöörinäkökulmasta

Tässäkin verkkolehdessä on pohdittu sitä, mitä työelämän kielitaito on ja millaisia haasteita työ... more Tässäkin verkkolehdessä on pohdittu sitä, mitä työelämän kielitaito on ja millaisia haasteita työelämässä tapahtuneet muutokset asettavat työntekijän kielitaidolle. Lisäksi on kartoitettu työelämän kielitaitotarpeita ja sitä, mitä kaikkea työelämässä tarvittavat kielelliset taidot ovat. On hyödyllistä pohtia millaisista asioista ”kielitaito” koostuu erilaisissa autenttisissa työelämän tilanteissa, sekä sitä, millaisena yksilöt itse oman kielitaitonsa kokevat ja miten he kussakin tilanteessa kielellisellä repertuaarillaan, eli niin sanotulla kielivarannollaan, toimivat.

Research paper thumbnail of Translingual Practices in Global Business. A Longitudinal Study of a Professional Communicative Repertoire

Translanguaging as Everyday Practice, 2018

This chapter draws on a longitudinal ethnographic study of a Finnish engineer's communicative rep... more This chapter draws on a longitudinal ethnographic study of a Finnish engineer's communicative repertoire that develops in the process of professional migration. The participant first works as a factory intern in Germany, then as a project engineer and project manager in Finland, and latterly as an operations manager in China. Here, repertoire is viewed through dynamic and flexible translingual practices, in which people follow, appropriate and invent norms, combine and shuttle between languages, ways of speaking, semiotic resources and modalities in the transnational work space in order to meet, interact, make meaning and build relationships and, ultimately, do their jobs. The data selected for this chapter provide an overview of the professional's translingual practices in speaking (face-to-face and computer-mediated) and writing at work. The analysis combines temporal and spatial dimensions and demonstrates how the professional communicative repertoire manifests itself through translingual practices, some of which remain in the repertoire over time while others change.

Research paper thumbnail of Monikielisyys ja viestintätaidot : työelämään siirtyneet diplomi-insinöörit ja tekniikan alan korkeakouluopiskelijat kielten oppijoina ja käyttäjinä

Research paper thumbnail of 9th International Workshop on Management & Language, Helsinki, Finland, 10-12 June, 2015

Research paper thumbnail of Professional communicative repertoires and trajectories of socialization into global working life

Jyväskylä studies in humanities, 2013

Räisänen, Tiina Professional communicative repertoires and trajectories of socialization into glo... more Räisänen, Tiina Professional communicative repertoires and trajectories of socialization into global working life Jyväskylä: University of Jyväskylä, 2013, 202 p. (Jyväskylä Studies in Humanities ISSN 1459-4323 (nid.), 1459-4331 (PDF); 216) ISBN 978-951-39-5469-7 (nid.) ISBN 978-951-39-5470-3 (PDF) This longitudinal study explores the construction of professional communicative repertoires of Finnish engineers across their trajectories of socialization from the educational through stay abroad to global working life contexts. Taking a biographical perspective on lives with English, this study investigates repertoire construction in relation to community memberships, identity work within discourses, participation in interaction and enregisterment processes of ways of speaking. Utilizing ethnographic, sociolinguistic and discourse analytic theories, this study conceptualizes repertoires as biographical and indexical of macro-level phenomena of globalization, global working life and Engl...

Research paper thumbnail of Dangerous multilingualism : northern perspectives on order, purity and normality

Introduction Endangering Multilingualism J.Blommaert , S.Leppanen & M.Spotti PART I: ORDER - DISO... more Introduction Endangering Multilingualism J.Blommaert , S.Leppanen & M.Spotti PART I: ORDER - DISORDER Finland's Official Bilingualism - a Bed of Roses or of Procrustes? O-P.Salo Linguistic Diversity as a Problem and a Resource - Multilingualism in European and Finnish Policy Documents T.Nikula , S.Poyhonen , T.Saarinen & T.Kangasvieri Dealing with Increasing Linguistic Diversity in Schools - the Finnish Example M.Suni & S.Latomaa Problematic Plurilingualism - Teachers' Views S.Voipio-Huovinen & M.Martin PART II: PURITY - IMPURITY Hard Currency or a Stigma - the Russian-Finnish Bilingualism Among Young Russian-speaking Immigrants in Finland M.Lahteenmaki & M.Vanhala-Aniszewski Finnish Culture and Language Endangered - Language Ideological Debates on English in the Finnish Press from 1995 to 2007 S.Leppanen & P.Pahta Multilingualism in Nordic Cooperation - a View from the Margin M.Martin The Dangers of Normativity - the Case of Minority Language Media S.Pietikainen & H.Kelly-H...

Research paper thumbnail of Discourses of Proficiency and Normality — Endangering Aspects of English in an Individual’s Biography of Language Use

Individuals’ life-worlds and their experiences with languages are important in sociolinguistic an... more Individuals’ life-worlds and their experiences with languages are important in sociolinguistic analyses of multilingualism. Studies of the possibilities and constraints caused by languages shed light on the sociolinguistic realities of people’s lives today (Heller, 2001; Pietikainen et al., 2008). Dealing with individual multilingualism (Blommaert et al., this volume), this chapter focuses on an individual’s biography of language use in the context of globalized Finland. From within an ethnographic, discourse analytic and sociolinguistic framework1 it looks at the problems and dangers that language causes to a person’s life. As part of a larger study2 of five Finnish engineers’ trajectories from educational and stay abroad contexts to globalized working life, this chapter explores three interviews with an individual who has learned English as a foreign language at school, has his first daily experiences in using it during a four-month stay abroad period in Germany as a student, and ...

Research paper thumbnail of Professional communicative repertoires and trajectories of socialization into global working life