‘Broken Finnish’: Accent perceptions in societal gatekeeping (Broken Finnish)
Main funder
Funder's project number: 315581
Funds granted by main funder (€)
- 480 000,00
Funding program
- Academy Project, AoF (Academy of Finland)
Project timetable
Project start date: 01/09/2018
Project end date: 31/08/2022
Summary
‘Broken Finnish’ focuses on accent perceptions in the National Certificates of Language Proficiency test in Finland. It explores how the test takers’ pronunciation is perceived as ‘foreign accent’ by the raters and how these perceptions affect the general proficiency rating. As the test is a requirement for proving language proficiency for Finnish citizenship, it is a crucial societal gatekeeper.
The focus is on the rating of the speech of four migrant groups, Arabic, Estonian, Russian, and Thai, and an older Finnish minority group, Finland Swedish. The migrant groups belong to the biggest migrant groups, and all the groups face negative stereotyping in Finland. The project studies whether the stereotypes affect speech proficiency rating by examining the acoustic quality of the ‘accents’ in relation to the raters’ verbalised perceptions and ratings of them. The research team consist of sociolinguists, (socio)phoneticians, language test researchers and statisticians.
The focus is on the rating of the speech of four migrant groups, Arabic, Estonian, Russian, and Thai, and an older Finnish minority group, Finland Swedish. The migrant groups belong to the biggest migrant groups, and all the groups face negative stereotyping in Finland. The project studies whether the stereotypes affect speech proficiency rating by examining the acoustic quality of the ‘accents’ in relation to the raters’ verbalised perceptions and ratings of them. The research team consist of sociolinguists, (socio)phoneticians, language test researchers and statisticians.
Principal Investigator
Primary responsible unit
Related publications
- “Come join us, and lose your accent!” : Accent Modification Courses as Hierarchization of International Student (2021) Ennser-Kananen, Johanna; et al.; A1; OA
- Ensikielen tunnistamisen merkityksestä suullisen kielitaidon arvioinnissa Yleisissä kielitutkinnoissa (2020) Halonen, Mia; et al.; A3; OA; 978-951-9388-71-7
- Sujuvaa mutta viron kielen vaikutusta : yleisten kielitutkintojen arvioijien käsityksiä vironkielisten suomenoppijoiden suullisesta taidosta (2020) Ahola, Sari; A1
